Grimus

Grimus

by Salman Rushdie
Grimus

Grimus

by Salman Rushdie

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

“A mixture of science fiction and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day . . . Thunderous and touching.”
Financial Times

After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing–and ultimately the burden–of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. Salman Rushdie’s celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago.

“A book to be read twice . . . [Grimus] is literate, it is fun, it is meaningful, and perhaps most important, it pushes the boundaries of the form outward.”
Los Angeles Times

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780812969993
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 09/30/2003
Series: Modern Library Paperbacks Series
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 5.23(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Salman Rushdie is the author of fourteen previous novels, including Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Shame, The Satanic Verses, The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Quichotte, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize; a collection of stories, East, West; a memoir, Joseph Anton; a work of reportage, The Jaguar Smile; and three collections of essays, most recently Languages of Truth. His many awards include the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, which he won twice; the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award; the National Arts Award; the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger; the European Union’s Aristeion Prize for Literature; the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature; and the Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is a former president of PEN America. His books have been translated into over forty languages.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

June 19, 1947

Place of Birth:

Bombay, Maharashtra, India

Education:

M.A. in History, King's College, University of Cambridge

Read an Excerpt

I
(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Grimus"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Salman Rushdie.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Reading Group Guide

1. Why does Flapping Eagle drink the elixir that makes him immortal? What are the consequences of living forever?

2. How would you describe the world of Rushdie’s novel? What does it remind you of? What elements make it otherworldly?

3. In the epigraph Rushdie quotes T. S. Eliot: “Go, go, go, said the bird; human kind/Cannot bear very much reality.” What does this tell you about the novel and about Flapping Eagle?

4. Grimus has been described as a quest novel. What is Flapping Eagle seeking? Does he find it?

5. What are the roles of Virgil Jones and Dolores O’Toole? What kind of guides do they make?

6. As Flapping Eagle makes his way up the mountain of Calf Island, what does he learn about Grimus and the Grimus Effect? Who is Grimus?

7. At the novel's end, how would you describe Flapping Eagle's achievements?

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