Rushdie loses his way again in a maze of endless sentences

Salman Rushdie: the novelist may have exhausted his stock of personally meaningful material Pic: Getty

FICTION: Quichotte, By Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Cape, €16.10

First things first: the title is pronounced “key-SHOT,” and it is, according to a helpful introductory note, an alternative spelling of the Spanish Quixote. Which means that Salman Rushdie’s new novel is a contemporary riff on perhaps the least-read literary classic of them all.

In place of Cervantes’ gaunt nobleman Alonso, driven mad by chivalric romances, Rushdie serves up Mr Ismail Smile, alias Quichotte, a ...