Will I love The Ground Beneath Her Feet?

In the spirit of many of Rushdie’s books, an atmosphere of magic and myth sets the tone of this extraordinary story of love, death, passion, and rock and roll. The narrator, Rai, is a deceptively meek photographer who reminds me of The Great Gatsby’s Nick Carraway.

Rushdie’s stories lead me past historical and literary monoliths, and this story unfolds as a modern-day Orpheus retelling. But that’s the challenge—and reward—of reading Salman Rushdie: I get a history lesson, a dose of mythology, an unflinching lens on modern culture, a sweetening of magic realism, and a few belly laughs and tears… show more.

Vina Apsara is one of my all-time favorite characters in literature: “calamity incarnate,” as Rushdie described her, “a woman in extremis, who is also by chance one of the most famous women in the world.” Yet the thing I love most about this novel is the way it—more than any other story I can think of—illustrates why pop music is the most powerful force in the universe.

Vina and Ormus enchant the whole world, transmitting tiny human emotions across time and space, turning them into something huge, and I can think of no other story that more accurately represents why… show more.