While the characters were unique and interesting, the story was a bit melodramatic for me. I also didn't care for the voyeuristic narrator who seemed to make all kinds of bad/cringe decisions.

I'm generally a big fan of Rushdie, but what makes me love his books is his ability to give me (an outsider) an understandable glimpse of Indian myth, culture, religion, and history. When he turns his attention to contemporary America, it's not as interesting for me, despite his always wonderful writing style.

I like the theme of identity and its various forms. The narration is creative and adds interest. Characters are interesting and unique.

What killed the story for me was the pointless writing. The story should have been shaved down at least 100 pages, where was the editing? Rushdie’s writing is a marvel but too much was ruinous. The politics was over the top and frankly, overshadowed the entire story with its rogue and nonsensical ways. It was pure drudgery to read. I had to push through to finish and my disappointment was great. The endless potential is lost due to “overwriting” plain nonsense. Rushdie no doubt has a way with words but my goodness this was over the top.

This was my first Rushdie book, and after hearing all of the praise for his works, I had high hopes. However, this fell a little flat for me. The concept of the novel sounded intriguing and ambitious, but I think this was a case of trying to accomplish too much. The story felt disjointed, and I never was fully engaged.

Probably the worst Rushdie I've read. It felt embellished in style, the fun with words that we have grown accustomed to in Rushdie feels overwrought now. His follow up to this was improved, but there is something to what Parul Seghal says that he writes too much.

This book was different from the genres I typically read so it took me a bit to get into the book. The storyline was a little predictable but it was a good read.

It's been a long time since I last read a Rushdie novel -- I read "Haroun and the Sea of Stars" at school, and it's one of the few set-texts I actually enjoyed reading. Ever since, I've been interested in reading more of Rushdie's novels.

THE GOLDEN HOUSE is another well-written, engaging and thought-provoking novel. It's told from the perspective of the Goldens' neighbour, René. An young filmmaker, René's latest project is a movie about the strange, enigmatic family next door. In order to get closer to his subjects, he ingratiates himself into their household. Inevitably, he becomes tangled up in the family's dramas (big and small).

Rushdie's novel is set against the backdrop of contemporary politics, too, which gives the author the chance to provide some good commentary on certain... personalities who forced themselves onto the political stage and into our lives far more than we could ever have actually wanted.

Well-written, enjoyable. Recommended.

A very timely, relevant, and important work for today's American political climate, Rushdie explores the moment in time for American culture and politics that many considered the "Golden Age" of contemporary America: the Obama administration, which recalls a Camalot-esque atmosphere. Then we move into the twists in society and thought that led to the Trump election through his characters, particularly Mr. Golden. His writing is, as always, lyrical, witty, and artful. Rushdie really understands the nuances of social commentary and how to balance satire for a very pointed criticism of issues. Rushdie asks the important questions to "what is American culture" and asks us to critically think about who and what we are, what we stand for. The plot work and pacing is superb and unparalleled, and I find this story reminiscent of his earlier works Midnight's Children and Fury. This book left me chilled much as Fury did with how eerily prophetic and timely it was. Particularly, if you liked Fury, you will like the Golden House.

I have read so much of Rushdie's work, and I never cease to be impressed. However, if you have not read any Rushdie, this isn't a bad place to start if you want an introduction to his work. I highly recommend this.

This was an interesting novel. I enjoyed the story, although the writing was a little out of my typical style.

I did not have a chance to read this book, but it is effecting my feedback rating. I am giving books 5 stars that I haven't read to improve my feedback rating. I am not recommending the book for my classroom or students since I have not read the book. There needs to be a better system of leaving feedback for books not read.

This book is not subtle. It's all over this place and I did not find it enjoyable. I know I should only revere this book because it is, after all, Salman Rushdie, but I just didn't like it.

Eight years in America through the lives of the Golden family. Changing their names after immigrating from India, we see the last eight years through their eyes as the world seems to descend into chaos. Will right and sense prevail? That remains to be seen. The best analogy is the world voting for the Joker over Batgirl. With an upcoming Joker movie, that seems to confirm that thought.


