Highlights of Salman Rushdie's Personal History

This week, The New Yorker published a 12,000-word piece written by Salman Rushdie about the famous fatwa, and its immediate aftermath. It's an absolutely riveting story.

(Also, strangely, it's written in third person. "There was a novel growing in him, but its exact nature eluded him. It would be a big book, he knew that, ranging widely over space and time." e.g.)

And but, I'd highly recommend carving out some time to read it, too. But if you don't have the time, here are the highlights:

— I don't know that I've ever seen the actual text of the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, but here it is, quoted in the story's opening lines: "I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the 'Satanic Verses' book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all the Muslims to execute them wherever they find them." Awfully chilling and stark, isn't it? 

— On the morning the fatwa was issued, Valentine's Day 1989, Rushdie attended a memorial service for a friend. Martin Amis was there, and expressed his concern for Rushdie's safety. The novelist Paul Theroux was also there, and expresses something approximately opposite to concern, joking "I suppose we’ll be here for you next week, Salman."

— These lines, that wrap up the first section of the piece, reflecting on the day the fatwa was issued, are chill-inducingly good: "On this day there were crowds marching down the streets of Tehran carrying posters of his face with the eyes poked out, so that he looked like one of the corpses in “The Birds,” with their blackened, bloodied, bird-pecked eye sockets. That was the subject today: his unfunny Valentine from those bearded men, those shrouded women, and that lethal old man, dying in his room, making his last bid for some sort of murderous glory."

 

— A fascinating, engrossing short history of the origins of Islam and what, actually, the Satanic verses are is here; scroll to the "1966" subhead. (This part's worth reading word-for-word — it's not very long, and immensely worth it.)

— Rushdie discusses his inspiration for the novel The Satanic Verses (as well as what he believes to be his future oeuvre): "...the great question of how the world joins up—not only how the East flows into the West and the West into the East but how the past shapes the present even as the present changes our understanding of the past, and how the imagined world, the location of dreams, art, invention, and, yes, faith, sometimes leaks across the frontier separating it from the “real” place in which human beings mistakenly believe they live."

 

—  The Satanic Verses was published Sept. 26, 1988 in England. It was banned in India (a friend of Rushdie's in the Indian government called him to break the news) in early October. On Oct. 10, he received his first death threat. Many more followed. Rushdie, of course, was taken aback by the fury: "To him, it was the least political of (his) three books. And the material derived from the origin story of Islam was, he thought, essentially respectful toward the Prophet of Islam, even admiring of him."

 

— And, suddenly, two-thirds of the way in, a turn for the sentimental: "He became, in the media, a man whom nobody loved but many people hated."

 

— Semi-disingenuous-sounding (on purpose) apology offered soon after the fatwa, in exchange for continued protection from the British government: "As author of 'The Satanic Verses' I recognize that Muslims in many parts of the world are genuinely distressed by the publication of my novel. I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam. Living as we do in a world of many faiths this experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others."

 

—  D'oh! “'Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and his wealth, to send him to hell,' the dying imam said." 

 

— John Irving, comedic genius: "When the book was in its third consecutive week as No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list, John Irving, who found himself stuck at No. 2, quipped that, if that was what it took to get to the top spot, he was content to be runner-up."

 

— The last part of the piece chronicles Rushdie hiding out under the protection of two guys named Stan and Ben. At one point, there's a scare (that turned out to be just a misunderstanding) regarding his ex-wife and son. And then, Rushdie, at the behest of his protectors, renamed himself Joseph Anton (the first names of two writers he admired, Conrad and Chekhov). "He had spent his life naming fictional characters. Now, by naming himself, he had turned himself into a sort of fictional character as well."

If "The Dude" Listened to 50 Shades

It's been a slow reading week, so instead of a review this week, here's this:

Incidentally, The Dude's expression of relaxed amusement is very similar to my own as I read that travesty of a book. Happy Hump Day!

