Fury by Salman Rushdie

The year is 2000 and Professor Malilk Solanka has fled London for New York.  Solanka is a highly respected historian until a whim leads him to create a small doll.  The doll, Little Brain, is taken up by the culture and soon every child has one.  There are Little Brain tee shirts, mugs, books and soon a TV show that is wildly popular.  Solanka is thrilled with the money his creation brings, but it all soon sours.  He loses creative control and soon Little Brain is being used for all kinds of purposes which he doesn't agree with. 

The anger builds within him and one night he finds himself standing over his sleeping wife with a kitchen knife in hand.  Aghast at what his fury has almost wrought, he flees her and his small son and heads to New York to try to figure out what this fury means to him and how he can solve it.  But New York is full of fury also.  People walking the streets are sharp to each other and quick to take offense.  There is a serial killer on the loose and women are being discovered murdered.  The entire country is taking sides about the story of a Cuban boy who is being sent back to Cuba to live with his father rather than the refugees he is with in America.  The country is rich and expensive and everyone is hustling to gain the bucks necessary to live there.  Solanka searches for meaning and ways to conquer his fury but he is unsuccessful.

He meets Mila, a beautiful blonde woman who heads up a group of spoiled, rich techies who seem to do nothing but lounge on the steps of Solanka's building, but in reality are wizards at websites and the entire technical revolution.  He and Mila start a relationship but she is fighting her own fury; that of the wrongs done to her in childhood.  When he meets Neela, the gorgeous woman one of his friends is dating, he is consumed with desire and soon leaves everything to have her.  Neela also has her own furies, ones that originate in her home country and that will keep her from assimilating anywhere else.  Can Solanka fight his furies and find peace again in this life?

This is Rushdie's eighth novel and he has captured the New York that is rich and mindless, that roars on without necessarily considering the thoughts and feelings of those who inhabit her.  This is the pre-911 New York, the New York that is transitioning from the filthy Times Square to the commercialized, sanitized version that requires even more money today.  The tensions between the East and the West are hinted at although are not at the same pitch as in today's world.  Finally, the novel is an exploration of how each of us must explore our own thoughts and find resolution of the anger that can otherwise overwhelm us.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.