It is essentially a book that marks the history of his coming from exile back into the world as a free man. The themes give us something to grasp on too, and carry us through this story that will try to shake us up and change our views.

Philth Nippert
I'm always impressed whenever a contemporary story blends with overtly mythical dimensions to come up with something new, and that's the kind of story The Ground Beneath Her Feet is. It has other facets too, of course: a love story, a family epic, a story about the media, a post-colonial story, a story about the (possible) beginning of the end of the world, and many other things. But the nice thing about all these facets is that they're so well put together they focus your gaze rather than distort it; their complexity primes the reader so much that they are able to consider what's being said from various angles simultaneously. Add to that a worldly narrator with a sharp eye for bullshit who finds himself unable to not believe in certain incredible events in the story and you have another set of lenses that allow you to see two more sides at once: true or false? And when Rai (the narrator) finally does witness proof of one of these incredible things towards the end, it's all the more believable. It's also fun to read his descriptions/ commentaries on pop/rock culture from the last five decades, even more than his deliberate deviations from history (not overdone, thank goodness). Favorite passage: Rai ranting about how fear of being killed a million different ways on a photography trip in "Whoopwhoopski" can even make him miss a Buddhist coffee house in NYC and crave designer Buddhism in general ("...Steven Seagal take me away!"). Oh yeah, Vina and Ormus (the lovers) get better and better as the pages turn. Thanks, Mr. Rushdie. Thanks to you, my brain has been exercised making it able to resist television and other phantom menaces with ease.