Rating: 
Summary: Give this book the attention it demands
Review: These 2 and 3 star reviews are frightening me. This is an incredible book but it seems that people just aren't finding it so. If you read it carefully (this isn't Grisham here) you will find that it ranks up there with MIDNIGHTS CHILDREN or THE MOORS LAST SIGH. Rushdie is arguably our greatest living author, and this book is proof of that.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but less here than meets the eye
Review: Certainly an engaging and entertaining novel. But I felt that I was being told way too much, that things were being narrated in a rather slapdash fashion by Rai, the photographer. All too often we are told of events in a "she went here, she saw this, she felt that" kind of way. It just seemed to skim along the surface of the characters, and to tell me at a third person remove what the characters were experiencing and feeling, instead of allowing me any real access to their souls, their feelings.Rushdie's verbal dexterity is undeniable, but all too often it feels forced. Every few pages there is a list of post-modern literary/cultural jokes, which are never quite obscure enough to make one scratch one's head, but still hip enough to make the reader feel "with it." Still, a great deal of fun is here. If only there was a little more substance.
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best, but well done again.
Review: Bought it the day it was out, started reading it and am still in the 1st quarter of the book. Usually I'm reading books faster, even Rushdi, but here I have the feeling that the story takes its time to really unfold. Rushdi, in the character of Rai, is telling his own story of the last years he had to be in "exile", but somehow I could not get the clue, yet. The thing with Rushdi's books is that sometimes you have to read them twice or even trice before the point and story really seeps in and becomes clear. Although he is writing in his wonderful fictional, and sarcastic humorous, style again, I would not say that "THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET" is his best book, but well done again.
Rating:
Summary: Magical Realism is the name of the game
Review: I am on the brink of completing the book and it is utterly fantastic ... amongst the best I have read. By chance I decided to read some of the review and I'd like to state to some of the previous people who have written reviews that Rusdie's writing style is one that is heavily dependent on magical realism ... a sad thing is that most of the people who have disliked the book don't seem to get it ... this is really unfortunate that readers cannot appreciate the beauty of magical realism and are still stuck up in their own worlds.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Collection
Review: Rushdie is in top form here. It was a wonderful, satisfying novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Bravo to Rushdie who is truly a great writer.
Rating:
Summary: A lovely work
Review: Work that I love, I read almost in dream, and I have been dreaming for the past few days. The closest echo to this book is Nabokov's Ada. It may be criticized on the same terms: too much over-the-top linguistic wordplay, self-absorbed lovers, too long. But, like Ada, beneath the text is texture (John Shade is a writer of poetry in Rushdie's mirrored world). This is a novel of longing and exile -- exile from country, exile from love, and existential exile. At the same time, it is a novel of love, and artistic creation and re-creation, an attempt to repair the breach of exile. Not to bring back what is forever gone, or to attempt to bridge the uncrossable, but to use the power of the best of 5 cultures (ancient Indian, ancient Greek, Bombay, England and America) to begin to imagine something beyond the worst in them.
Rating:
Summary: Thanks for the suggestion!
Review: My thanks to the reviewers below who turned me on to Glenn Kleier (the Salman Rushdie of Christianity!). I simply couldn't finished "GROUND" and picked up Kleier's "LAST DAY," as recommended. It truly is a spectacular read and I pass the tip along to anyone who's been disappointed with "GROUND." "LAST DAY" is outrageous and irreverent, and certainly in the same league as "SATANIC VERSES." Rushdie is a gifted author, but I'm afraid he missed this time.
Rating: 
Summary: Two-dimensional characters, muddled plot
Review: This is a brave attempt at retelling the Orpheus/Eurydice myth in a modern, rock 'n' roll context. And you can't fault Rushdie's skill with words. The puns and allusions fly thick and fast. But he fails to make any of the central characters anything more than cartoonish. Avatars, he'd say. Add to that the problem that the plot wobbles from one improbable event to another. It's hard to swallow the idea that two essentially boring characters -- Ormus and Vina -- could produce the kind of world-shaking music Rushdie credits them with. There's a sneering tone about real stars like the Beatles and Elvis, which many may find annoying. But then, he's always been anti-Western culture, perhaps as much as he has been tagged anti-Moslem. Far too long, too.
Rating:
Summary: A fresh angle at the world
Review: Right from its VINELANDish opening its clear that this will be a different novel. Maitre R this time pays tribute to the American writers- V2 pops up quite early and the world of fictional characters and an alternative reality is a delight to read. I remember reading R's review of Enigma of Arrival which had a reference to the creation of ....land beneath his feet... and this book further solidifies and gives body to a shaky creation of internationalism. One needs to read it differently than the previous Rushdie books; the language is easier though the discourse doesn't always fuse very well. Old fans need patience: the book resonates long after you finish it. New readers will find a welcome introduction to Rushdian oeuvre.I like this novel more because I have been reading Vollmann, Powers, Wallace and Rushdie balances their view and territory from the other side and the result is sheer pleasure..
Rating:
Summary: It could have been better
Review: So its back to Bombay again ! Rushdie returns to his city of birth and probably gives an insight into the social structure of the Bombay before it became the Business Capital of India. Reverse migration with Vina Apsara playing the poor relative coming from the West to a rich relative. Ormus Cama the man in love forever, and good ol' Rai. I got a feel that Rai the photographer is in some ways Rushdie himself, the only difference being Rushdie captures people and places in prose whereas Rai captures them on film. The story is really good and makes us Indians who have never been out of India look at ourselves and our mistakes with a touch of humour. The way fact and fiction has merged in a lot of places made this book more realistic. The only complain really is that the book is a bit too long and drags towards the end. The book may not rank as Rushdies best and may even evoke a few protests from some people here in India, but in hind sight "The ground beneath her feet " comes off as a bright star in a world of wannabes.
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