If I have one advice for those who plan on reading Shame it would be: take notes on who is who, write down names of characters and how they relate to each other, or you will be lost like I did! It reminded me a lot of A Hundred Years of Solitude, I had the Buendia's family tree with me all the time when I was reading it, so I could keep track of the characters relations. With Shame, there is the same confusion, the characters' stories are in a tangle, some are similar and the constant flashforwards and flashbacks won't make it any easier. Salman Rushdie excelled in the stinging criticism of his country's politics and religion, a criticism that could cover the whole arab and muslim world too. The story is tinged with uninhibited dark humor and caricatures. Rushdie writes about what is happening in muslim and islamic countries shamelessly, his critique hits the hipocrisy of such societies and leaders. Shame is read like a dream, full of military coups, feral daughters, secluded sisters, complicated family relations... a dream that forms a perfect circle, following Omar Khayyam, from birth to death, a dream which ends where it began, from hope to ashes.