The Golden House: Salman Rushdie

Product Information

A recognizably Rushdie novel in its playfulness, its verbal jousting, its audacious bravado, its unapologetic erudition, and its sheer, dazzling brilliance.” — The Boston Globe

If you asked Petya direct question he would answer honestly because his brain made it impossible for him to lie.... Nero also commissioned from the Greek Zenodorus a colossal 35.5m (120 RF) high bronze statue of him, the Colossus Neronis. [29] [11] Pliny the Elder, however, puts its height at only 30.3m (106.5RF). [39] The statue was placed just outside the main palace entrance at the terminus of the Via Appia [29] in a large atrium of porticoes that divided the city from the private villa. [40] This statue may have represented Nero as the sun god Sol, as Pliny saw some resemblance. [41] This idea is widely accepted among scholars, [42] but some are convinced that Nero was not identified with Sol while he was alive. [43] The face of the statue was modified shortly after Nero's death during Vespasian’s reign to make it truly a statue of Sol. [13] [43] Hadrian moved it, with the help of the architect Decrianus and 24 elephants, [44] to a position next to the Flavian Amphitheater. This building took the name " Colosseum" in the Middle Ages, after the statue nearby, or, as some historians believe, because of the sheer size of the building. [32] Palace on the Palatine [ edit ] Opus sectile from the Domus Aurea Sala della Sfinge (Sphinx Hall), discovered in 2018 Fresco of sea-horses in the Sala della SfingeI'm kind of embarrassed to admit that this is the first book I've read by Rushdie, therefore, I can't compare it to his many other titles. I only know that I found this one to be mostly fascinating, though keep in mind - I am a fan of books that portray the obscenely wealthy in a bad light. drinking polymath who was afraid of the world and found living in it a constant hardship, then Apu came as the sober romantic artist and promiscuous metropolitan, flirting with everything that was visionary yet with a clarity of vision that allowed him to see people plain as his portraits showed". The Goldens all told stories about themselves, stories in which essential information about origins was either omitted or falsified. I listened to them not as 'true' but as indications of character. On the same day, Nero Golden, his three sons, Petronius, or Petya, Lucius Apuleius, or Apu and Dionysius, or D, arrive in the US from an unnamed country of origin, moving into a new abode in the “Gardens,” an exclusive area of Greenwich Village where all of the 22 houses are linked connected by their garden hidden away from the city.

The story of the Golden family is told from the point of view of their Manhattanite neighbour and confidant, René, an aspiring filmmaker who finds in the Goldens the perfect subject. René chronicles the undoing of the house of Golden: the high life of money, of art and fashion, a sibling quarrel, an unexpected metamorphosis, the arrival of a beautiful woman, betrayal and murder, and far away, in their abandoned homeland, some decent intelligence work. During renovation works at the end of 2018, experts discovered a barrel-vaulted room (room 72) richly decorated with panthers, centaurs, the god Pan, and a sphinx, believed to have been built between 65 and 68AD. The frescoes were of similar style to those in the cryptoporticus (room 92) which allows attribution to the so-called "A" workshop. Yet out of loyalty to his father's wishes he managed to find a way. He trained himself in locutions of avoidance, "I will not answer that question", or "maybe you should ask someone else". At age 42.... there were parts of Petya that would always remain a child. I was fascinated with Petya.....Pretty ponderous and portentious, right? But we want to love and trust this Rene. Maybe we find some way to proceed in a Trump world with the following lesson: