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Joseph Anton: A Memoir
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Memoir & Autobiography (2012)On February 14, 1989, Valentine’s Day, Salman Rushdie received a telephone call from a BBC journalist who told the author that he had been “sentenced to death” by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the first time Rushdie heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being “against Islam, the Prophet, and the Quran.”
So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. Rushdie was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and various combinations of their names. Then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov—Joseph Anton.
How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, and how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir, Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of the crucial battle for freedom of speech. He shares the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom.
Compelling, provocative, and moving, Joseph Anton is a book of exceptional frankness, honesty, and vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.
So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. Rushdie was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and various combinations of their names. Then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov—Joseph Anton.
How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, and how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir, Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of the crucial battle for freedom of speech. He shares the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom.
Compelling, provocative, and moving, Joseph Anton is a book of exceptional frankness, honesty, and vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.
636 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Salman Rushdie
140 books11.8k followers
The Satanic Verses
(1988), novel of Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie led Ruholla Khomeini, the ayatollah of Iran, to demand his execution and then forced him into hiding; his other works include
Midnight's Children
(1981), which won the Booker prize, and
The Moor's Last Sigh
(1995).
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, a novelist and essayist, set much of his early fiction at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world.
His fourth novel led to some violent protests from Muslims in several countries. Faced with death threats and a fatwa (religious edict) issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, which called for him to be killed, he spent nearly a decade largely underground, appearing in public only sporadically. In June 2007, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for "services to literature", which "thrilled and humbled" him. In 2007, he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University.
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, a novelist and essayist, set much of his early fiction at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world.
His fourth novel led to some violent protests from Muslims in several countries. Faced with death threats and a fatwa (religious edict) issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, which called for him to be killed, he spent nearly a decade largely underground, appearing in public only sporadically. In June 2007, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor for "services to literature", which "thrilled and humbled" him. In 2007, he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University.
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August 27, 2022
Joseph Anton. Why such a pseudonym?
Is it some random name, or does it have any story or reason behind it? This was the question that came to my mind when I saw this book for the first time. If you are someone who has already read some books written by Salman Rushdie, you will understand why I thought like that. The answer to it is mentioned in this book. Joseph Anton was the combination of Rushdie's favorite two authors, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov.
Rushdie was forced to go into exile when he was "sentenced to death" by Ayatollah Khomeini. The reason for the fatwa was the alleged blasphemy when his novel Satanic verses hurt the religious sentiments of some people. He was forced to move from homes to homes and hotels to hotels almost every day in the initial few months of 1989. This chilling account tells us how Salman Rushdie lived in exile under a pseudonym for practically a decade.
This is not just another memoir by a famous writer. This is a compendium that touches almost all the harsh realities that human beings have been suffering in the name of religion, politics, and hatred associated with it. No other memoir in this current era has forced us to think deeply about freedom of speech like this book. It shows us why it is high time for the people in power to ensure that fundamental human rights are protected worldwide.
It is unfortunate to hear about the recent attack on the writer in New York. It won't be comforting for some readers to read how the author describes the people opposing him expecting such a thing to happen to him in the USA.
I am a person who read his controversial words in the book, The Satanic Verses. I can't deny that the author was a little harsh in how he wrote the book. But that is his freedom to write whatever he wants to write. The people who don't like it can oppose him and constructively criticize him through book reviews, discussions, debates, talk shows, documentaries, or any other acceptable manner. That is how an ideal world should work. Nobody has the right to try to kill a human being just because he wrote something that hurt their religious sentiments. It is sad to read that many people died after the book was published due to the religious disharmony caused by it. All the events that happened after publishing his book were extremely disturbing and unacceptable if you think from the angle of an ordinary human being.
What I learned from this book
1) The complicated relationship between digital permanence and book publishing
I am trying to interconnect two concepts with their own course of action with an underlying similarity.
Digital permanence is something that most of you must be familiar with, especially if you are a social media content creator. It says that once on the internet, always on the internet. If you upload or post something on the internet, it will stay there forever. Even if you try to delete it and wipe it out, it won't leave it as you think. Others might download it, and they will reupload it if what you published is controversial. Digital permanence shows us how responsible or careful we should be before posting something on the internet.
Salman Rushdie says a similar thing about book publishing. The book can only be considered the author's property until it is published. When it is published, then it belongs to the public.. The author can't make any changes to the book after it is published. Even if the author tries to change the subsequent editions, the earlier editions will keep resurfacing, and it is impossible to wipe them out. This is the portion of this book that all young new-generation authors should undeniably read.
2) What was Rushdie fighting for during the exile?
Rushdie fought for many things during the decade when he lived under a pseudonym. Freedom of speech was the most important thing he was fighting for. His creative process, personal freedom, marital harmony, and even his own life were at risk because he decided to make this difficult fight. He also met some extraordinary individuals who supported him immensely during these difficult times. We can see multiple conversations between Rusdhie and other great writers like Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Paul Theroux, Umberto Eco, Günter Grass, and many other great personalities in this book
3) Extraterritoriality
The author explains extraterritoriality or diplomatic immunity in an interesting way in this book.
4) What does the word, Rusdhie mean?
I always wondered what the meaning of the word Rushdie is. I even checked it a couple of times a few years ago, and I was not able to find the answer. The author is telling an interesting detail about how he got his name and the meaning hidden behind it in this book. The author tells us that the term Rushdie was his father, Anis's invention.
5) Security
Security is one of the important topics discussed in this book. Rushdie tells us about the difficulties of living under the instructions of the people who guard him for his safety.
My favourite three lines from this book
What could have been better?
This book is trying to discuss an extremely serious topic. The author is trying to discuss the freedom of expression and the prophet's honor. When great authors discuss such an important sensitive topic in memoirs, I usually see them getting into the shoes of those opposing them to explore and dissect their thought process to see the pros and cons of their thinking to understand the problem deeply. Rushdie is trying to do it, but I still feel he could have done it in a better way. He is trying to explain why he wrote the controversial part in The Satanic Verses here, which can again become controversial. Still, we can see the author taking a conservative approach to a certain extent when he explains it without hurting the sentiments of others much in this book.
Rushdie is a great writer, and we can see his immaculate writing skills when he narrates his own life story. Despite the flaws I mentioned above, he gives a wonderfully detailed account of his daily life and all the difficulties he faced during that time.
Rating
5/5 This is a memoir that has a lot of importance in the current era where the freedom of speech is deeply questioned and attacked by people from different phases of life. The author also discusses many other important topics, like Islamophobia and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. If you are an author or planning to become an author, this is a memoir that you should never miss.
Is it some random name, or does it have any story or reason behind it? This was the question that came to my mind when I saw this book for the first time. If you are someone who has already read some books written by Salman Rushdie, you will understand why I thought like that. The answer to it is mentioned in this book. Joseph Anton was the combination of Rushdie's favorite two authors, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov.
Rushdie was forced to go into exile when he was "sentenced to death" by Ayatollah Khomeini. The reason for the fatwa was the alleged blasphemy when his novel Satanic verses hurt the religious sentiments of some people. He was forced to move from homes to homes and hotels to hotels almost every day in the initial few months of 1989. This chilling account tells us how Salman Rushdie lived in exile under a pseudonym for practically a decade.
