On reading Salman Rushdie

I'm reading Fury by Salman Rushdie, an every-day tale of murderous rage, adultery, guilty consciences and Panama hats. The hero, an ageing Anglo-Indian author in America (sound familiar?), has just discovered the Internet:

[Malik Solanka], who had been so dubious about the coming of the brave new electronic world, was swept off his feet by the possibilities offered by the new technology, with its formal preference for lateral leaps and its relative uninterest in linear progression, a bias that had already bred in its users a greater interest in variation than in chronology... Everything existed at once. This was, Solanka realized, an exact mirror of the divine experience of time. Until the advent of hyperlinks, only God had been able to see simultaneously into past, present and future alike; human beings were imprisoned in the calendar of their days.

This is of course just slightly hyperbolic, however I've unintentionally illustrated his point by wishing to split this post in two directions: to continue discussing the book, and to start discussing the ways in which writing for the Internet is different to writing a book. It's interesting that previous generations situated God at the centre, looking out in all directions at once, whereas the Internet posits a diffuse and nebulous God out there waiting at the end of each link, as though Bentham's Panopticon had been turned inside out. (Nice image, worthy of elaboration; remind me to muse on this at another time.)

We'll have to wait and see what use Rushdie makes of his divine viewpoint. Were this novel by Rohinton Mistry, I'd not hesitate to predict a very sticky end for all characters, but Rushdie is seldom that brutal.

I've read a lot of Rushdie this winter, and find that his books are worse for being read en bloc. Aspects of "The Ground beneath her Feet" which struck me then as felicitous, seemed facile when repeated in "The Moor's Last Sigh", and annoy me when repeated yet again in "Fury".

There are novelists whose work withstands being read back-to-back: Dickens, P.G.Wodehouse, Balzac come immediately to mind. Each book is so strong in itself, and the authors have so few and such mild weaknesses, that reading their works together does not leave caustic residues. Rushdie's bad habits unfortunately become irritating. John Irving is another such case. I admire the man and love his novels, but don't ever read them all at once: because you will realize that he has only one character and only one plot.

Rushdie has written some fine novels, and had I read them at decent intervals each would be a very pleasant memory. As much as I am now irritated by the gathered-together bulk of them, I would without hesitation recommend any of the three - to be taken singly.

[Update: Savtadotty and I are discussing this post by e-mail. My bad: I admit to hasty and unclear thinking, since the difference is not really about reading but about writing. I also admit that my original statement that surfing is the negation of reading, was not merely hyperbolic but downright false, and have amended it. Savtadotty has shown me some fascinating material which puts a very different light on the subject. I'll write again about this.]