The Newlyweds: Meditations on Marriage

Amina lives in a Bangladesh. George lives in Rochester, New York. They're just a couple of star-crossed lovers who meet on EuroAsia.com and get married. Nell Freudenberger's new novel The Newlyweds is the quintessential 21st century, meeting-online-across-continents love story.

Except there's not much real love here. Nerdy mid-30s George wants a family. Ambitious late-20s Amina wants to escape Bangladesh for more opportunity. So their partnership is one of mutual benefit. But this is something they never discuss, after a year of email, an in-person visit, and then Amina's move to the U.S. (that's not a spoiler — that all happens early in the novel). Instead, the two pretend like they have traditional fairy-tale marriage, based on the rock solid foundation of love, devotion and trust.

The conflict of the novel comes when that trust goes away. George has been hiding a secret. Will the marriage survive?

So the main theme of The Newlyweds is the difficulties associated with cross-cultural marriage. Georgia and Amina's is the primary example, but we also learn about George's cousin Kim, who had a once-rocky marriage with an Indian guy name Ashok. And one of Amina's childhood friends, Nasir, originally a possible match for Amina herself, is now looking for a wife — but will his be an arranged marriage in Bangladeshi tradition or will he marry for love?

In addition to the meditation on marriage, Freudenberger gives us the "conflicted immigrant" theme, as well. Is Amina remaining true to her Bangladeshi roots by availing herself of American conveniences?

"She struggled to find some connection between the girl she so often imagined at home in her parents' apartment and this American wife, using the dishwasher and the washing machine, checking her email on the living room computer ... Sometimes she wondered whether the two girls would simply grow farther and farther apart, until one day they didn't even recognize each other."

So, what did I think? I've wavered back and forth on a near-daily basis between "Loved it" and "It was okay – kind of interesting, but unsatisfying." If that seems strange, you're right, it is. There were parts when I was rooting like crazy for George and Amina to work. There were parts I just didn't care. There were too-obvious-to-the-point-of-silly symbols (like the cardinal on cover — he makes an appearance in the book, too). But there was also some really stunning, insightful writing about the trials and tribulations of relationships. So 3 stars — maybe because it wasn't really my thing, but it's not by any stretch a bad novel and other readers may have more luck with it than I did.

DeLillo's Underworld: "Everything is connected in the end."

Garbage is a de facto history of culture. The threat of nuclear warfare and baseball are inexorably connected because, each in its own way, is a source of nostalgia regarding the second half of the 20th century. And art is art, whether its avant-garde film or graffiti. There, I just summarized an 827-page novel in three sentences. You're. Welcome.

Okay, yeah — there's a bit more. It took me just shy of two months to plow through this behemoth. It's far from Gravity's Rainbow-level difficult. But it's not something you'll want to take to the beach. The novel jumps back and forth in time throughout the second half of the 20th century. We see different characters in different phases of their lives, and constantly meet new ones. It's a huge cast — from chess gurus to 1950s gangsters, from bored businessmen adulterers to graffiti artists to nuns.

But nuclear weapons and baseball are really the two most common themes of the novel, and they bob and weave past each other throughout the strains of stories, often connecting, often in surprising ways. For instance, the prologue of the novel — which is 60 pages of sheer, unadulterated genius — chronicles the last game of the baseball season in 1951 in which Bobby Thompson hit the famous "shot heard around the world" and the Giants won the pennant. J. Edgar Hoover is at the game, and is informed that the Russians have just test-detonated a nuclear device.

From there, through various strains of story, we follow the baseball Thompson hit through the years into the mid-1990s, as characters come in contact with it, including a memorabiliast named Marvin who has made it his life's work to authenticate the ball. If there is a main character in Underworld, it's Nick Shay, who works for a waste management company in Phoenix, and now owns the ball (if it is, indeed, the real ball). Immediately after the prologue, we see Nick driving through the West Texas desert to visit an art installation by a woman named Klara, who is painting decommissioned war planes. A guy named Charlie, who bought the Thompson baseball from the kid's father back in 1951, flew in one of these planes. And, also, Nick and Klara had had a brief affair back in 1950s New York.