This is not just another memoir by a famous writer. This is a compendium that touches almost all the harsh realities that human beings have been suffering in the name of religion, politics, and hatred associated with it. No other memoir in this current era has forced us to think deeply about freedom of speech like this book. It shows us why it is high time for the people in power to ensure that fundamental human rights are protected worldwide.
It is unfortunate to hear about the recent attack on the writer in New York. It won't be comforting for some readers to read how the author describes the people opposing him expecting such a thing to happen to him in the USA.
I am a person who read his controversial words in the book, The Satanic Verses. I can't deny that the author was a little harsh in how he wrote the book. But that is his freedom to write whatever he wants to write. The people who don't like it can oppose him and constructively criticize him through book reviews, discussions, debates, talk shows, documentaries, or any other acceptable manner. That is how an ideal world should work. Nobody has the right to try to kill a human being just because he wrote something that hurt their religious sentiments. It is sad to read that many people died after the book was published due to the religious disharmony caused by it. All the events that happened after publishing his book were extremely disturbing and unacceptable if you think from the angle of an ordinary human being.
What I learned from this book
1) The complicated relationship between digital permanence and book publishing
I am trying to interconnect two concepts with their own course of action with an underlying similarity.
Digital permanence is something that most of you must be familiar with, especially if you are a social media content creator. It says that once on the internet, always on the internet. If you upload or post something on the internet, it will stay there forever. Even if you try to delete it and wipe it out, it won't leave it as you think. Others might download it, and they will reupload it if what you published is controversial. Digital permanence shows us how responsible or careful we should be before posting something on the internet.
Salman Rushdie says a similar thing about book publishing. The book can only be considered the author's property until it is published. When it is published, then it belongs to the public.. The author can't make any changes to the book after it is published. Even if the author tries to change the subsequent editions, the earlier editions will keep resurfacing, and it is impossible to wipe them out. This is the portion of this book that all young new-generation authors should undeniably read.
“ When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it"
2) What was Rushdie fighting for during the exile?
Rushdie fought for many things during the decade when he lived under a pseudonym. Freedom of speech was the most important thing he was fighting for. His creative process, personal freedom, marital harmony, and even his own life were at risk because he decided to make this difficult fight. He also met some extraordinary individuals who supported him immensely during these difficult times. We can see multiple conversations between Rusdhie and other great writers like Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Paul Theroux, Umberto Eco, Günter Grass, and many other great personalities in this book
"He was learning that to win a fight like this, it was not enough to know what one was fighting against. That was easy. He was fighting against the view that people could be killed for their ideas, and against the ability of any religion to place a limiting point on thought. But he needed, now, to be clear of what he was fighting for. Freedom of speech, freedom of the imagination, freedom from fear, and the beautiful, ancient art of which he was privileged to be a practitioner. Also skepticism, irreverence, doubt, satire, comedy, and unholy glee. He would never again flinch from the defense of these things."
"Free speech isn't absolute. We have the freedoms we fight for and we lose those we don't defend."
3) Extraterritoriality
The author explains extraterritoriality or diplomatic immunity in an interesting way in this book.
"There was another new word he had to learn. Here it was on the radio: extraterritoriality. Also known as state-sponsored terrorism. Voltaire had once said that it was a good idea for a writer to live near an international frontier so that, if he angered powerful men, he could skip across the border and be safe. Voltaire himself left France for England after he gave offense to an aristocrat, the Chevalier de Rohan, and remained in exile for seven years. But to live in a different country from one's persecutors was no longer to be safe. Now there was extraterritorial action. In other words, they came after you."
4) What does the word, Rusdhie mean?
I always wondered what the meaning of the word Rushdie is. I even checked it a couple of times a few years ago, and I was not able to find the answer. The author is telling an interesting detail about how he got his name and the meaning hidden behind it in this book. The author tells us that the term Rushdie was his father, Anis's invention.
"The first gift he received from his father, a gift like a message in a time capsule, which he didn't understand until he was an adult, was the family name. "Rushdie" was Anis's invention; his father's name had been quite a mouthful, Khwaja Muhammad Din Khaliqi Dehlavi, a fine Old Delhi name. Anis renamed himself "Rushdie" because of his admiration for Ibn Rushd, "Averroës" to the West, the twelfth-century Spanish-Arab philosopher of Córdoba who rose to become the qadi or judge of Seville, the translator of and acclaimed commentator upon the works of Aristotle. His son bore the name for two decades before he understood that his father, a true scholar of Islam who was also entirely lacking in religious belief, had chosen it because he respected Ibn Rushd for being at the forefront of the rationalist argument against Islamic literalism in his time.
"At least," he told himself when the storm broke over his head, "I'm going into this battle bearing the right name." "From beyond the grave his father had given him the flag under which he was ready to fight, the flag of Ibn Rushd, which stood for intellect, argument, analysis and progress, for the freedom of philosophy and learning from the shackles of theology, for human reason and against blind faith, submission, acceptance and stagnation. Nobody ever wanted to go to war, but if a war came your way, it might as well be the right war, about the most important things in the world, and you might as well, if you were going to fight it, be called "Rushdie," and stand where your father had placed you, in the tradition of the grand Aristotelian, Averroës, Abul Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd."
5) Security
Security is one of the important topics discussed in this book. Rushdie tells us about the difficulties of living under the instructions of the people who guard him for his safety.
“There was no such thing as absolute security. There were only varying degrees of insecurity. He would have to learn to live with that.
He was offered Kevlar bulletproof vests to wear. He refused them. And when he walked from the door of a car to the door of a building or back again, he consciously slowed down. He would not scuttle. He would try to walk with his head held high.
"If you succumb to the security description of the world," he told himself, "then you will be its creature forever, its prisoner." The security worldview was based on the so-called worst-case analysis. But the worst-case analysis of crossing a road is that there was a chance you would be hit by a truck, and therefore you should not cross the road. But people crossed roads every day and were not hit by trucks. This was a thing he would have to remember. There were only varying degrees of insecurity. He had to go on crossing roads."
My favourite three lines from this book
“The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it's teaching.”
"Rage made you the creature of those who enraged you, it gave them too much power. Rage killed the mind, and now more than ever the mind needed to live, to find a way of rising above the mindlessness."
"Man was the storytelling animal, the only creature on earth that told itself stories to understand what kind of creature it was. The story was his birthright, and nobody could take it away."
What could have been better?
This book is trying to discuss an extremely serious topic. The author is trying to discuss the freedom of expression and the prophet's honor. When great authors discuss such an important sensitive topic in memoirs, I usually see them getting into the shoes of those opposing them to explore and dissect their thought process to see the pros and cons of their thinking to understand the problem deeply. Rushdie is trying to do it, but I still feel he could have done it in a better way. He is trying to explain why he wrote the controversial part in The Satanic Verses here, which can again become controversial. Still, we can see the author taking a conservative approach to a certain extent when he explains it without hurting the sentiments of others much in this book.
