Another Salman Rushdie creation, Fury, explores the inner demons - demons of an individual, demons of the society, demons in the city and the demons of humanity. The manifestations of ‘furies’ building within might be as simple as anger and addiction, to as complex as molestations and murders. Rushdie claims that these furies are the driving force which may torment some people and inspire others; but whichever be the form, their presence is undeniable, unarguable and universal.
“Life is fury, he'd thought. Fury — sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal — drives us to our finest heights and coarsest depths. Out of furia comes creation, inspiration, originality, passion, but also violence, pain, pure unafraid destruction, the giving and receiving of blows from which we never recover. The Furies pursue us; Shiva dances his furious dance to create and also to destroy. But never mind about gods! ... This is what we are, what we civilize ourselves to disguise — the terrifying human animal in us, the exalted, transcendent, self-destructive, untrammeled lord of creation.”
Enveloped in this diverse range of furies, the most prominent being existential fury, is the novel’s protagonist Professor Malik Solanka. A man in his mid fifties, an academician of Indian descent living with his wife and a four year old son in London, eventually becomes the creator of ‘Little Brain’- a very popular mechanical doll that can philosophize. However, the pressures of fame become too hot to handle and he ends up moving to New York City, leaving behind his wife and four year old son without giving them any explanation.
Noone knew, but him, that one night he had found himself standing near his sleeping wife and son with a knife in his hands. He was unable to comprehend the rage and fire developing within and had then decided that it’s best for his loved ones to be as far from him as possible. He plans on fighting his inner demons someplace where atleast he can’t harm his family. Once he moves to New York, he gets entangled in the fury of the city and of the people there, clashing with his own turbulence.
Meanwhile, New York is under the grip of a Disney-obsessed serial killer whose victims comprise of rich, young and beautiful girls of the city; raped and scalped brutally. An alcoholic, disoriented Solanka wonders and fears if these murders are a result of the same rage that made him stand that night with a knife. To deal with this blame and wreckage, Solanka befriends a computer pro, entrepreneur and an incest victim, Mila, who claims to renovate people (mostly through blowjobs, though!).
Once with Solanka, Mila creates a new version of the Little Brain doll, which becomes a huge success. However Mila is soon dropped for a smart, politically aware, Indian beauty, Neela Mahendra who is a traffic stopper (literally), head turner, responsible for people walking into trees, dogs forgetting to pee and so on. Neela falls in love with Solanka and after much twists and turns eventually saves his life, risking her own. In the end, Solanka is seen watching his son play, wondering if his inner demons have been exorcised and if he can be reunited with his family.
As much as I tried, I could not ignore the autobiographical similarities in the narration and description of characters. Solanka giving up his post in Cambridge due to the ‘narrowness’ of academia is pretty similar to Rushdie’s reasons for leaving London. Solanka’s creation ‘Little Brain’ that could quote philosophy is on the lines of Rushdie’s creation - his books. The one ‘blasphemous’ work of Little Brain - which he then calls satanic doll - puts Solanka in great trouble, thus coinciding with Rushdie’s much controversial The Satanic Verses. Even the beautiful Neela falling in love with Solanka, a man twice her age, reminds the readers of Rushdie’s love interest Padma Lakshmi.
What I found missing in the book was that the description remains monotonously one-dimensional throughout and mostly devoid of emotion that couldn’t allow the readers to form a connection with the characters even till the end. I’m not too sure whether it is intentional or not, but until I have the likeability (or dislikeability) factor going, I wouldn’t care what the characters end up doing.
To me, I realized, Salman Rushdie has become so synonymous with magic realism that now when he narrates a contemporary tale, I find it tad annoying. What I loved about Rushdie’s previous works was the simple fact that the portrayals of events and people in his books are ordinary, yet creating an extraordinary satirical impact. It is done in such a way that the boundaries between reality and fantasy, tragedy and comedy, causes and consequences, become absolutely blurred. However, in Fury I could find none of this. Being master at manipulating words, many passages in the book were brilliant but that final zing, I felt, was just not there!
