The Most Beautiful Book I Never Read.

Punch line: it is Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie

Back story to follow.

how to start... I am an auditory learner. I know this about myself. The best way for me to remember something is to hear it. If I read it, I can give you the gist... if I hear it, I can give it back to you verbatim. about.

Segue: Rushdie is not my favorite writer. I read him. but I don't particularly LIKE him. I get why he is good, I get that it is an expansion of what I think literally possible to wrap my head around his complex fumbling tumbling cliches with the same soul... I question if he can write women. Truly write women. Write in such a way that makes me flip to the back to check for your picture to make sure that you are a man.

Or write a man that I want to breath into life. I say so in the light of Ondaatje's "In the Skin of a Lion"... i forget his name, but the main hero-guy. I want him. I want to be with him. I want the soul shaking earth-moving lover forever and ever... and one that thinks and loves and speaks like him. but he is a character in a book. and Rushdie has never evoked such a thing in me.

Until...

So Shalimar is book on CD. After I bought both Midnight's Children and the Satanic Verses... I said NO MORE! and then I went to the public library to see what was in the book on CD section. It keeps me mind occupied when I have to stay at my desk and do things like answer 11ty billion emails.

I find Shalimar. I hesitate. I figure if it sucks I give it back immediately. Except it is beautiful. and I will seek it in print to see if I like it as much. I want to tell you what it is I like so much... but I'm still processing.

It has a man that I know. It has a women I've struggled with. and yet smacks of his Ice Queen from Satanic verses... and even she walks with me. Her imagery. the seamless integration of mysticism... whoa! no. i reserve that for Gabriel Garcia Marquez. because even I don't know that to be a quantifiable thing. ugh.

and it truly is... the most beautiful book I've never read.

besos.