Salman Rushdie Speaks

Salman Rushdie last night at the Scranton Cultural Center belied his self-deprecating opening doubts as to why anyone would want to hear a writer speak by being quite the polished speaker.

Brief aside: for those who have never been there, the Cultural Center is not some abandoned strip mall anchor-store converted for senior citizen oil painting and yoga classes. It is the former Masonic Temple – more like a small-scale palace – comprising multiple performance venues. The main auditorium, where the lectures are held, is an impressive space and beautifully restored. (http://www.nps.gov/nr//travel/delaware/mas.htm)

Rushdie had some interesting points to make about his art, and how, in writing, realism is not synonymous with naturalism, just as in the visual arts realism is not the same as photography. He expressed some disappointment that his works have been labeled as “magic realism” since critics never seem to get past the word magic.

The writer of novels, Rushdie said, in the 18th/19th century days of the form’s primacy were bringers of news, and that in the last century, with the advent of so many other channels, that that role has been mostly lost; although he thinks good novels still do some of that, referencing his own acclaimed “Midnight’s Children” and its Indian Independence setting. Oddly though, today with even more channels, the news gets crowded out by trivia of the Lindsay/Britney variety. Then he contradicted himself somewhat by noting that the distance between “normal” life and national events in the past was quite wide, using Jane Austin as an example, where though she wrote during the convulsive era of the Napoleonic Wars the English Army only showed up in her books as cute, uniformed props at parties.

Some interesting questioners: the first of the evening to step up to the mic, and it was good to get this out of the way, was of the There’s-One-in-Every-Crowd variety. And if he wasn’t wild-eyed (we were not close enough to see his eyes) he was certainly wild-minded. His preamble quickly became a pre-ramble and then just plain ramble. You could tell that Rushdie – who had moments before been declaiming on his own encounter with and viewpoint on censorship – could not bring himself to cut the man off. He asked if there was a question and the gent continued to babble. The audience began to agitate and the fellow got the message, stamping off up the aisle to applause.

Another questioner challenged Rushdie, and drew out the most interesting information of the night. Rushdie had reluctantly addressed his “troubles with the Ayatollah Khomeini” (You know the whole FATwah thing.) because he knows it’s expected of him. He had told a few amusing anecdotes about his “The Satanic Verses” episode, saying that “If it were not so not-funny, it would have been funny.” One was about meeting a young man who had led protests against him in Birmingham, England. The man had repented, found non-religion and then had read “The Satanic Verses”. He told Rushdie he didn’t understand what all the fuss had been about. “You tell me, asshole. You were making the fuss,” Rushdie said he replied. And there was a situation with the UK censorship board (or whatever it’s called, the organization that gives certificates to movies) about producers of a Pakistani film trying to bring it into the country; it depicted Rushdie as a depraved criminal mastermind under the protection of Mossad (”You know,” Rushdie said, “Mossad offers that service to all writers.”) Bottom line was that Rushdie signed off on the film, making the point that it flopped, being just an awful film, and if he had made a stink it may have done much more business around the world. (http://www.shockcinemamagazine.com/international.html)

The questioner asked if Rushdie didn’t feel responsible for writing a book that led to the death of one translator and some other actual violent attacks. Credit a visibly irritated Rushdie for addressing and answering the question, rather than deflecting or dismissing; he made it clear that he was aware of the attacks but that if the questioner was able to predict these things he wished he could have told him. Then, however, he proceeded to relay, in straight-from-the-source detail, the nut of the controversy, something that would not have been outlined without the question. The sections of the book that caused the uproar were dream sequences in the mind of a lunatic, and that his intent was to parallel two roles of women in Islam, those sequestered from men in a harem, and those made available to men in a brothel; this to illustrate how early on there had been a chance that three pagan female deities may have been adopted as saints by the religion but were not; and that perhaps an understanding of Islam’s negative view of women today can be rooted in decisions during its early formation. Rushdie also stated that the writer of a book cannot be responsible for any attacks that result, but that the actual attacker is. It sounded an awful lot like an adaptation of a 2nd Amendment argument about guns which we project he would have disavowed, considering some of the other facile, liberal, easy-applause, political throwaway lines made during the evening. (Only two. Not bad.)

After the lecture we saw the second questioner in the lobby and commended him for being the irritant that brought out the evening’s pearl. He said he didn’t mean to be so irritating. We tried to reassure him.

Another questioner asked about his “nine screenplays” which total number Rushdie did dismiss. The only ones he’d worked on he was currently finishing up. He’s doing the scripts for a two-part adaptation of “Midnight’s Children”.

And, finally, we can’t remember the context because it seemed somewhat of a non sequitur, but he fortified our own view by making a point to say that, yes, Dan Brown is a hack.