Grimus : a novel

Description

A mixture of science fiction and folktale, past and future, primitive and present-day . . . Thunderous and touching. --Financial Times After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing--and ultimately the burden--of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island's peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island's creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. Salman Rushdie's celebrated debut novel remains as powerful and as haunting as when it was first published more than thirty years ago. "A book to be read twice . . . [Grimus] is... Content: I: Times present -- Flapping eagle -- Bird-dog -- Mr Sispy -- Phoenix -- La femme-crampon -- Voyages -- The gate -- Mr Jones -- Under calf mountain -- Birds -- Hump -- The tremor -- Dimensions -- Enemies -- The trunk -- Snap -- Ascent -- Magister Anagrammari -- Fever -- Jonah -- Strongdancer -- Khallit and Mallit -- The sea -- Tunnel -- Axona's champion -- Out of order -- Terror -- Afterwards -- Deggle -- Valhalla -- II: Times past -- Stones -- Blink -- Outside the Elbaroom -- Inside the Elbaroom -- Invitation -- Gribb -- The rising son -- At the Cherkassovs' -- Sodomy -- The swing -- Black rider -- Madame Jocasta -- On Obsession -- Ostriches & intrusion -- Media -- The pale sorceresses -- Death -- Funerals -- Retreat -- Kill or cure -- Stone -- Mrs O'Toole -- Anagram -- III: Grimus -- Fifty-four -- The stone rose.