Salman Rushdie, Jack Vance, and magic realism

I finally finished Salman Rushdie's novel The Enchantress of Florence and boy, what a read it is. The Scotsman quite accurately says

this book would do instead of food and drink.Everything you need is in there.

In fact, I found it extraordinarily rich. As in the case of a very few books I have read, I often stopped in amazement at how much story Rushdie crammed into a paragraph, a half-paragraph, or a bit more. The Enchantress was sometimes (too?) rich. At least, I often stopped, put the book down and did not pick it up again. Was The Enchantress a too rich dessert? Rather, I think that it was made up of so many threads that it was hard to find my place.

Is this a flaw in the book? I would point instead to another feature of the book, its vast scope. The tale stretches from Medici Florence to Delhi in the time of Akbar, the Mughal emperor who tried to an established, tolerant religion in his huge empire. Rushdie describes Akbar's line of thought in great detail. More: he does much the same for Akbar's male friends. And he does as much for the ladies -- several of whom wield mighty influence behind and before the throne, even though some of them are dead. Geography (this is the age of discovery) likewise is as important as character.

Rushdie clearly was fascinated by the era, the cultures, the debates, and he wants his readers to be fascinated, too. He may have thought, if anyone asked, "Mr. Rushdie, is this a novel or a history?" that he could hardly answer. (Would he have better luck answering if he and his interlocitur were discussing Greek literature of the 2nd century CE?) His desire to have his reflections on the history of Hindustan and Renaissance Italy taken seriously shows up in his four-page bibliography (a good one) and his concluding offer to correct any errors in citation.

As I was finishing up the book I was beginning to think how embarrasing my comparison of Rushdie to Jack Vance was. But then I picked up Vance's Showboat World and immediately saw why I had made the comparison and why it was not ridiculous after all. Vance and Rushdie have written magic realism (or science fiction and fantasy, let's be honest). Their novels often involve long journeys through exotic and mundane landscapes. Their characters often sadly reflect on the peculiar customs of the people they meet. The big difference between the two is that Rushdie anchors his tales in reality (you could call The Enchantress history)while Vance just makes things up (his glory).

Yes, Rushdie is the better writer, but Vance is his cousin.