The Golden House: Salman Rushdie

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Nero is still grappling with his grief over the deaths of Apu and D. In unburdening himself, Nero reveals his past as a member of the mafia and the role he played in the death of his first wife; this led, years later, to Apu's death, and now Nero faces the towering guilt of his own culpability in both deaths. Moved by Nero's confession, René offers his own admission: He slept with Vasilia and is the likely father of Vespasian. Devastated, Suchitra leaves René. The move of the Goldens to America coincides with Obama’s election in 2008. As the novel progresses, the political change starts to overshadow the main characters as the lies are uncovered, the truth (what is truth in this book?) unravels and basically, everything goes to hell in a hand basket. a b c "Nero's buried golden palace to open to the public - in hard hats". Reuters. 2014-10-24 . Retrieved 2019-05-14. I thank Random House and Salman Rushdie for providing a digital review copy through NetGalley in exchange to an honest review. And while this book was not quite for me, maybe it is for you!

Romey, Kristin M. (July–August 2001). "The Rain in Rome". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. 54 (4): 20. ISSN 0003-8113 . Retrieved 2007-02-12. Wildly satiric and yet piercingly real . . . If F. Scott Fitzgerald, Homer, Euripides, and Shakespeare collaborated on a contemporary fall-of-an-empire epic set in New York City, the result would be The Golden House.” —Poets & Writers When the edifice was finished in this style and he dedicated it, he deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval than that he had at last begun to live like a human being. [29]Unruly but exuberant… Much of the success of The Golden House, in fact, lies in its humour and in the vigour of its storytelling… There is a glowing energy to the prose that makes this Rushdie’s most enjoyable, mischievous and American of novels. Arifa Akbar, Financial Times It was pretty awesome, all told. The search and the apparent finding and confusion of identity is a very major theme, whether told as the story of Nero Golden, the patriarch, or through any of his sons who are as bright as those in Brothers Karamazov, or through the identity of our unreliable narrator, the house-guest and future filmmaker of the House of Golden. Overall, I was richly rewarded by this read. I was thrilled by it lively pace and well pleased with the balance between playful satire and serious drama. One of my best reading experiences of the year. Several problems. The main one is that the story is not especially engaging: for the most part we just plod along, hearing little snippets of soap-opera gossip from each son in turn, related to us in a strangely distant, elegiac tone that strips away any immediacy from the prose. One longs for a hint of that exuberance that marked Rushdie's writing in the 80s and early 90s. Narrator René compares himself to Isherwood at some point – ‘I am a camera’ – and comments, ‘Maybe I'm a smart camera. I record, but I'm not exactly passive.’ But despite his involvement in the plot, he is passive, and I didn't care about a single person he described. The writing is terribly pedestrian for someone who has written the kind of things Rushdie has written. While Indira Gandhi's India and Thatcher's Britain were explored from within, experientially, Trump's America is simply pointed at, like a news report, and said to be awful. Frescoes covered every surface that was not more richly finished. The main artist was Famulus (or Fabulus according to some sources). [21] [13] Fresco technique, working on damp plaster, demands a speedy and sure touch: Famulus and assistants from his studio covered a spectacular amount of wall area with frescoes. Pliny, in his Natural History, recounts how Famulus went for only a few hours each day to the Golden House, to work while the light was best. The swiftness of Famulus's execution gives a wonderful unity and astonishing delicacy to his compositions.

