Quichotte
SALMAN RUSHDIE
(JONATHAN CAPE, 416 PP, £20)
Tablet bookshop price £18 • tel 020 7799 4064
Addled by too many tales of chivalry, Cervantes’ elderly knight Don Quixote sets off on a quest to prove himself worthy of his imagined lady love. His travels involve much rhetoric, a pragmatic servant and wild delusions such as thinking inns to be castles, flocks of sheep to be warring armies and a barber’s bowl to be a legendary golden helmet. Similarly addled, this time by mind-numbing television shows, Salman Rushdie’s elderly pharmaceutical salesman “of Indian origin”, Quichotte, sets off on a road trip across contemporary America to prove himself worthy of his imagined lady love, Salma R, a celebrity talk-show hostess. His travels involve, thankfully, less rhetoric, more jokes and an absurd set of psychological hurdles.