Rushdie is a great writer, and we can see his immaculate writing skills when he narrates his own life story. Despite the flaws I mentioned above, he gives a wonderfully detailed account of his daily life and all the difficulties he faced during that time.
Rating
5/5 This is a memoir that has a lot of importance in the current era where the freedom of speech is deeply questioned and attacked by people from different phases of life. The author also discusses many other important topics, like Islamophobia and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. If you are an author or planning to become an author, this is a memoir that you should never miss.
September 5, 2023
Astonishing, searingly candid.
The cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie in Chatauqua New York (12 August 2022) sent me this memoir of the fatwa years, which had been on my backlist for some time. It turns out to be a dazzling text. Suddenly one looks up and it’s 4 a.m.
Rushdie evinces a great sense of humor, at times appropriately black. On 14 February 1989, for example, he was sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran for his supposedly blasphemous novel, The Satanic Verses. The very day he heard about the fatwa he had to attend travel writer Bruce Chatwin’s funeral. He writes about himself in third person.
Rushdie and his wife Marianne Wiggins “were seated next to Martin Amis and his wife, Antonia Phillips. ‘We were worried about you,’ Martin said, embracing him. ‘I’m worried about me,’ he replied. . . The novelist Paul Theroux was sitting in the pew behind him. ‘I suppose we’ll be here for you next week, Salman,’ he said.” (p. 9)
There is much here about how Rushdie wrote – or aspired to write — his novels: Midnight’s Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moors Last Sigh and The Ground Beneath Her Feet. It's not a writer's diary, there isn't much explanation of the writing process, but it offers helpful insight to his themes and style
What surprised me were the long periods he mentions when nothing was written. Being hunted down by an Iranian death squad will do that to you. Rushdie estimates that his state-sponsored cloistering stole two complete novels from him.
The account of the refusal of the Thatcher government to plead Rushdie’s case — that of the freedom of the writer to write as he wishes — is appalling. Thatcher’s government said nothing while he twisted in the wind; that is, while he was in isolation. No wonder Elvis Costello sang so fervently of how he longed to “tramp the dirt down.”
And let’s not forget the hostility of the tabloids too, which sympathized with local homicidal Muslim wack-jobs, and unconscionably called into question the cost of the protection services Rushdie “enjoyed." He didn’t get any traction on the British side until John Major gets into office, but by then he had, with the help of various GMOs, reeled in Bill Clinton and Vaclav Havel.
President Clinton would not commit in advance to meeting Rushdie, who was ready to settle for cabinet member Warren Christopher. Once in the White House however the two men met and Clinton promised his support. This was a huge breakthrough. America had spoken. Suddenly, the European states couldn’t wait to make some sign of their own support, whereas for the previous three years they had been quaking in their boots at the prospect of being executed by Iranian assassins. But the cowards soon backed down.
Meanwhile Rushdie couldn’t promote his own books. The first paperback version of The Satanic Verses had to be brought out by a nonprofit consortium because Random House was too afraid to publish.
His second wife Marianne Wiggins — also a novelist — didn't like living under a sentence of death, and she resented that her husband was taking up all the oxygen in the literary room. Her cruelty takes the breath away and it's a running motif through the first ⅔ of the book. Here’s one example. At one point early on she leaves him still in hiding in UK and returns to America. He calls her.
"He was in a red telephone booth on a Welsh hillside in the rain with a bag of coins in his hand and her voice in his ear. She had had dinner with Derek Walcott and Joseph Brodsky and the two Nobel laureates told her they would not have changed their lives as he had. ‘I would stay home and do exactly as always,’ Brodsky had declared, ‘and let's see what they could do.’ ‘ I explained it to them,’ she said on the phone. ‘I told them, "the poor man, he's afraid for his life!”’ Thanks a lot, Marianne, he thought. Joseph Brodsky had given her a foot massage, she said. Hearing that made him feel even better. His wife was with the two alpha males of world poetry getting foot rubs and telling them that her husband was too afraid to live as they would, in the open, courageously. She had been wearing saris everywhere, he said. So, not very low profile, then. He was about to say that perhaps the saris were a little obvious when she dropped her bombshell. She had been approached in her Boston hotel lobby by a CIA agent calling himself Stanley Howard. He had asked to speak with her and they had had a cup of coffee together. ‘They know where we were,’ she said in a heightened voice. ‘They have been inside the house. They took papers from your desk and your wastebasket. They showed them to me as proof that they had entered and looked around. The font and page setup and the work were all definitely yours. The people you live with didn't even know they'd been there. You can't trust the people you have with you now. You need to leave at once. You need to come to America. Mr. Howard Stanley wanted to know if our marriage was real, or if you just wanted to use it as a convenience, to get into America. I stood up for you, so he said then that was ok, you would be allowed to enter. You could live in America like a free man.’” (p. 190)
Rushdie tells all this to his British security detail who immediately move him, which is a colossal pain in the ass. Since, if the CIA knows, as Wiggins claims, then his cover is blown. Anyway, it turns out she was lying. She lied a lot apparently. He came to feel he could no longer trust her.
The use of the third person POV is, I think, needed. The story is powerful. There is so much chaos, danger, cruelty, so much grasping for the rational amid despair. The third person insulates the reader a bit from the madness. This reader cannot imagine the emotional contortions and assaults upon Rushdie’s dignity by his so-called peers, not to mention those wanting to murder him.
“There was an evening at Isabel Fonseca's apartment with Martin Amis, James Fenton, and Daryl Pinckney, and Martin depressed him by telling him that George Steiner believed he had ‘set out to make a lot of trouble,’ and Martin's father, Kingsley Amis, had said that ‘if you set out to make trouble you shouldn't complain when you get it’ and Al Alvarez had said that he had "done it because he wanted to be the most famous writer in the world.’ And to Germaine Greer he was a ‘megalomaniac’ and John le Carré had called him a ‘twerp’ and Martin's ex-stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard and Sybille Bedford thought he had ‘done it to make money.’ His friends were ridiculing these assertions but by the end of the evening he felt very upset and only Elizabeth [West]'s love brought him back.” (p. 396)
Add to this the ups and down of everyday life; writing, of course, or not writing, but also his long cohabitation with Elizabeth West, who was to become his third wife; the growing up of his first son; the birth of his second; buying the big house on Bishops Avenue which was filled with armed policemen; the bother of doing something as commonplace as seeing a friend, dining out, walking down the street. And of course regular assessments of the “threat level.”
Though the themes vary greatly between the two books, for sheer punch-you-in-the-mouth impact, Joseph Anton reminds me of Nien Cheng’s astonishing Life and Death in Shanghai. Cheng’s ordeal was more squalorous — she was tossed into a Chinese prison during Mao’s Cultural Revolution —but what she and Rushdie endured is equally beyond conception. That’s really the only parallel between the two books.
Before you know it he's estranged from Elizabeth West and moves on to Padma Lakshmi. Of course she’s beautiful, but she’s also a narcissist. And so astonishingly icy she might have been a candidate to play the role of The Night King in Game Of Thrones.