America changed them both, Petya and Apu--America, that divided self--polarizing them as America was polarized, the wars of America, external and internal, becoming their wars as well; but in the beginning, if Petya arrived in New York as a heavy There is a scorching immediacy and provocation to Rushdie’s commanding tragedy of the self-destruction of a family of ill-gotten wealth and sinister power, of ambition and revenge, and the rise of a mad, vulgar, avaricious demigod hawking ‘radical untruth’ and seeding chaos. The Golden House is a headlines-stoked novel-on-fire sure to incite discussion. But it is also a ravishingly well-told, deeply knowledgeable, magnificently insightful, and righteously outraged epic which pos­es timeless questions about the human condition. Can a person be both good and evil? Is family destiny? Does the past always catch up to us? In a time of polarizing extremes, can we find common ground? Will despots and their supporters be forever with us? Will humankind ever learn? Can story and art enlighten us? As Rushdie’s blazing tale surges toward its crescendo, life, as it always has, rises stubbornly from the ashes, as does love.” —Starred Booklist Review Two decades after Rushdie transplanted himself to the US, one of the major pleasures of this novel is the way in which he considers the mores of the one per cent of the one per cent. Rushdie writes about the Goldens’ glittering, private world with innumerable perfect details, down to the art hanging on the walls… It will be a long four years, but fictional protests are unlikely to be as electric as this. Olivia Cole The world has turned into a cacophony of unrelenting voices, where people in high offices as well as pedestrian consorts battle every day to be one up. The lines have blurred as issues have bulldozed their way, against most conventions, right into our living rooms, and administrative, as well as clandestine, powers are clashing regularly, and vehemently, across continents over the fatal flames of terrorism, corruption, religion and human rights. Bringing together these critical elements under a sprawling tale of love, ambition, deception and collapse is what ‘The Golden House’ is all about.

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I ended with 'sitting'...... sitting in a chair for 20 minutes- alone - quiet .... eyes watering..... just 'thinking'.

The parallels between Golden and the current president (referred to as the Joker) are unmistakable, even Golden's somewhat entertaining Melania-like second wife. However, I found it rambling, overwritten and heavy handed. Not terribly compelling for me, as a novel. Their neighbor, René, who loves the gardens, all things of beauty, is drawn to the Goldens; in them he sees a story that needs to be told. His passion is filmmaking; he sees himself as the artist painting their murky lives as he sees them, so that others will see them clearly, as well.Apu was unsympathetic to his older brothers issues. A very different type of person in every shape and form. He was a gifted painter - considered technically as great as Dali. Many of the New York ladies were happy to undress for him.... and soon after his first solo show he became a famous artist. A tale of identity, reinvention, truth (and lies), and terror, The Golden House captures the climate of American politics and culture from the Obama era to today.” — BuzzFeed When a young Roman inadvertently fell through a cleft in the Esquiline hillside at the end of the 15th century, he found himself in a strange cave or grotto filled with painted figures. [11] Soon the young artists of Rome were having themselves let down on boards knotted to ropes to see for themselves. [18] The Fourth Style frescoes that were uncovered then have faded now, but the effect of these freshly rediscovered grotesque [19] decorations ( Italian: grotteschi) was electrifying in the early Renaissance, which was just arriving in Rome. The cryptoporticus of Nero that connected the palace with the nearby Domus Tiberiana was also part of the complex. It is 130 m long with mosaic floors and elaborate stucco ceiling decoration with vegetal elements and cupids. It lies beneath the Horti Farnesiani along one side of the Domus Tiberiana. [45]

In that bubble, razor-tipped playing cards were funny, and lapel flowers that sprayed acid into people's faces were funny, and wishing you could have sex with your daughter was funny, and sarcasm was funny even when what was called sarcasm was not sarcastic, and lying was funny, and hatred was funny, and bigotry was funny, and bullying was funny, and the date was, or almost was, or might soon be, if the jokes worked out as they should, nineteen eighty-four. he was, they all were, in the grip of a huge fantasy: the idea that men would not be judged by who they once were and what they had once done, if only they decided to be different. Petya, 40, an agoraphobic, and an alcoholic, and Apu, 41, an attention-seeking artist, were born slightly less than one year apart, they share the same mother, and even the same zodiac sign. Dionysius has no recollection of his mother, and is still a relatively young 22. Eventually, Nero Golden, in his early 70s, brings into their new home a new wife, Vasilisa, a Russian expatriate. If you asked Petya direct question he would answer honestly because his brain made it impossible for him to lie....

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This is a compelling thriller with a pinch of fantasy, populated by larger-than-life characters… This powerfully cinematic novel, enriched by references to literature, popular culture and film, is dense, detailed and rewarding, displaying one of our leading novelists at the top of his game. Vanessa Berridge, Sunday Express Nero Golden, a mysterious tycoon with a sketchy past, voluntarily exiles his family from Bombay/Mumbai and moves to a voluminous mansion in affluent Manhattan. Nero has aged like a fine wine; he’s as perspicacious as he is formidable and speaks several languages. main character introduces the entire neighbourhood and the Golden family. Nothing but epic foreshadowing is happening.