You see how complicated this can get? DeLillo makes you hold a lot in your head at once. But the thrill of this novel is when you discover a connection, whether thematically or as a part of the story he's slowly building. At one point, in 1951, after the baseball game DeLillo tells us about in the prologue, two men are talking, and one asks if the other saw the newspaper. The man says, "They're calling it The Shot Heard Round The World." The other man, thinking he means the story about the Russians' nuclear test, wonders how we detected evidence of the blast. The other guy says "No no no no. We're speaking about the home run. Bobby Thompson's heroic shot. The tabloids have dubbed it for posterity." I loved this scene! And there are many, many like it. (Much earlier, one character tells another "...because when they make an atomic bomb, listen to this, they make the radioactive core the exact same size as a baseball.")

I mean, there's just so much here: Lenny Bruce screaming "We're all gonna die" during his act during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A set piece about the New York City blackout in 1965. A serial killer who shoots people in their cars on Texas highways. And a scene where J. Edgar Hoover and his assistant go to a party in Manhattan, and Hoover might be gay.

It's just a massive amount of story. If you generally like this kind of thing, yes, Underworld is for you. I loved it...mostly. I hate to be as cliché as this, but Underworld really is a giant puzzle that rewards you as you figure out how each piece falls into place. And if even if you can't puzzle out the connections, often, DeLillo's prose is enough to keep you going. I thought often while reading that I wasn't going to remember this sentence or that metaphor, but it was enough to know that I'd enjoyed it immensely in that moment.

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving: Happy Reading!

Life is near-constant revision, because even the best-laid plans go awry. Take, for instance, the writing of this review of Jonathan Evison's new novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. I planned to tell you how the novel is part roadtrip buddy comedy, part meditation on parenting, and part blueprint for pulling yourself up by the bootstraps when you hit rock bottom. I hoped to convey how funny and cool and downright irreverent (German Knuckle Cake, anyone?) Evison's writing is. And I was sure I'd leave you with some notion of how important it is to roll with life's punches.

But, instead, this: You should read this book because it'll make you happy. I promise.

(Okay, just kidding. We won't stop there. That'd be silly. And cliché. And probably a little frustrating for you.)

So yes, this novel will make you happy, even though, for the most part, it's a profoundly sad book — main character Benjamin Benjamin (never trust a guy with two first names, especially when those two first names are the same first name) is down to his last few bucks. His wife Janet is divorcing him after a mysterious "disaster" involving their two children, the story of which Evison weaves in periodically with the "real time" story. And Benjamin, having completed a course in caregiving, is making $9 an hour caring for a 19-year-old, wheelchair-bound dude named Trev who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

A lot of the fun of the novel is the back-and-forth banter between Trev and Ben. They discuss girls ("Look at the turd-cutter on her", e.g.), and watch the Weather Channel, and eat waffles. And every Thursday, they go to the movies. The novel really kicks into gear when Ben convinces Trev's mother to allow him to take Trev on a roadtrip to Utah (they live in Washington state) to see Trev's father Bob, a loser who walked out on the family when Trev was diagnosed with his disease, but who has been clumsily trying to make amends. (In one scene, he tries to ingratiate himself by bringing them KFC.)

They meet some interesting folks on the road and see some interesting things. And of course, the trip, like life, doesn't exactly go as planned. As Ben says, "Look, I didn't plan any of this, believe me. Not this trip, not these passengers, and definitely not what I left behind. I planned like hell for something else entirely. All this just happened."

A lot of questions keep you turning the pages quickly. Will Ben and his wife reconcile, or will they at least forgive each other? Will Trev forgive his father? And what really is the "disaster" that befell Ben's children?

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is the second Evison novel I've read, after last year's West of Here, which I also loved. But the two novels are very, very different. (And this is where the reviewer says something glib, like "it's hard to believe they came from the same writer. It's a testament to Evison's talent. Etc.) That's okay though. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving shows that, when you have nothing to lose, everything else becomes gain-able. (Cue the silly movie trailer music.) Seriously, though, five stars - one of my favorites of the year.