The Defiance of Salman Rushdie

February 6, 2023 5:27 PM

“I’ve always thought that my books are more interesting than my life...The world appears to disagree." David Remnick in The New Yorker provides an overview of Salman Rushdie's life and career up to now, including a new interview regarding his new novel and his recovery from the August, 2022 stabbing attack. (SLNewYorker)

Rushdie on Twitter: "The photo in @NewYorker is dramatic and powerful but this, more prosaically, is what I actually look like. "

posted by dnash (9 comments total)

I had no idea he wrote taglines for Aero chockie bars.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:05 PM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

obviously
posted by some loser at 2:25 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting this! I have a long and complicated relationship with Salman Rushdie's writing; I loved Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh when I first read them as a teenager - I remember skiving off my exam revision to lock myself in the bathroom to read Midnight's Children - I'd sit on the toilet for hours until my leg fell asleep. But I recently picked up the Moor's Last Sigh again and the style really does not work for me anymore.

Joseph Anton is a really powerful piece of writing, no matter your feelings about him as a person. It's a hell of a thing to live through. I personally cannot imagine it.
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:05 AM on February 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

Rushdie's photo tweet appears to be deleted. The Wayback Machine still has it here.
posted by neuracnu at 8:00 AM on February 7, 2023

Rushdie also reposted the photo.
posted by Kattullus at 8:27 AM on February 7, 2023

I wonder why that tweet would be deleted. Perhaps someone at Twitter who also doesn't feel warmly about him.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:05 AM on February 7, 2023

“I’ve always thought that my books are more interesting than my life...The world appears to disagree."

That's a funny quote to lead with because the last two books of his I've read, Fury and Quichotte, both felt like they were drawing heavily from his life. Although he's a great writer so that might just be a testament to his skill - he's able to make it feel like he's writing about his personal life when he's actually making it all up.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:01 PM on February 7, 2023

If you're going to link a lengthy appreciation of a guy's personality and career where the worst personal failing seems to be that he's sometimes "petulant," be prepared for comments about how he's been a pretty wretched human being to his family. The writer-activist who has been unjustly attacked and oppressed for his noble principles yet is a shit to his family is, alas, not an unfamiliar figure of modern times. There will never be any shortage of people praising Rushdie's literary greatness, so let's not sweep the rest under the rug, eh?
posted by praemunire at 1:17 PM on February 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I don't think anyone is sweeping anything under the rug.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:26 PM on February 7, 2023 [9 favorites]