![]() We soon discover that Quichotte is a fictional invention, created by a character from another, marginally less fictional world. That, however, is only the start of the postmodern hall of mirrors in which we find ourselves. On the way he is accompanied by Sancho, the son he never had but has called into being by his yearning fantasies. ![]() ![]() Convinced that he can save the world by winning her heart, he embarks, in somewhat Monty Python style, on a quest that takes him on a picaresque road trip across the United States. Quichotte’s screen dream is a talk-show star, Salma R, a migrant from Bollywood to Hollywood. This Quichotte is an Indian-born immigrant to America, a small-time sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, ageing and down-at-heel, who becomes as addicted to trash TV as Cervantes’ original was to the chivalric romances of his day. His name is taken from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, via its Frenchified version, courtesy of the composer Massenet (one cultural allusion at a time is never enough for Rushdie, whose references range from Prospero to Pinocchio, from Ionesco to Oprah, from Wordsworth to The Wizard of Oz). More to the point, it’s also funny and touching and sad and oddly vulnerable, rather like its eponymous hero. ![]() It’s a literary embarras de richesse, whose centre can’t really hold, yet it’s written with the brilliant bravura of a writer who can really, really write. It’s hard to get your head around Salman Rushdie’s latest novel Quichotte, which has been shortlisted for the Booker. ![]()
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