Kakutani No Like

Salman Rushdie gets a pretty fat rejection from The New York Times.

Mr. Rushdie’s latest book, "Shalimar the Clown," aspires to turn the story of a toxic love triangle into a fable about the fate of Kashmir and the worldwide proliferation of terrorism. But this time, the author’s allegory-making machinery clanks and wheezes. . . .

Worse, "Shalimar the Clown" is hobbled by Mr. Rushdie’s determination to graft huge political and cultural issues onto a flimsy soap opera plot . . .

Mr. Rushdie presumably wants to make the point that personal experiences often bleed into political actions, that the private and public are inextricably intertwined. But his clumsy suggestion that the title character becomes involved with a group of terrorists inspired by Al Qaeda because he has been jilted by his wife feels farcical in the extreme – unbelievable in terms of the actual story and weirdly impertinent given the complex and bloody phenomenon of terrorism in the real world.