The best book of the year so far. I love the story telling, the fantasy, the richness of the language. The stories are from the Mughal Empire and the Medici court in Florence in the 1500's, and ofcourse these meet.
The story was completely untrue, but the untruth of untrue stories could sometimes be of service in the real world, and it was tales of this sort-improvised versions of the endless stream of stories he had learned from his friend Ago Vespucci-that saved little Nino Arhgalia's own neck after he was found hiding under a bunk in the forecastle of the flagship of Andrea Doria's fleet. p.168
Something quarrelsome rose out of the story, a green stenchy wisp of discord floated up out of the tale and infected the women of Sikri, so that reports began to reach the palace of the bitter quarrels between previously loving sisters, suspicions and accusations, irreparable breaches and bitter estrangements, cat-fights and even knife fights, the bubbling of dislikes and resentments of which the women in question had barely been aware until the unmasking of Khanzada Begum by the foreigner with the yellow hair. p. 204
on love's end...
Love's banal declension through squabbling towards n end. p.280
on parenthood...
The emperor had experienced many feelings concerning this individual:amusement, interest, disappointment, disillusion, surprise, amazement, fascination, irritation, pleasure, perplexity, suspicion, affection, boredom, and increasingly, it was necessary to admit it, fondness and admiration. One day he understood that this was also the way in which parents responded to their children... p.311
on nationhood and religion...
...because the Raushanai are the chosen people, destined by God to inherit the earth, so if they want to grab their inheritance a little ahead of time, who can say they are not entitled? p.314
Normally he was all languid grace and fluid gestures. Today, however, he was almost flustered, as if the news he had to impart was bouncing around inside him and knocking him off balance. p.320
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