I also read some kickass books this week! Like, master-level books! Let\u2019s books first.<\/p>
What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week:<\/strong><\/p> One re-read, and one my first time revisiting an author after loving one book. The passage of time is silly that way. You read someone\u2019s first book your sophomore year of college, love it, then look up and 16 years have gone by without picking up any of their other books. Or sometimes you read a book, declare it near-flawless and aspirational, try to graft your own projects onto its structure, fantasize about an HBO miniseries, then look up and 13 years have gone by and you\u2019re like \u201cwait, was it really that good? 23-year-olds are stupid<\/a>, after all.\u201d I\u2019m thrilled to report that not only did these writers not<\/em> disappoint me, I liked them both even more this time around. I\u2019m talking, of course, about English As A Second Language<\/em> by Jaswinder Bolina and Shalimar The Clown<\/em> by Salman Rushdie. <\/p> English As A Second Language<\/strong><\/em> by Jaswinder Bolina: <\/strong>sometimes you read a poet and you are reminded that you can always write better. You can always go up a level. Art isn\u2019t even a competition like that, but reading Jaswinder is like playing your first game in the pros<\/a>. Jaswinder\u2019s writing has a density to it, each line packed with image and detail and metaphor and screw twists. Narrative weaves in and out of each lyric so that you feel like something\u2019s<\/em> going on, but you\u2019re not being spoon-fed everything outright. A big something<\/em> going on in this book is righteous fury at USian decadency and the stunning, scary ignorance of the Trump era. That sentence might imply a sort of snobbishness or #Resist Lib cringe, but that\u2019s not what I mean. It\u2019s more in the vein of Baldwin saying to be Black in America is to be in state of rage almost all the time.<\/a> A Jaswinder poem kinda feels like a David Roth column<\/a>. Go read this book!<\/p> Shalimar The Clown<\/strong><\/em> by Salman Rushdie: <\/strong>how to start. I have some unwieldy notes here, but this book deserves some attention. It\u2019s my absolute favorite Rushdie novel, and I\u2019ve read \u201cBooker of Bookers\u201d Midnight\u2019s Children <\/em>twice. TL;DR version of what I\u2019m about to say is this: the front blurb says this novel is a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel by way of Pulp Fiction<\/em>-era Tarantino, and it is every bit as awesome as that sounds. I should also say up front that I like Rushdie\u2019s personal-as-political-style writing, though I admit it\u2019s a highwire act that\u2019s not for everyone. Hell, it\u2019s often not for me when a lot of other writers do it, but IDK, I read Rushdie twice in college courses I really enjoyed, so I don\u2019t mind when Rushdie does it. <\/p> A quick plot breakdown, because the structure of this book is such that spoilers don\u2019t matter: what we have are essentially five interconnected novellas, telling the story of India and Pakistan\u2019s violent fighting over Kashmir in the 1960s metaphorically through an interpersonal drama. In the first section, we meet India, a 20-something documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles, and her father, Max, a French WWII Resistance hero and former American ambassador to India who had to resign from public life in disgrace because India\u2019s mother was not Max\u2019s wife, but a Kashmiri mistress. At the end of the section, Max\u2019s driver slits his throat so deeply his head almost falls off. Smash cut to Kashmir, years ago, in a village famous for its acting\/dancing troupes and excellent cooks. A young, inter-religious couple\u2014Boonyi Kaul, a Hindu, and Noman \u201cShalimar the Clown\u201d Noman, a Muslim\u2014get married, and their village celebrates their union despite cultural differences. It\u2019s the sort of tolerance and coexistence that Kashmir prides itself on, while India and Pakistan are still marred in post-Partition<\/a> fighting. The fighting closes in on Kashmir, and Boonyi has ambition beyond merely being a dancer in a village, leading her to run off with Max to Delhi, where he gets her pregnant. This causes him to have to resign, Max\u2019s spurned (WWII hero herself) wife conspires to steal the baby, Boonyi goes home to find herself ostracized and Shalimar possessed by an all-consuming, vengeful rage. Boonyi goes into hiding in the mountains, Shalimar swears an oath not to kill her while either of their fathers are alive\u2014which frees him up to go train as an assassin in resistance groups (well, they start out as resistance groups. I think when you start suicide bombing, you cross over into a different category). The 1965 war leaves its scars across Kashmir<\/a> and most everyone dead, except Shalimar. By the final section, we\u2019re back in 1990s Los Angeles, India is learning her own history, is learning about her birth mother for the first time, is learning about Kashmir for the first time, is learning she was meant to be named \u201cKashmira,\u201d which she immediately adopts\u2014all during a Silence of the Lambs<\/em>-style cat-and-mouse game with Shalimar. <\/p> All of this to say: we have a classic Salman Rushdie \u201cpersonal is political, people standing in for countries\/religions\/bigger ideas, magical realism\u201d novel, but distilled into this tight, time-jumping thriller. <\/p> Who knows what people mean when they say \u201cuniversal themes?\u201d I sure don\u2019t, but here\u2019s some from this novel: The personal is political. You reap what you sow. Peace and multiculturalism can be difficult to maintain. Ambition can kill you. Humans are bad at appreciating natural beauty when they have it. Violent freaks will always want to kill peaceful artists. Who is entitled to revenge? Is revenge justice? When does the revenge cycle stop? The world does not stop but cruelly continues.<\/p> Shalimar the clown reminds me of talking about Ukrainian anarchists with Smags at band practice years ago, reminds me of that weirdo fascist and his bulldog-looking lackey in <\/a>Andor<\/a><\/em>, features tons of metaphor rooted in mythology, features a loving depiction of the multicultural paradise that was the Kashmiri valley, features the sorts of in-command-of-their-sexuality women you\u2019d find in a Tarantino movie or Rihanna music video\u2014it\u2019s as layered as My Chemical Romance guitar tracks and real fun to get swept up in. It is violent, it does deal with traumatic real-world events, there is plenty in here that is horrifying and awful. But I read this book as, well, not triumphant, but kind of as a testament to the power of art and storytelling and memory. The last scene has haunted me\u2014maybe haunted<\/em> is the wrong word, lived in my soul<\/em>\u2014since I first read this book, and was no less exhilarating to come across again. It makes me feel sentimental for Kashmir, a land I know next to nothing about besides what I\u2019ve read here. It\u2019s hard to explain, but this book kinda does everything a novel is supposed to do. <\/p> Before we get to playoffs, a bonus link\/companion rec: I remembered an ad for an iHeart podcast a while back about Partition. The podcast, Partition<\/a><\/em>, hosted by Neha Aziz<\/a>, claimed most Westerners don\u2019t know anything about Partition. Neha, Pakistani-born but entirely U.S.-raised, didn\u2019t know anything about it until seeing an \u201canti-memorial.\u201d<\/a> I heard the ads and realized all I know about Partition was reading Salman Rushdie novels, so I listened to (most) of the podcast this week. I highly recommend it! There are lots of similar themes to Rushdie, including objects carrying weight and historical importance, and people searching for lost homeland. It is, of course, about Partition, one of the most brutally violent and senselessly governed periods of human history. Take care of yourselves while listening. <\/p><\/div> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? Here\u2019s my third-favorite guitarist covering the third-best song of Everybody Beat Up Drake 2024. See if this isn\u2019t in your head for the rest of the weekend. <\/p>![](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/e6f33e08-36e8-4814-b5a7-25096b6018f8.heic\"\/)
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