Going unsuccessfully west

Spectator, The, Apr 10, 1999 by Caute, David

The earth begins to rock and roll, its music dooms your mortal soul, and there's nothing baby nothing you can do. 'Cause it's not up to it's not up to it's not up to you. Vina's dramatic death by earthquake and landslip, heralded on the first page of the novel, is said to have occurred on St Valentine's Day, 1989, which must have been precisely when the ayatollah launched his fatwa against Salman Rushdie. I found this megastar heroine distinctly unappealing. `You're nothing in my life, Rai,' she says, `you mean even less than this punk, so do me a favor, fuck off and die.' Even so, Overnight, the meaning of Vina's death has become the most important subject on earth. . . the Vina supperclub/cabaret lookalikes, the underground, heavy metal and reggae Vinas, the rap Vinas, the Vina drag queens, the Vina transsexuals, the Vina hookers on the Vegas Strip, the Vina strippers . . . the pomo Vinas on the adult cable channels

- and more. Can Vina be condemned for her imitators? The question doesn't even deserve a fair trial.

Ormus and his VTO band are excluded from India shortly before he is shot like John Lennon in Manhattan. Star-struck, fame-struck, wealth-struck, our narrator Rai seems to despise what he adores in the West and to adore what he despises: showbiz, hype, PR, merchandising, fame, wealth - subjects about which he writes cigar-incheek, like some permanent Jewish joker, all jargon, slang and yeah. And who might Rai remind us of? Somewhere in these pages one reads that `success breeds excess'.