It's hard to imagine a more wonderful and sumptuous novel than Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence. The novel moves between the opulent settings of the Mughal Empire at its zenith and the brash, upstart world of the Italian Renaissance in that most quarrelsome city of Florence. After an arduous journey, Niccolò Vespucci, a young roguish traveler arrives in India, at the court of the Mughal emperor Abdul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad with an impossible tale -- that he, blond hair and all, is the descendant of a lost Mughal princess and he has arrived to make himself known as the uncle to the emperor.
After having pronounced such a blasphemous claim, Niccolò is aware that his survival depends on his consummate skill as a storyteller. And over the days and months that follow, Niccolò slowly unravels the interwoven tales of friendships, secret family histories, and perilous journeys, while the Emperor, snagged and entranced by his guest, reflects as well on the mirror image of the tales in his own family, his own journeys and his own life.
And what tales they are! Feverish, like the painter who falls so deeply in love with his subject that he paints himself permanently into the corner of a canvas; sensual, as the dream of an imaginary Queen that acquires substance and life; heroic and violent, like the boy Nino Argalia who goes to sea, is captured by the Turks and becomes commander of the formidable Janissaries. Here too is a young Machiavelli learning the lessons that a Prince must know to survive, the secret history of Qara Köz, a girl of dark eyes and occult powers who knows how to protect herself; an intimate servant who lives as a mirror to reflect her mistress, and another woman enchanted to hold the secret memories of her master at the expense of remembering anything about herself. Cultures collide as characters invent and reinvent themselves on new landscapes, from west to east and east to west. And throughout the novel, the Emperor and Niccolò and others reflect and argue on politics, religion, war, and women.
It is a splendid novel -- one that will send you to the library with its generous bibliography at the back of the book to delve more deeply into its rich historical and literary resources.