“She was capable of saying things of such majestic narcissism that he didn't know whether to bury his head in his hands or applaud. When the Indian movie star Aishwarya Rai was named the most beautiful Indian woman in the world in some glossy magazine or other, for example, Padma announced, in a room full of people, that she had ‘serious issues with that.’ Her moodiness was unpredictable and extreme. About him, she was guarded. ‘I'm just giving it the summer and then we'll see.’ She blew cold and hot and he was beginning to be unsure if the hot made the cold worthwhile. She was dark and closed off for days at a time and then one morning the sunlight streamed out of her face. His journal was full of his own doubts. ‘How long can I stay with this woman whose selfishness is her most prominent characteristic?’ One night they sat in Washington Square Park after a quarrelsome dinner and he told her, ‘This isn't working for me.’ After that for several days she was her sweetest self and he forgot why he had said what he said. She met some of his women friends and most of them approved. When he told her what they had said the positive remarks about her character mattered less to her than the comment about her perfect breasts. French Playboy found nude photographs of her and ran one on the cover, calling her his ‘fiancée.’ She didn't care about the words and she didn't mind the picture being there, but she wanted to be paid for it, and he had to hire a French lawyer to work for her. This is what I'm doing now, he thought, bewildered. My girlfriend is on the cover of Playboy in the nude and I'm negotiating the fee.” (p. 606)
The cultural references throughout the book: novels, plays, pop songs, news events, etc. all evoke moments in this reader's own life. It’s a neat feature of the text, if you’re of a certain age. Lastly, and somewhat obliquely, after reading the book one tries to imagine the author’s carbon footprint. It must be vast. He flies everywhere and his books are printed on paper.
When you’re up and around again, dear Mr. Rushdie, you may want to plant some trees.
The cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie in Chatauqua New York (12 August 2022) sent me this memoir of the fatwa years, which had been on my backlist for some time. It turns out to be a dazzling text. Suddenly one looks up and it’s 4 a.m.
Rushdie evinces a great sense of humor, at times appropriately black. On 14 February 1989, for example, he was sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran for his supposedly blasphemous novel, The Satanic Verses. The very day he heard about the fatwa he had to attend travel writer Bruce Chatwin’s funeral. He writes about himself in third person.
Rushdie and his wife Marianne Wiggins “were seated next to Martin Amis and his wife, Antonia Phillips. ‘We were worried about you,’ Martin said, embracing him. ‘I’m worried about me,’ he replied. . . The novelist Paul Theroux was sitting in the pew behind him. ‘I suppose we’ll be here for you next week, Salman,’ he said.” (p. 9)
There is much here about how Rushdie wrote – or aspired to write — his novels: Midnight’s Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Moors Last Sigh and The Ground Beneath Her Feet. It's not a writer's diary, there isn't much explanation of the writing process, but it offers helpful insight to his themes and style
What surprised me were the long periods he mentions when nothing was written. Being hunted down by an Iranian death squad will do that to you. Rushdie estimates that his state-sponsored cloistering stole two complete novels from him.
The account of the refusal of the Thatcher government to plead Rushdie’s case — that of the freedom of the writer to write as he wishes — is appalling. Thatcher’s government said nothing while he twisted in the wind; that is, while he was in isolation. No wonder Elvis Costello sang so fervently of how he longed to “tramp the dirt down.”
And let’s not forget the hostility of the tabloids too, which sympathized with local homicidal Muslim wack-jobs, and unconscionably called into question the cost of the protection services Rushdie “enjoyed." He didn’t get any traction on the British side until John Major gets into office, but by then he had, with the help of various GMOs, reeled in Bill Clinton and Vaclav Havel.
President Clinton would not commit in advance to meeting Rushdie, who was ready to settle for cabinet member Warren Christopher. Once in the White House however the two men met and Clinton promised his support. This was a huge breakthrough. America had spoken. Suddenly, the European states couldn’t wait to make some sign of their own support, whereas for the previous three years they had been quaking in their boots at the prospect of being executed by Iranian assassins. But the cowards soon backed down.
Meanwhile Rushdie couldn’t promote his own books. The first paperback version of The Satanic Verses had to be brought out by a nonprofit consortium because Random House was too afraid to publish.
His second wife Marianne Wiggins — also a novelist — didn't like living under a sentence of death, and she resented that her husband was taking up all the oxygen in the literary room. Her cruelty takes the breath away and it's a running motif through the first ⅔ of the book. Here’s one example. At one point early on she leaves him still in hiding in UK and returns to America. He calls her.
"He was in a red telephone booth on a Welsh hillside in the rain with a bag of coins in his hand and her voice in his ear. She had had dinner with Derek Walcott and Joseph Brodsky and the two Nobel laureates told her they would not have changed their lives as he had. ‘I would stay home and do exactly as always,’ Brodsky had declared, ‘and let's see what they could do.’ ‘ I explained it to them,’ she said on the phone. ‘I told them, "the poor man, he's afraid for his life!”’ Thanks a lot, Marianne, he thought. Joseph Brodsky had given her a foot massage, she said. Hearing that made him feel even better. His wife was with the two alpha males of world poetry getting foot rubs and telling them that her husband was too afraid to live as they would, in the open, courageously. She had been wearing saris everywhere, he said. So, not very low profile, then. He was about to say that perhaps the saris were a little obvious when she dropped her bombshell. She had been approached in her Boston hotel lobby by a CIA agent calling himself Stanley Howard. He had asked to speak with her and they had had a cup of coffee together. ‘They know where we were,’ she said in a heightened voice. ‘They have been inside the house. They took papers from your desk and your wastebasket. They showed them to me as proof that they had entered and looked around. The font and page setup and the work were all definitely yours. The people you live with didn't even know they'd been there. You can't trust the people you have with you now. You need to leave at once. You need to come to America. Mr. Howard Stanley wanted to know if our marriage was real, or if you just wanted to use it as a convenience, to get into America. I stood up for you, so he said then that was ok, you would be allowed to enter. You could live in America like a free man.’” (p. 190)
Rushdie tells all this to his British security detail who immediately move him, which is a colossal pain in the ass. Since, if the CIA knows, as Wiggins claims, then his cover is blown. Anyway, it turns out she was lying. She lied a lot apparently. He came to feel he could no longer trust her.
The use of the third person POV is, I think, needed. The story is powerful. There is so much chaos, danger, cruelty, so much grasping for the rational amid despair. The third person insulates the reader a bit from the madness. This reader cannot imagine the emotional contortions and assaults upon Rushdie’s dignity by his so-called peers, not to mention those wanting to murder him.
“There was an evening at Isabel Fonseca's apartment with Martin Amis, James Fenton, and Daryl Pinckney, and Martin depressed him by telling him that George Steiner believed he had ‘set out to make a lot of trouble,’ and Martin's father, Kingsley Amis, had said that ‘if you set out to make trouble you shouldn't complain when you get it’ and Al Alvarez had said that he had "done it because he wanted to be the most famous writer in the world.’ And to Germaine Greer he was a ‘megalomaniac’ and John le Carré had called him a ‘twerp’ and Martin's ex-stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard and Sybille Bedford thought he had ‘done it to make money.’ His friends were ridiculing these assertions but by the end of the evening he felt very upset and only Elizabeth [West]'s love brought him back.” (p. 396)
Add to this the ups and down of everyday life; writing, of course, or not writing, but also his long cohabitation with Elizabeth West, who was to become his third wife; the growing up of his first son; the birth of his second; buying the big house on Bishops Avenue which was filled with armed policemen; the bother of doing something as commonplace as seeing a friend, dining out, walking down the street. And of course regular assessments of the “threat level.”
Though the themes vary greatly between the two books, for sheer punch-you-in-the-mouth impact, Joseph Anton reminds me of Nien Cheng’s astonishing Life and Death in Shanghai. Cheng’s ordeal was more squalorous — she was tossed into a Chinese prison during Mao’s Cultural Revolution —but what she and Rushdie endured is equally beyond conception. That’s really the only parallel between the two books.
Before you know it he's estranged from Elizabeth West and moves on to Padma Lakshmi. Of course she’s beautiful, but she’s also a narcissist. And so astonishingly icy she might have been a candidate to play the role of The Night King in Game Of Thrones.
“She was capable of saying things of such majestic narcissism that he didn't know whether to bury his head in his hands or applaud. When the Indian movie star Aishwarya Rai was named the most beautiful Indian woman in the world in some glossy magazine or other, for example, Padma announced, in a room full of people, that she had ‘serious issues with that.’ Her moodiness was unpredictable and extreme. About him, she was guarded. ‘I'm just giving it the summer and then we'll see.’ She blew cold and hot and he was beginning to be unsure if the hot made the cold worthwhile. She was dark and closed off for days at a time and then one morning the sunlight streamed out of her face. His journal was full of his own doubts. ‘How long can I stay with this woman whose selfishness is her most prominent characteristic?’ One night they sat in Washington Square Park after a quarrelsome dinner and he told her, ‘This isn't working for me.’ After that for several days she was her sweetest self and he forgot why he had said what he said. She met some of his women friends and most of them approved. When he told her what they had said the positive remarks about her character mattered less to her than the comment about her perfect breasts. French Playboy found nude photographs of her and ran one on the cover, calling her his ‘fiancée.’ She didn't care about the words and she didn't mind the picture being there, but she wanted to be paid for it, and he had to hire a French lawyer to work for her. This is what I'm doing now, he thought, bewildered. My girlfriend is on the cover of Playboy in the nude and I'm negotiating the fee.” (p. 606)
The cultural references throughout the book: novels, plays, pop songs, news events, etc. all evoke moments in this reader's own life. It’s a neat feature of the text, if you’re of a certain age. Lastly, and somewhat obliquely, after reading the book one tries to imagine the author’s carbon footprint. It must be vast. He flies everywhere and his books are printed on paper.
When you’re up and around again, dear Mr. Rushdie, you may want to plant some trees.
May 6, 2015
He didn't need the publicity, he didn't need the money, he knew as a highly-educated man brought up as a Muslim, exactly what he was doing and still he did it and brought death and destruction in the wake of his book, The Satanic Verses.
It was a kind of Pyrrhic victory, being morally in the right but impossible to justify when weighed against the many deaths that resulted. Those fundamentalist Muslims were determined to enforce at least outward respect for their 'values' just as he knew they would.
They were all, to a man, completely wrong. It was a book, it was a popular book, not great literature destined to live forever. So it trod on religious sensibilities, was it worth all the killings and burnings just so the perpetrators could feel they had avenged themselves, saying it was their prophet they were avenging? Islam, the word itself has the root 'peace' (the consonants SLM, salaam, shalom) yet the more fervent fundamentalist interpreters of that religion practise anything but that.
Would Mohammed himself have rejoiced or condemned all the killings just because of his depiction in such a piece of ephemera? If he would have rejoiced in all those killings, wouldn't it give anyone pause for thought that this leader might not be showing the right path through life? Or, much, much more probable, that they had (mis)interpreted Mohammed in such a violent and wicked way because that was their natures, their intentions projected on to him to justify their own disgusting actions.
The book is quite a good read, Rushdie writes well and his life is not-uninteresting, but as with all his books with the possible exception of Shame, he does go on and he is so full of himself.
In the end, with the Satanic Verses, he swapped fame for notoriety and this autobiography isn't going to help put him back on his literary pedestal.
It was a kind of Pyrrhic victory, being morally in the right but impossible to justify when weighed against the many deaths that resulted. Those fundamentalist Muslims were determined to enforce at least outward respect for their 'values' just as he knew they would.
They were all, to a man, completely wrong. It was a book, it was a popular book, not great literature destined to live forever. So it trod on religious sensibilities, was it worth all the killings and burnings just so the perpetrators could feel they had avenged themselves, saying it was their prophet they were avenging? Islam, the word itself has the root 'peace' (the consonants SLM, salaam, shalom) yet the more fervent fundamentalist interpreters of that religion practise anything but that.
Would Mohammed himself have rejoiced or condemned all the killings just because of his depiction in such a piece of ephemera? If he would have rejoiced in all those killings, wouldn't it give anyone pause for thought that this leader might not be showing the right path through life? Or, much, much more probable, that they had (mis)interpreted Mohammed in such a violent and wicked way because that was their natures, their intentions projected on to him to justify their own disgusting actions.
The book is quite a good read, Rushdie writes well and his life is not-uninteresting, but as with all his books with the possible exception of Shame, he does go on and he is so full of himself.
In the end, with the Satanic Verses, he swapped fame for notoriety and this autobiography isn't going to help put him back on his literary pedestal.
February 27, 2022
“A comfortable prison was still a prison.”
Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton: A Memoir is an engaging account of Rushdie’s life in the aftermath of the fatwa issued against him in 1989 (in effect, the Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced him to death for blasphemy against the Prophet for his novel, The Satanic Verses). As a literature major at college, I followed the news of the fatwa (but I wasn't the only one as evidenced by the "Seinfeld" episode shown above). Especially in the first couple of years, I heard about threats to publishers and booksellers, demonstrations and occasionally updates about Rushdie himself.
What it was like to be ‘in hiding’ for the nine years of the fatwa? Joseph Anton was the alias Rushdie used, a combination of the first names of two of his favorite writers: Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. Written in the third person, Rusdhie’s describes life under police protection, relationships with family and friends and ways he attempted both to write and stay engaged in the bigger fight against censorship. There were interesting stages in how he tried to get his life back after the initial shock of the fatwa. From wanting to be safe to appearing at public events to show the terrorists he wouldn’t be cowed to all the backroom negotiations with the UK, US and European governments who were reluctant to stand up to Iran because it might hurt their specific interests, I found Joseph Anton a fascinating account of a very talented writer.
Several years ago, I took some students from my creative writing class to meet Rushdie at an event in Wyoming promoting his new book, The Enchantress of Florence. I had started each semester with a reading from The Satanic Verses.
Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton: A Memoir is an engaging account of Rushdie’s life in the aftermath of the fatwa issued against him in 1989 (in effect, the Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced him to death for blasphemy against the Prophet for his novel, The Satanic Verses). As a literature major at college, I followed the news of the fatwa (but I wasn't the only one as evidenced by the "Seinfeld" episode shown above). Especially in the first couple of years, I heard about threats to publishers and booksellers, demonstrations and occasionally updates about Rushdie himself.
What it was like to be ‘in hiding’ for the nine years of the fatwa? Joseph Anton was the alias Rushdie used, a combination of the first names of two of his favorite writers: Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. Written in the third person, Rusdhie’s describes life under police protection, relationships with family and friends and ways he attempted both to write and stay engaged in the bigger fight against censorship. There were interesting stages in how he tried to get his life back after the initial shock of the fatwa. From wanting to be safe to appearing at public events to show the terrorists he wouldn’t be cowed to all the backroom negotiations with the UK, US and European governments who were reluctant to stand up to Iran because it might hurt their specific interests, I found Joseph Anton a fascinating account of a very talented writer.
Several years ago, I took some students from my creative writing class to meet Rushdie at an event in Wyoming promoting his new book, The Enchantress of Florence. I had started each semester with a reading from The Satanic Verses.
May 12, 2018
I’m going to review this book without actually talking about it, though I don’t think it really matters.
I read a lot, though I also write a lot. I write short stories, poetry and essays. I write reviews every day to practice writing and to capture my thoughts on certain topics. I even have a 1st draft of a fantasy novel that is some weird hybrid of Avatar and A Game of Thrones that I wrote when I was nineteen. It’s garbage, full of clichés and driven by a lack of imagination. My point is, I read to write and I am always trying to get better. I am mainly a critic, though the more I read the more creative ideas I get.
Somewhere around half way through Joseph Anton I stopped reading and I started writing, really writing. There was a line in the text that stood out to me; I have lost in since, though Rushdie emphasised the use of personal experience combined with representations of the contemporary in order to create successful fiction: fiction that is relevant and driven by real human emotion. I found myself agreeing and began pouring my thoughts into a notepad.
I don’t know what will become of my writing. I may grow board and never finish. I may reach the end and burn it out of disgust or I may actually start to edit it and go from there. What I am trying to say with this review, is that hearing the literary experience of another writer inspired me to start taking things a little more seriously. I have been less active on here for the last few months because I have been busy.
I am now writing a novel again, for the first time in five years. What will be will be.
I read a lot, though I also write a lot. I write short stories, poetry and essays. I write reviews every day to practice writing and to capture my thoughts on certain topics. I even have a 1st draft of a fantasy novel that is some weird hybrid of Avatar and A Game of Thrones that I wrote when I was nineteen. It’s garbage, full of clichés and driven by a lack of imagination. My point is, I read to write and I am always trying to get better. I am mainly a critic, though the more I read the more creative ideas I get.
Somewhere around half way through Joseph Anton I stopped reading and I started writing, really writing. There was a line in the text that stood out to me; I have lost in since, though Rushdie emphasised the use of personal experience combined with representations of the contemporary in order to create successful fiction: fiction that is relevant and driven by real human emotion. I found myself agreeing and began pouring my thoughts into a notepad.
I don’t know what will become of my writing. I may grow board and never finish. I may reach the end and burn it out of disgust or I may actually start to edit it and go from there. What I am trying to say with this review, is that hearing the literary experience of another writer inspired me to start taking things a little more seriously. I have been less active on here for the last few months because I have been busy.
I am now writing a novel again, for the first time in five years. What will be will be.
May 15, 2019
I couldn’t get through The Satanic Verses. I found it unreadable in spite of my immense curiosity for the book. But I picked up this book with great interest to see what Rushdie went through and how he coped with the aftermath of that infamous fatwa. This book is probably twice larger than it should be, and methinks it’s commensurate with Rushdie’s ego.
To read the account of this struggle from Rushdie himself is be annoyed by the man. He comes from a Muslim background. I found his knowledge of Islam and its history and its thinkers (and classical Persian literature!) quite impressive. He knew what he was doing, and he did it. Fine. But then he goes around acting like he’s owed support and solidarity from every person and every government and every organization and every publisher. He doesn’t care that a lot of people had to go through a lot of risk and danger because of that book. He’s on the right side of the argument, dammit, and everyone should stand by him. He’s even written this memoir in third person, as if talking about some great hero standing up to the evil. He was accused by a lot of people of being ungrateful and egotistical. This book doesn’t help much to dispel those accusations. Lots of self-righteous anger and vengeful score-settling with publishers, journalists, friends, ex-wives, security personnel, politicians, etc. He does his best, but at the end he still comes off as self-centered. He can’t help it.
Rushdie is a fine writer, but I like him less as a person after reading his memoir.
To read the account of this struggle from Rushdie himself is be annoyed by the man. He comes from a Muslim background. I found his knowledge of Islam and its history and its thinkers (and classical Persian literature!) quite impressive. He knew what he was doing, and he did it. Fine. But then he goes around acting like he’s owed support and solidarity from every person and every government and every organization and every publisher. He doesn’t care that a lot of people had to go through a lot of risk and danger because of that book. He’s on the right side of the argument, dammit, and everyone should stand by him. He’s even written this memoir in third person, as if talking about some great hero standing up to the evil. He was accused by a lot of people of being ungrateful and egotistical. This book doesn’t help much to dispel those accusations. Lots of self-righteous anger and vengeful score-settling with publishers, journalists, friends, ex-wives, security personnel, politicians, etc. He does his best, but at the end he still comes off as self-centered. He can’t help it.
Rushdie is a fine writer, but I like him less as a person after reading his memoir.
December 18, 2013
I was pondering the reviews of this book on Goodreads the other day, as I was almost finished and just wondering what other people think. A lot of people seem to find Rushdie coming across as arrogant or pompous. This is something I totally disagree with and in fact I think one of the issues he actually covers in this book. As the media saw and treated him as arrogant for quite a long time. To me he honestly doesn't come across as arrogant.
Something else people were critical about is the way the book is written in third person. I thought this strange at the beginning. But looking back, after finishing the book, I think it might have helped him through writing the memoir. It gives him the opportunity to take a step back from his life and look at it from a bird eye view. So for me it actually felt like quite an interesting way to write your auto-biography.
I actually started reading the book to help me with an essay on Midnight's Children. I didn't finish before I finished the essay, but I just got so pulled into Rushdie's story that I couldn't put it own after finishing the essay. Also I find it very difficult to leave a book unfinished. After Midnight's Children this was obviously very different, but there are definitely similarities in writing style. I found the whole book very compelling and it reads very smoothly. When reading Rushdie I just want to write down quotes all the time. He comes up with some of the most beautiful sentences/paragraphs. Sometimes I just have to read one sentence over and over again because it's so beautiful.
I have to say I think I've become a fan. I don't think many of my study buddies will agree with me, but I like Mr. Rushdie, I really do!
Something else people were critical about is the way the book is written in third person. I thought this strange at the beginning. But looking back, after finishing the book, I think it might have helped him through writing the memoir. It gives him the opportunity to take a step back from his life and look at it from a bird eye view. So for me it actually felt like quite an interesting way to write your auto-biography.
