After Salman Rushdie's withdrawing from a Jaipur literary festival due to Muslim protests, I thought I'd re-examine the man. He was reported as saying that assassins may have been on the way to Jaipur to kill him.
In protest of this, four authors read passages from Rushdie's banned novel, The Satanic Verses. Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi have now too been asked to leave the festival so as not to endanger themselves or present a risk to other festival goers.
Rushdie's writing career began in advertising, and his first work, Grimus, went largely ignored by the literary world. This is no surprise to me: it's a strange, dark novel centred on magic realism. Other than knowing that I've read it, I can't really remember any specific details about it, except that there were some enchantments going on, and a mountain (maybe not even a big one). As you can tell from the title, which is the protagonist's name, it was not really geared to connect immediately with an Indian or Western audience. Not a very memorable work.
His next was the absolute breakthrough. Midnight's Children saluted the complexities of Indian political history, the histronics of family, the endearing qualities of a range of young characters with fascinating 'mutant' powers, and the glory of chutney. There was only a tiny wee peek of misogyny.
He then wrote Shame, a study of political turmoil in Pakistan, which followed the similar themes of postcolonialism and immigrant perspectives in Midnight's Children. Then there was the non-fiction The Jaguar Smile, based on his first-hand experiences in Nicaragua at the scene of Sandinista political experiments.
He has written many novels in the intervening years, but it was the next which would change his life. The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, was well-received in the UK, but immediately after its publication, the novel was banned in India because of it's perceived insults to the Muslim faith. Within the story, which involves two expatriates living in England, is a re-narration of Mohammed's life, which is seen as the section most potentially insulting to Muslims. As with all Rushdie, it is dense, referential, and constantly set in the soupy lyricism of magic realism. The passages which refer indirectly to Mohammed (as Mahmud or The Messenger) are literal dream sequences. The book's publication led to a fatwa, asking for Rushdie's death, from the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruohollah Khomeini, and Rushdie subsequently went into hiding in England to avoid assassination.
The title The Satanic Verses refers to the Qur'anic verses which supposedly allowed prayers to be made to three Pagan Meccan goddesses: Allat, Uzzah, and Manat. The verses were apparently included in the Qur'an by Mohammed, who was tricked into referring to the three goddesses, thus deferring from his monotheism, by Satan. Mohammed was said to take back the words, and the reference was eventually removed from the Qur'an. Scholarly views and reactions as to whether the verses actually existed or are truly damaging to the Muslim faith vary.
The novel may never have acheived such notoreity had it not touched upon these issues, which were previously merely the centre of religious debate. Khomeini claimed that the book blasphemed against Mohammed and his wives, although Rushdie himself stated that the book was about "migration, metomorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay."
Personally I feel that most of Rushdie's works are a mixture of reflection and love letter to his origins and current expatriate status. It is rare that an author integrates religion, history and politics so successfully into what are usually highly personal and intimate narratives. This is a true expression of Rushdie's fascination with the rich past of his country, and his interest in the place of romantic mysticism in the modern world. His intellect creates the dislocated veil through which he views and engineers all of these happenings into his own dialectic, and his success lies in this ability to add a brutally comic edge to it all.
As Khomeini has since died, the fatwa can never be rescinded. Life imitates art, I suppose.
The title The Satanic Verses refers to the Qur'anic verses which supposedly allowed prayers to be made to three Pagan Meccan goddesses: Allat, Uzzah, and Manat. The verses were apparently included in the Qur'an by Mohammed, who was tricked into referring to the three goddesses, thus deferring from his monotheism, by Satan. Mohammed was said to take back the words, and the reference was eventually removed from the Qur'an. Scholarly views and reactions as to whether the verses actually existed or are truly damaging to the Muslim faith vary.
The novel may never have acheived such notoreity had it not touched upon these issues, which were previously merely the centre of religious debate. Khomeini claimed that the book blasphemed against Mohammed and his wives, although Rushdie himself stated that the book was about "migration, metomorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay."
Personally I feel that most of Rushdie's works are a mixture of reflection and love letter to his origins and current expatriate status. It is rare that an author integrates religion, history and politics so successfully into what are usually highly personal and intimate narratives. This is a true expression of Rushdie's fascination with the rich past of his country, and his interest in the place of romantic mysticism in the modern world. His intellect creates the dislocated veil through which he views and engineers all of these happenings into his own dialectic, and his success lies in this ability to add a brutally comic edge to it all.
As Khomeini has since died, the fatwa can never be rescinded. Life imitates art, I suppose.
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