Volume 52, Number 15 · October 6, 2005
Massacre in Arcadia
By Pankaj Mishra
Shalimar the Clown
by Salman Rushdie
Random House, 398 pp., $25.95
Early in Salman Rushdie's new novel, a former US ambassador to India called Max Ophuls appears on a television talk show in Los Angeles. Ophuls, 'a man of movie-star good looks,' grew up in 'a family of highly cultured Askenazi Jews' in Strasbourg. Unlike his namesake, the director of such films as Lola Montès and Caught, Rushdie's character fought in the anti-Nazi Resistance, making his daring escape from Strasbourg in a Bugatti plane. In London, he was privy to Charles de Gaulle's anxieties about American influence in the postwar world. A 'philosopher prince,' Ophuls also helped draw up the Bretton Woods Agreement, and headed the American counterterrorism effort during the CIA's anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
Review, 4178 words
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