I actually started reading the book to help me with an essay on Midnight's Children. I didn't finish before I finished the essay, but I just got so pulled into Rushdie's story that I couldn't put it own after finishing the essay. Also I find it very difficult to leave a book unfinished. After Midnight's Children this was obviously very different, but there are definitely similarities in writing style. I found the whole book very compelling and it reads very smoothly. When reading Rushdie I just want to write down quotes all the time. He comes up with some of the most beautiful sentences/paragraphs. Sometimes I just have to read one sentence over and over again because it's so beautiful.
I have to say I think I've become a fan. I don't think many of my study buddies will agree with me, but I like Mr. Rushdie, I really do!
November 17, 2012
It took a commitment to finish this book but I was pleased to have done it. Rushdie's manner is sometimes arrogant and seemingly self-involved but he is wonderfully talented and unafraid to let the reader judge him. He analyzes his circumstances and his own thinking and he challenges his reader to understand Salmon's predicament. His story of threat and exile should not be lost as it is significant to our future freedom of speech and artistic expression, our quality of life and even our survival. Rushdie's tell-all provides insight into societal fears, courage and cowardice of leaders, instability and unreliability of media, and the importance of personal involvement in maintaining our civil rights. I was impressed that Rushdie did not hide his personal foibles, anger, infidelity, and self-centered behavior as he recounted his talents, connections, and successes.
December 4, 2013
As you are fighting a battle that may cost you your life, is the thing for which you are fighting worth loosing your life for? (p. 285)
So why is it that I feel I have to defend liking this book? Almost all reviews I’ve read – from New York Times to Goodreads – have been rather negative, attacking and blaming Rushdie. So I will just come right out and say that I really liked this book. Yes, he namedrops on every page. Yes, he of course paints a (mostly) positive picture of himself (but who wouldn’t?). Yes he knows his own worth and uses this opportunity to settle a few scores. But still, I enjoyed every page of this and read and read and read.
This of course is the story of the famous fatwa. On February 14th, 1989, Rushdie receives a phone call, informing him that Ayatollah Khomeini has sentenced him to death because of his novel, The Satanic Verses . This book details then his life for the next 12 years, trying to live as normal as possible while being under constant police protection, moving from house to house, relying on the kindness of his friends, driving bulletproof cars and trying to survive, both mentally and physically.
He writes about his private life, his childhood, his years in school, his marriages, his children, his attempt to be a father in these most extraordinary circumstances. He constantly struggles against people – both official people and the public – believing he doesn’t deserve to be protected because he has brought this on himself. He doesn’t agree with this – and neither do I. A leader of a state does not have to right to condemn the citizen of another state to death. So Rushdie struggles with Government officials, ministers and the leaders of his protection service to get them to continue to protect him and to allow him to live as free a life as possible so he can be a father, be a man and a writer, and do the publicity necessary to promote his books.
A strange thing with this book is that even though it is a memoir, it is written in the third person. Rushdie never writes I but writes he, even when writing about his own thoughts. I actually really liked this because for me, it felt like Rushdie was standing outside his life, looking in, trying to make sense of what happened to him. For me, it worked! He is also juggling with various identities through this – there’s Salman, the private man his friends knows; there’s Rushdie, the hated man, the demonstrators are renouncing on the streets; and there’s Joseph Anton, his alias, created out of the names of his two favorite writers, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. So in some ways, it must be hard to see these years living like this, split into three, as his life instead of someone else’s life, a fictional life.
The book really shows what kind of man he is. Intelligent, well-read, knowledgeable about both the classics and modern (pop) culture (JK Rowling, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, Super Mario, various sci-fi etc). He writes about his process when writing books, about getting ideas and using things from his real life experience in his books. And he writes about all his books in a way which makes me want to read them. And I love that while he shares all the famous writers, actors, politicians etc he meets, he also writes about how proud he is to complete his Super Mario game and how he thinks Birkenstocks is the uncoolest footwear, except for Crocs (p. 342). I really enjoyed how he shows his humor throughout the book even though he battles depression throughout these years, living with a constant death sentence over his head.
‘Who shall have control over the story? Who has, who should have, the power not only to tell the stories within which, we all lived, but also to say in what manner those stories may be told? For everyone lived by and inside stories, the so-called grand narratives. The nation was a story, and the family was another, and religion was a third. As a creative artist he knew that the only answer to the question was: Everyone and anyone has, or should have that power.’ (p. 360)
Of particular interest to me, was of course the times he mentioned Denmark and the Danish reaction to the fatwa. Overall, it seems his Danish publisher wasn’t afraid and not only published the paperback – which was a big deal – but also compared the risk of publishing it to crossing the street. It is sobering to read about how hard it was for him to get the paperback published in UK and US because if that paperback hadn’t come out, his attackers would have won.
When I began reading this novel, I had to come to terms with something. I was 12 years old when the fatwa was issued and I don’t remember anything about it from back then. But I’ve always believed that he was in the right to publish that book and that no one had the right to attack him for that. But at the same time, I was against the so called ‘Danish Cartoons’, the caricatures of Muhammad posted by Jyllands-Posten back in 2005. Of course I didn’t want anyone attacking Kurt Westergaard, one of the drawers, but I didn’t like the idea of these drawings. Now, how could I reconcile supporting Rushdie and believing him to be in the right while not supporting these drawings? I thought about that for a while and for me, the answer is, that Jyllands-Posten did it intentionally to cause a disturbance while Rushdie didn’t set out to do anything but write a novel. Whether you agree or disagree with someone, they should always be allowed to talk, to say their mind. You have to use words to defeat words, not guns or bombs or knives.
In Denmark, we have just had another case of a journalist known for criticizing Islam being attacked and attempted assassinated. Now I disagree with this man but you can’t go around shooting at people you disagree with. But what this shows is that Rushdie’s case is still current. We still have to fight for freedom of speech. Rushdie survived the fatwa and lived to see it being put to rest. He views his case as a prologue to all that happened after 9-11 and even though we all should have become wiser, we haven’t really. Unfortunately.
The value of art lies in the love it engenders, not the hatred. It is love that makes books last. (p. 316)
So why is it that I feel I have to defend liking this book? Almost all reviews I’ve read – from New York Times to Goodreads – have been rather negative, attacking and blaming Rushdie. So I will just come right out and say that I really liked this book. Yes, he namedrops on every page. Yes, he of course paints a (mostly) positive picture of himself (but who wouldn’t?). Yes he knows his own worth and uses this opportunity to settle a few scores. But still, I enjoyed every page of this and read and read and read.
This of course is the story of the famous fatwa. On February 14th, 1989, Rushdie receives a phone call, informing him that Ayatollah Khomeini has sentenced him to death because of his novel, The Satanic Verses . This book details then his life for the next 12 years, trying to live as normal as possible while being under constant police protection, moving from house to house, relying on the kindness of his friends, driving bulletproof cars and trying to survive, both mentally and physically.