NOTES FROM
The Golden House
Salman Rushdie
September 18, 2017
Chapter 3So the hotel became, in people’s minds, a symbol of rebellion, of beating the colonizers at their own game and driving them into the sea, and even when it was conclusively established that nothing of the sort had really happened it changed nothing, because a symbol of freedom and victory is more powerful than the facts.September 27, 2017Chapter 8Always in the beginning some pain to assuage, some wound to heal, some hole to fill. And always at the end failure—the pain incurable, the wound not healed, the remnant, melancholy void.September 27, 2017Chapter 11Yes, they call it the golden house, but what is that if there is not love in every room, in every corner of every room? It is love that is golden, not money. They have never needed, those sons, what did they ever need? They live inside a magic spell. Their self-deception is very great. They say they love their father but they are confusing need with love. They need him. Do they love him? I will have to see more evidence before I can reply. He should have love in his life while he can.September 27, 2017Chapter 12I think, he says, that hatred can be as strong a family tie as blood, or love. And when I was younger I was full of hate and it was the bond joining me to the family and that’s why I did what I did.September 29, 2017Chapter 15It’s impressive,” Apu said, “how the internet has made philosophers of us all.” I personally preferred the cardboard declamations of an anonymous thinker who seemed motivated primarily by hunger, “One day the poor will have nothing left to eat except the rich,” he admonished us, and on another cardboard speech bubble he expressed the same thought more pithily. “Eat a banker.” This thinker wore an Anonymous mask, the mustachioed smiling white-faced Guy Fawkes face popularized by the Wachowskis in V for Vendetta, but when I asked him about the man whose face he was wearing he admitted he had never heard of the Gunpowder Plot and did not remember, remember the fifth of November. Such was this would-be revolution. Apu sketched it all.October 3, 2017Chapter 16Our home was full of tenured professors, male and female, helping. I had all the help in the world from the leading experts in Sumerian art, subatomic physics, First Amendment law, and Commonwealth literature. But nobody could help me look at the bodies.October 3, 2017Chapter 19The gun monsters are coming to get you, the Decepticons, the Terminators, look out for your children’s toys, look out in your squares and malls and palaces, look out on your beaches and churches and schools, they’re on the march, blam! blam!—those things can kill.October 8, 2017Chapter 25I will put it simply. To be born with female genitalia and reproductive organs does not make you a woman. To be born with male genitalia does not make you a man. Unless you so choose. This is the proposition to which I am asking you to respond. That there is nothing definingly female about a vagina. Nor are you excluded from the female if you possess a male member. A trans woman with a penis is still a woman. Can you agree with this or not? You mean I might not need to have the surgery. The castration. Even the word hurts. Not unless that is what you choose. So we’re back at this choosing. I could propose you call it freedom. I could say, this is your right.October 10, 2017Chapter 29So it was; and so imperially attired they went away from the Gardens, away from that house weighed down by death into the parade that celebrated life; and so, running toward life and away from death, they found death waiting for them, as the old story had prophesied, in Samarra, which was to say, on Sixth Avenue between Fourth Street and Washington Place. Death in a Joker costume carrying an AR-15. The gun’s soft chatter inaudible beneath the cacophony of the crowds, the honking of horns, the megaphoned messages, the bands. Then people began to fall and harsh uncostumed reality ruined the party. There was no reason to believe that Petya or Murray Lett had been specifically targeted. Guns were alive in America, and death was their random gift.October 10, 2017Chapter 32What would it mean if the Joker became the King and the she-bat went to jail. Outside the Gardens the giggles were becoming louder, sounding more like shrieks, and I didn’t know if they were screams of rage or joy. I was simultaneously exhausted and scared. Maybe I was wrong about my country. Maybe a life lived in the bubble had made me believe things that were not so, or not enough so to carry the day. What did anything mean if the worst happened, if brightness fell from the air, if the lies, the slanders, the ugliness, the ugliness, became the face of America. What would my story mean, my life, my work, the stories of Americans old and new, Mayflower families and Americans proudly sworn in just in time to share in the unmasking—the unmaking—of America. Why even try to understand the human condition if humanity revealed itself as grotesque, dark, not worth it. What was the point of poetry, cinema, art. Let goodness wither on the vine. Let Paradise be lost. The America I loved, gone with the wind.October 10, 2017Chapter 34For eight years we persuaded ourselves that the progressive, tolerant, adult America embodied by the president was what America had become, that it would just go on being like that. And that America is still there but the dark side was still there too, and it roared out of its cage and swallowed us. America’s secret identity wasn’t a superhero. Turns out it was a super-villain. We’re in the Bizarro universe and we have to engage with Bizarro-America to grasp its nature and to learn how to destroy it all over again. We have to learn how to trick Mr. Mxyztplk into saying his name backwards so that he disappears back into the fifth dimension and the world feels sane again. And we have to engage with ourselves and understand how we became so fucking weak and apathetic and how to retool and dive back into the battle. Who are we now? Who the fuck even knows.
All Excerpts From
Rushdie, Salman. “The Golden House.” Random House Publishing Group - Random House, 2017-04-25T12:45:47Z. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Just not a book for me. I get the commentary he was trying to make but maybe the reality of everything is just too much.

