On Mr. Rushdie
I have been hearing a lot of praise for his new book Shalimar the Clown. I will definitely be reading it.
I have been a fan of Mr. Rushdie's work, but he has been a disappointment as a person. While Satanic verses used great metaphors, it was too confusing as a work of prose to be put in the same category as Midnight Children, Moors Last Sigh or even Shame. However, all of these are great novels. I think Haroun and the sea of stories is a beautiful work of art and the Jaguar smiles always bring a smile to my face.
However, Mr. Rushdie has a self destructive streak and he has goaded himself on his vanity and greed. As a Muslim, I did not find anything particularly offensive in Satanic Verses, but what I did find is his callousness towards his family living in Karachi (a few blocks form my residence). I also find his support, with his friend Christopher Hutchins, for war in Iraq unforgivable, because this is the same guy who wrote so beautifully about the Nicaragua tragedy in the Jaguar Smiles. He is the one who wrote about how it feels to be a third world denizen and see the foot come down. But then he just sold his lot with to his latte sipping intellectual friends. He lost his chi long time ago. Now he is just a sad clown.
Lastly, although he has gone so far as to say that all good literature from South Asia is written in English, and has made a career of making fun out of Indian English idioms (Speed Thrills but Kills), I have never heard him speak a word of Hindi/Urdu/Kashmiri in his lectures or book signings. In the end, he remains the last of the literary brown Sahibs and I am happy to see the next generation of authors does not suffer from these insecurities.
I have been a fan of Mr. Rushdie's work, but he has been a disappointment as a person. While Satanic verses used great metaphors, it was too confusing as a work of prose to be put in the same category as Midnight Children, Moors Last Sigh or even Shame. However, all of these are great novels. I think Haroun and the sea of stories is a beautiful work of art and the Jaguar smiles always bring a smile to my face.
However, Mr. Rushdie has a self destructive streak and he has goaded himself on his vanity and greed. As a Muslim, I did not find anything particularly offensive in Satanic Verses, but what I did find is his callousness towards his family living in Karachi (a few blocks form my residence). I also find his support, with his friend Christopher Hutchins, for war in Iraq unforgivable, because this is the same guy who wrote so beautifully about the Nicaragua tragedy in the Jaguar Smiles. He is the one who wrote about how it feels to be a third world denizen and see the foot come down. But then he just sold his lot with to his latte sipping intellectual friends. He lost his chi long time ago. Now he is just a sad clown.
Lastly, although he has gone so far as to say that all good literature from South Asia is written in English, and has made a career of making fun out of Indian English idioms (Speed Thrills but Kills), I have never heard him speak a word of Hindi/Urdu/Kashmiri in his lectures or book signings. In the end, he remains the last of the literary brown Sahibs and I am happy to see the next generation of authors does not suffer from these insecurities.
posted by Samurai Zauq at 11:41 AM
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