I'm sitting on the lanai, overlooking the 8th hole of the Mauna Lani Golf Course and googling the history of Kashmir so that I can better understand Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie. I didn't choose Shalimar the Clown because it, like 3 Cups, is set in Kashmir, but because my niece recommended it. However, for those of you who are not quite ready to leave the world of Three Cups of Tea behind, try it. Rushdie's style is lush and poetic. I remember loving the last Rushdie novel we read in book club, and I think I am going to love this one too.
I have a Kashmir question for those of you who are history buffs. In my history googles, I've read that during partition, Pakistan wanted Kashmir to accede to its territory, because the Kashmiri population, although religiously diverse, was mostly Muslim. When the Prince of Kashmir resisted Pakistan, he sought support from Lord Mountbatten. Mountbatten agreed to help on the condition that Kashmir would accede to Hindu India. Why would he do this? Doesn't this sound like a really stupid thing to do?
This is the home of the Bynglit Book Club Gals. Now that we have gone international, this will be one of the ways we can keep in touch, post snaps, comment on books, suggest books, or just plain chat.
I am currently reading the Guernsey book and loving it - so glad Wendy chose it. I have just come back from my stepdaughter's wedding in Kelowna. For those of you who don't know, she has seven parents - Charles and Sharon who adopted her, Glen and I now married to Charles and Sharon, her birthfather Fred and his wife and her birthmother Theresa - plus her new in laws, who it turns out went to school with Sharon's sisters in Port Alberni, which means that Tara and Alan were probably visiting their grandparents at the same time when they were little. Tara first met her birthparents (that's a whole other story) nine years ago when she was 21 and she and Theresa celebrate the anniversary of their meeting every year. The families are all wonderful, in fact Fred's sister is a neighbour of mine whose son was Brendan's best friend when Tara met his uncle, her birthfather. So you can see it was a match made in Heaven and the wedding was full of laughter and tears. Hope you all are injoying your summer.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that when I did get around to reading the Guernsey book, it was a guilty pleasure. Guilty because I was less interested in the history than the love affair.
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