When an author achieves international acclaim, there is bound to be a counterreaction to the general chorus of praise. In Rushdie's case, given the controversial nature of his work and the number of political figures (Ayatollah Kohmeini, Indira Gandhi, Bal Thackeray) who have attacked him, critical reactions have been primarily aimed at the ideological component of his writing, or in the case of some British writers (Roald Dahl, John le Carre, Germaine Greer) at supposed defects in his character.

More recently, however, literary critics in India and in the United States have offered some strong opinions about weaknesses in his work. George Steiner, for instance, called The Ground Beneath Her Feet "retro in every sense of the word" because it required "a lot of reading to achieve what those geniuses [of early modernism] achieved earlier and better." This is relatively mild compared to the denunciation delivered...