“Fury” is a novel about Malik Solanka, a 55-year-old Cambridge professor born in Bombay, who is the creator of “Little Brain”, a highly popular mechanical “philosophical” doll.
One night, Solanka finds himself standing over the sleeping bodies of his English wife and his little son with a knife in his hand. Confused and alarmed, he decides to abandon his family and go to New York where he hopes to escape the inner demons that he believes drove him to almost murder his family.
The book tries to explore personal demons or “furies” that are around him and it is also a portrait of New York.
“Fury” contains numerous subplots: a mystery about a series of murders in which his friend Jack Rhinehart is thought to be involved, the life of an anti-semitic plumber which story has been bought by a film studio, a sci-fi revolutionary fantasy that has a huge commercial success…
He strikes up two relationships. Mila Milo, a gorgeous serb, incest victim and young internet entrepreneur that helps Malik to cure about some of his demons and Neela Mahendra, his secretive love, a beauty indian very smart who is politically committed to the national liberation movement of his country. Solanka visits the island to meet Neela, but her devotion to the cause will entail some problems…
The characters in “Fury” are one-dimensional, lifeless and constructed according to contemporary American life.
Malik Solanka is too passive. He’s simply an observer with a back-story. He is an angry, impulsive man, but he is also pitiable and a bit desperate for love and acceptance.
This novel is a bit complex. It offers satirical themes and it mixes moments of anger and madness with black humour. It is not a fast-paced thriller. In fact, “Fury” is a bit slow, no much happens.
Susana
English @ home 