- published: 14 Mar 2013
- views: 357020
Grimus is a 1975 fantasy and science fiction novel by Salman Rushdie. It was his literary debut.
The story loosely follows Flapping Eagle, a young Indian who receives the gift of immortality after drinking a magic fluid. After drinking the fluid, Flapping Eagle wanders the earth for 777 years 7 months and 7 days, searching for his immortal sister and exploring identities before falling through a hole in the Mediterranean Sea. He arrives in a parallel dimension at the mystical Calf Island where those immortals who have tired of the world but are reluctant to give up their immortality exist in a static community under a subtle and sinister authority.
Published in 1975, Grimus was Salman Rushdie's first published novel. To a large extent it has been disparaged by academic critics; though Peter Kemp's comment is particularly vitriolic, it does give an idea of the novel's initial reception:
Amongst other influences Rushdie incorporates Sufi, Hindu, Christian and Norse mythologies alongside pre- and post-modernist literature into his construction of character and narrative form. Grimus was created with the intention of competing for Rushdie's then publisher, Victor Gollancz Ltd.’s ‘Science Fiction Prize.’ As an intended work of science fiction it is comparable to David Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus in that there is very little actual science fiction. Rather inter-dimensional/interstellar travelling provides a narrative framework that loosely accords to the bildungsroman narrative form to allegorically encounter and investigate multiple social ideologies whilst in a search for a coherent centre of identity. It can be seen as growing out of and extending the techniques and the literary traditions identified with Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, or Sir Thomas More's Utopia, in that its journey traverses both outer and inner dimensions, exploring both cultural ideologies and the ambivalent effects that they have on one's psychological being.
GRIMUS | PRIVEŞTE-MĂ
GRIMUS | IN YOUR EYES
Grimus - Umbre
GRIMUS | VOM LUPTA (lyric video)
GRIMUS | ULTIMA OARĂ
GRIMUS | FACE THE LIGHT
GRIMUS | IN A GLIMPSE
Grimus - High (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
GRIMUS | PROMISE
GRIMUS: Priveste-ma
This could be spectacular
But it's impossible
And I am ready to move on again
Insignificant
Acting like a grain of sand in your eyes
'Cause the world is full of bear traps
And I could not relax
In this nest of rats with children's heads
Biting off their hands
Subjects for experiments
They don't care
This could be spectacular
But it's impossible
And I am ready to move on again
Insignificant
Acting like a grain of sand in your eyes
Barricades and bigamy
They're assaulting me
Keeping an eye on a silent enemy
Curiosity and overworking set me free
In a glimpse
This could be spectacular
But it's impossible
And I am ready to move on again
Insignificant
Acting like a grain of sand in your eyes
Begging for a golden role
Nothing but a silent waste of our time
Begging for a golden role
Nothing but a silent waste of our time
This could be spectacular
But it's impossible
And I am ready to move on again
Insignificant
Acting like a grain of sand in your eyes
This could be spectacular
But it's impossible
And I am ready to move on again
Insignificant
Acting like a grain of sand in your eyes
Begging for a golden role