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 Not Midnight's Children, not Satanic Verses,... this is Rushdie's best.
Why? Well Salman Rushdie seems to write this way... he'll write beautiful chapters that could stand on their own, pluck nice turn of phrases, construct a perfect stream of sentence, and somehow fuse them into a coherent novel. In some of his novels, this technique doesn't meld into a coherent whole. And sometimes this premium on `beautiful writing' drags down the progress of the story.
But not in this fantastic novel. It is constructed as an epic from the very start with a unifying whole. The opening chapter (also explaining the title) firmly establishes the tone and theme, then the epic proceeds along the troubles of one family and Moor himself.
There are no over-the-top magical reality twists as well that some readers might find tough to swallow (or is just use as a plot device).
There are sad yearnings (really sad), there are laugh-out-loud turns, and amazement, rhythm, and jewels in every pages. Salman Rushdie is a big, big, stylistic, melodic writer, of no equal (not Pynchon, not Garcia-Marquez).
Buy this book with the beautiful Asian lady painting in the cover (not the other vintage classics version). It is relevant to the novel.
 Big Fan of Rushdie
I love Rushdie, though have to admit that some of his stuff has been hard to read. This book, though, is not. A mix of fantasy and Indian life. Very funny. Rushdie is incredible. Not as enjoyable, for me, as Midnight's Children.
 Still not a fan.
Reading it on the recommendation of a fan of Rushdie's calling whom a voracious reader would be a vast understatement--a conservative estimate would be to say that the books in her house outweigh all her other possessions by a few factors (perhaps, betraying my experience in reporting research here?). This is the second Rushdie I am reading after Midnight's Children which I read as part of a course almost a decade back curious to see if my opinion would be different reading it outside a classroom so many years after forming my first impression. I am not a big fan of that novel. My main problem with it is the high density of incidents packed into every square inch of every page of the book exacerbated by its, what's got to be, magic-realistic genre. My memories of reading books of the genre can be summarized as ultimately unsuccessful attempts at maintaining my willing suspension of disbelief. The coincidences mount and as the novel progresses the twists seem more and more arbitrary, whimsical, and ultimately nonsensical. In Rushdie's case, as is being confirmed with this novel, I give-in to disbelief somewhat earlier than say a Marquez.
I feel Rushdie would be more successful as a short story writer--I think the next time I read something by him, and if the trend is maintained that should happen sometime in 2017, it'll be one of his short story collections. In fact, even with Moor's Last Sigh I was actually enjoying Rushdie's virtuosity, his humor, his way with words, his depiction of `Hinglish' and the intricate sentences for about the first 30 pages before I experienced my first cringe. His description of the division of a house between the families of two brothers listing out in detail the specific articles that went to each side concluded with a phrase to the effect that the division was so ruthless that even the lizards of the house were divided. For me that phrase did not have its obviously intended effect of being funny. Instead, it felt like a relic from the first draft which should have been removed by the author's own better judgment. It's not my intention to write a review of the novel here. I think people who liked Midnight's Children will probably like this one too and going by my own reaction the converse should also be true. Despite strong hopes I have not become a fan of Rushdie's.
Lovely and Complex
THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH is the last confession of Moraes "Moor" Zogoiby, the last of a long line of sinners and saints. The title refers to both Moor's final confession and to a painting of the same name, created by Moor's mother, Aurora. Moor tells of the feuds of grandparents and great-grandparents, of the "pepper love" of his parents and the eventual breakdown of their marriage, and of his own struggles with love and with his darker, more violent side.
This is a novel of paradise and of hell. Moor's childhood home is associated with paradise, as is his mother, Aurora, an artist full of fantastical visions. Moor's father and his business are associated with hell. Abraham Zogoiby is, on the surface, a respectable businessman, but his real fortune comes from drugs and sex trafficking. In THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH, paradise is always an illusion: The Zogoiby home proves to be full of serpents and even Aurora's artistic vision becomes dark and morbid as she grows older. Hell is always real, and its inhabitants are invisible, powerless. Abraham's empire is a place where "an invisible reality moved phantomwise beneath a visible fiction.*"
Rushdie's writing style is difficult to pinpoint. During the first few chapters, dealing with Moor's great-grandparents and grandparents, I was reminded of the prose of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: lyrical, complex, and a bit exotic. I later changed my mind, finding The Moor's Last Sigh to be more epic than the work of Marquez. It seems a bit like an agnostic Bible (filled with feuding siblings, serpentine characters, family blessings, family curses, paradise, and condemnation) crossed with a Greek tragedy (characters larger than life, full of passion, and headed towards an unstoppable doom). While the span of the novel extends from India's colonial days to the nineteen-nineties and historical events, movements, and ideologies are woven into the story, The Moor's Last Sigh has a timeless feel to it.
THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH is beautiful, readable, and frequently funny. Its only flaw is the plot is, at times, too intricate, too tangled, making it easy for readers to confuse/forget the earlier events of the novel.
Wonderful book
One of the best books I've ever read, if not the best of them. Salman Rushdie at his best!
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