In today's New York Times, Michiko Kakutani pans Salman Rushdie's latest novel... again. It appears as if she hasn't liked anything he's done since The Moor's Last Sigh in 1995 which she called "a huge, sprawling, exuberant novel." After reading through the archives at the NYT, I see that Kakutani admires the man and as late as 1996, was calling him "the real thing." What happened? As far as I can tell, nothing Rushdie has published recently has lived up to the seminal novels she fell in love with in the 80's and 90's.

From today's Review:

Salman Rushdie's new novel, "The Enchantress of Florence," reads less like a novel by the author of such magical works as "Midnight's Children" and "The Moor's Last Sigh" than a weary, predictable parody of something by John Barth. Such talk about sorcery and mysterious doubles isn't delivered here with the sort of dazzling sleight of hand that have made Mr. Rushdie's most powerful work, like the most powerful work of Gabriel García Marquez, so mesmerizing and so phantasmagorical. Rather it's lacquered onto a plywood story with a heavy paintbrush that leaves lots of streaks and spots and results in a work that feels jerry-built, meretricious - and yes, quite devoid of magic.