I have just begun reading Salman Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence” two years after it was published. In keeping with my resolve, I am not going to review it. Writers write, readers read. And that’s that. There is no point in reviewing books, or for that matter, there is no point. Period.
The only observation I have to make about the book is how strikingly cinematic it is. I suspect Rushide could have been a filmmaker had he not been a fulltime writer. He seems to see his plots before he writes them down.
There is only one filmmaker that comes to my mind who can do justice to “The Enchantress of Florence.” It is Tarsem Singh. In fact, in Tarsem’s hands this story could become an absolute visual treat. I don’t know how many of my 36 or so readers have seen his 2006 movie “The Fall” but check that one out and then read “The Enchantress of Florence” and you would know what I mean.
The very first sentence in the book is a great opening shot for a possible movie based on it. “In the day’s last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold,” it begins. Even as I quote it I can see the shot conjuring up before me. “The traveler” in the book could form a stunning silhouette against the setting sun’s light reflecting off the lake’s water. This is a semicircular tracking shot where the camera first frames the silhouette and then ever so gently completes a semicircle around the traveler to gradually reveal his face lighted up by the dying mauve-golden light of the day. If Tarsem gets to read this post, here is his next project.
Should he choose not to, I could be the next choice. That is precisely what Rushdie needs—a lifelong hack with no background in cinema other than having made dozens of movies in his mind.