I fell in love with Salmon Rushdie after reading Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, so I settled happily into reading The Golden House. It did not disappoint. New York City is my favorite character, and I love to see it featured in novels. Points for that. Strong character development, and strangely (maybe not so strangely...), the Golden Family made me think of Trump, and not in a favorable way.
I wish I had reviewed this soon after finishing the book. The story and its characters are memorable, even all this time later, despite having lost the little details like his way with words, and the fact that I kept having to use the Dictionary function on my Kindle.

Read this for the excellent prose, the clever insight into American politics and the fantastical storyline.

I found this book interesting as also, but slow in terms of narrative drive. The plot takes a turn that causes me to lose interest in the protagonist. Rushdie is a stunning writer with wonderful observations, humor, and characters, yet his struggles with narrative and plot are particularly problematic in this novel. Fans of Rushdie will enjoy Rushdie's writing. Those new to Rushdie would be benefit from using another one of his works as an entry point.

I have read a few other Rushdie novels - my favourite being Midnights Children which was absolutely magical.
This book was not very interesting to me, as I am no fan of American Political novels , while I do understand the importance in this time.
I honestly didnt finish the book in its entirety as I lost interest, not that I think the book was bad, but its just a personal preference

Unlike a number of Salman Rushdie's this one kept my attention to the last page. I sometimes have the feeling that the writer is showing off - expressing his own brilliance and erudition rather than moving the story forward. Despite this minor irritation I found the complicated story well-structured and I thought this a return to Rushdie's page-turning best.

Suffers from the bloated unedited quality of many successful writers... it’s as if no one is willing (or able) to offer suggestions for revision; or maybe Rushdie us just no longer interested in receiving feedback b/c everything he writes is golden. Not in this case though.

I've enjoyed many of Rushdie's books, but I couldn't get into this one. I had to goad myself to keep reading when there is so many more inviting things to read.

"A modern American epic set against the panorama of contemporary politics and culture—a hurtling, page-turning mystery that is equal parts The Great Gatsby and The Bonfire of the Vanities.

On the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of “the Gardens,” a cloistered community in New York’s Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is a bubble within a bubble, and the residents are immediately intrigued by the eccentric newcomer and his family. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya, a brilliant recluse with a tortured mind; Apu, the flamboyant artist, sexually and spiritually omnivorous, famous on twenty blocks; and D, at twenty-two the baby of the family, harboring an explosive secret even from himself. There is no mother, no wife; at least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king—a queen in want of an heir.

Our guide to the Goldens’ world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down.

Set against the strange and exuberant backdrop of current American culture and politics, The Golden House also marks Salman Rushdie’s triumphant and exciting return to realism. The result is a modern epic of love and terrorism, loss and reinvention—a powerful, timely story told with the daring and panache that make Salman Rushdie a force of light in our dark new age."

If it's anything like the book it's compared to, well, new classic?