![]() ![]() He wonders if “the writer’s tale was the altered version of his history”. ![]() Ismail Smile says: “Perhaps this story is a metamorphosed version of his own?”. a talkshow host celebrated as Oprah 2.0.Īdvance warning of this story’s slipperiness, the uncertainty of identity, belonging, reality, comes early in the book. Ismail Smile now has the opportunity to woo and win the heart of Salma R. Highly educated and a little unhinged, Ismail Smile works as a salesman until his cousin at Smile Pharmaceuticals Inc fires him. The reinvented modern Don Quixote is Ismail Smile (I smile, I smile), an erudite old Indian American who lives in his car and motel rooms, and is obsessed with junk television. But Don Quixote’s tale is just a starting point for a more complex story in Quichotte. Don Quixote is a man of uncertain mental health who has visions and takes to the road with his squire, Sancho. ![]() ![]() Quichotte starts off as a retake on Cervantes’ 1605 story of Don Quixote, sometimes considered the world’s first novel. It’s a multilayered story blurring various narrators’ identities and the boundaries between parallel and increasingly porous stories. There are plenty of references in Quichotte to chew on, from Nabokov, Shakespeare and Homer to US soap operas. Stray words and phrases from his work have stayed with me and might be why reading Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte reminded me of those years. Years ago I read pretty much all of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels and short stories. ![]()
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