Rushdie's new novel an enchanting tale

It was hard to avoid stumbling over Salman Rushdie at BookExpoAmerica, the national book show held earlier this month in Los Angeles. The Indian-born novelist seemed to turn up everywhere, from the autograph sessions to the chi-chi parties. He must revel in the freedom after years of hiding from the fatwa pronounced against him by Iran for his 1988 novel, "The Satanic Verses."

The threat has been lifted and that feeling of release is obvious in his new novel, "The Enchantress of Florence" (Random House, $26). It's a clear departure from the political seriousness of his previous novel, "Shalimar the Clown," with its grim story of Kashmir.

Now Rushdie seems out for a good time, the kind of good time a learned literary man like himself can have when he lets his imagination feed on the heroes and legends of the past -- East and West.

He has been dining on the history of the 16th century. The menu contained in his novel's bibliography lists such sources as "Women Slaves, Beggars, Witches, Courtesans, Concubines," "Daily Life in Florence in the Time of the Medici," "Private Lives of the Mughals of India" and "The Illustrated Kama Sutra."

As a writer who has split his life between Great Britain, America and India, Rushdie has long focused on the similarities and differences between the cultures. In "The Enchantress," he writes of nothing else.

"The curse of the human race is not that we are so different from one another but that we are so alike," is Rushdie's point here, hardly an original one and hardly told in an original manner. But it is well told -- lush language, a sultan's harem full of witticisms and profundities overlaid with a sheen of fantasy found in "One Thousand and One Nights" -- either the first version or the Disney one.

It begins like most fantasies. An exotic stranger appears at court one day insisting he must speak to the man in charge -- Akbar, considered one of the greatest Mughal leaders.

The yellow-haired stranger is a Vespucci from Florence, a man of many names, a bogus sorcerer, flimflam artist, thief and storyteller.

He saves his hide by pulling a male Scheherazade, entrancing Akbar with the tale of Qara Koz, the Enchantress, the sister of the first Mughal emperor, Babar, and a descendant of Genghis Khan.

Taken as a spoil of war by Argalia, a Florentine mercenary fighting with the Ottomans, she is brought to Florence and renamed Angelia as her lover takes over the local militia organized by his childhood friend, Niccolo Machiavelli.

Still with me? I forgot to mention that Qara (Angelia) is the most beautiful woman in the world and that all men worship her. Oh, and she appears to be ageless.

Angelia, with her maidservant, the Mirror (because she's her near-twin), creates a temporary Eden in the city state. Even Pope Leo X, a Medici, honors her.

"Subtle perfumes of reconciliation and harmony filled the air, people worked harder and more productively, the quality of family life improved, the birth rate rose and all the churches were full."

Edens have a tendency to fall apart eventually, not only in Florence, but in Akbar's contented city of Sikri. The cause of the downfall is always a woman, of course.

There's a lot more plot to be found in this unusually compact (for Rushdie) 355 pages. He's left out a certain amount of character-building, especially for Akbar, who, as legend has it, was known for his religious tolerance and fair treatment of his people.

He is the hero of this blatantly preachy tale because his efforts to bridge the cultural gap fail, the divisions widen and the next thing you know, we have fatwas against writers and religious extremists in full hateful fury against the West.

Read "The Enchantress of Florence" as an old-fashioned fairy tale and you'll either be entertained with the ornate language or bored, especially if you are of the minimalist bent in your reading preferences.

If you're seeking insight into the misunderstanding between the East and West, don't read it; get a history book instead. There, you'll learn the division is more complicated than a magical spell from an enchantress.

(Book editor Bob Hoover can be reached at bhoover(at)post-gazette.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)