He writes about his private life, his childhood, his years in school, his marriages, his children, his attempt to be a father in these most extraordinary circumstances. He constantly struggles against people – both official people and the public – believing he doesn’t deserve to be protected because he has brought this on himself. He doesn’t agree with this – and neither do I. A leader of a state does not have to right to condemn the citizen of another state to death. So Rushdie struggles with Government officials, ministers and the leaders of his protection service to get them to continue to protect him and to allow him to live as free a life as possible so he can be a father, be a man and a writer, and do the publicity necessary to promote his books.
A strange thing with this book is that even though it is a memoir, it is written in the third person. Rushdie never writes I but writes he, even when writing about his own thoughts. I actually really liked this because for me, it felt like Rushdie was standing outside his life, looking in, trying to make sense of what happened to him. For me, it worked! He is also juggling with various identities through this – there’s Salman, the private man his friends knows; there’s Rushdie, the hated man, the demonstrators are renouncing on the streets; and there’s Joseph Anton, his alias, created out of the names of his two favorite writers, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. So in some ways, it must be hard to see these years living like this, split into three, as his life instead of someone else’s life, a fictional life.
The book really shows what kind of man he is. Intelligent, well-read, knowledgeable about both the classics and modern (pop) culture (JK Rowling, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, Super Mario, various sci-fi etc). He writes about his process when writing books, about getting ideas and using things from his real life experience in his books. And he writes about all his books in a way which makes me want to read them. And I love that while he shares all the famous writers, actors, politicians etc he meets, he also writes about how proud he is to complete his Super Mario game and how he thinks Birkenstocks is the uncoolest footwear, except for Crocs (p. 342). I really enjoyed how he shows his humor throughout the book even though he battles depression throughout these years, living with a constant death sentence over his head.
‘Who shall have control over the story? Who has, who should have, the power not only to tell the stories within which, we all lived, but also to say in what manner those stories may be told? For everyone lived by and inside stories, the so-called grand narratives. The nation was a story, and the family was another, and religion was a third. As a creative artist he knew that the only answer to the question was: Everyone and anyone has, or should have that power.’ (p. 360)
Of particular interest to me, was of course the times he mentioned Denmark and the Danish reaction to the fatwa. Overall, it seems his Danish publisher wasn’t afraid and not only published the paperback – which was a big deal – but also compared the risk of publishing it to crossing the street. It is sobering to read about how hard it was for him to get the paperback published in UK and US because if that paperback hadn’t come out, his attackers would have won.
When I began reading this novel, I had to come to terms with something. I was 12 years old when the fatwa was issued and I don’t remember anything about it from back then. But I’ve always believed that he was in the right to publish that book and that no one had the right to attack him for that. But at the same time, I was against the so called ‘Danish Cartoons’, the caricatures of Muhammad posted by Jyllands-Posten back in 2005. Of course I didn’t want anyone attacking Kurt Westergaard, one of the drawers, but I didn’t like the idea of these drawings. Now, how could I reconcile supporting Rushdie and believing him to be in the right while not supporting these drawings? I thought about that for a while and for me, the answer is, that Jyllands-Posten did it intentionally to cause a disturbance while Rushdie didn’t set out to do anything but write a novel. Whether you agree or disagree with someone, they should always be allowed to talk, to say their mind. You have to use words to defeat words, not guns or bombs or knives.
In Denmark, we have just had another case of a journalist known for criticizing Islam being attacked and attempted assassinated. Now I disagree with this man but you can’t go around shooting at people you disagree with. But what this shows is that Rushdie’s case is still current. We still have to fight for freedom of speech. Rushdie survived the fatwa and lived to see it being put to rest. He views his case as a prologue to all that happened after 9-11 and even though we all should have become wiser, we haven’t really. Unfortunately.
The value of art lies in the love it engenders, not the hatred. It is love that makes books last. (p. 316)
October 30, 2012
In the first few chapters, I was a bit surprised at the gossipy, somewhat catty tone, and figured it would be chatty and light and fun, but alas: petty grievances aired, endless names dropped, revenge exacted for real or perceived insults of either the author's conduct or writing, ex-wives trashed. The treatment of these unfortunate women is surprisingly childish; he sounded like a preteen talking about how victimized he was by Padma Lakshmi (and his second wife). He also reveals himself to be something of a misogynist when he details how crazy yet another ex-wife is. All personal responsibility is absolved when he says he felt guilty about treating someone badly, or that they manipulated him into it. (And maybe by writing a memoir in the third person.)
But most disappointing of all is the way the author speaks of religion. He was obviously tremendously wronged by the fatwa, but the views he expressed here sounded recidivist and strikingly intolerant. He lumps together Islamic fundamentalists and (most) other Muslims, possibly offering a brief and unmemorable disclaimer. He also condemns individuals for practicing religion of any kind (but Islam most resoundingly).
I saw him at readings several times, and he was engaging and well-spoken. I also love his work, so all in all, this is a very sad view into someone who comes across as talented author making a fool of himself pursuing celebrity during a cliched midlife crisis. I was somewhat bewildered by his shift into pop culture over recent years, but didn't really pay much attention, so this was somewhat jarring.
Going to be hard to expunge the memory of this sufficiently to continue to read or re-read and enjoy his work. Those of you who love him and find it hard to appreciate literary work of those who irk you (you know who you are), beware.
But most disappointing of all is the way the author speaks of religion. He was obviously tremendously wronged by the fatwa, but the views he expressed here sounded recidivist and strikingly intolerant. He lumps together Islamic fundamentalists and (most) other Muslims, possibly offering a brief and unmemorable disclaimer. He also condemns individuals for practicing religion of any kind (but Islam most resoundingly).
I saw him at readings several times, and he was engaging and well-spoken. I also love his work, so all in all, this is a very sad view into someone who comes across as talented author making a fool of himself pursuing celebrity during a cliched midlife crisis. I was somewhat bewildered by his shift into pop culture over recent years, but didn't really pay much attention, so this was somewhat jarring.
Going to be hard to expunge the memory of this sufficiently to continue to read or re-read and enjoy his work. Those of you who love him and find it hard to appreciate literary work of those who irk you (you know who you are), beware.
April 26, 2024
ReRead in 2024 while also reading Knife.
2022
Another re-read. And it's still a fantastic book.
2022
Another re-read. And it's still a fantastic book.
Read
September 20, 2012I don't even know what to think about this thing. About the first half is really great - even written in the Bob Dole-ish autobiographical third person - gripping, suspenseful, detailed. But the book just dies about halfway through - he starts eliding weeks, months and years, and then disastrously starts flashing forward at the same time as if he thinks he's writing a late Lost episode (near the very end he calls attention to "his Dickensian, let's-tie-up-the-loose-strings seat in the future" which is obviously 2011, when he's writing the book, except its action ends pretty much in 2001) so it just becomes really hard to tell what's even happening when. And he turns terribly sexist, shallow and obsessed with celebrities to boot. You would think, since his own ordeal essentially was (as he calls it) "prologue" to the changed world after 9/11, and this memoir was written not only at the ten-year anniversary of that event but also after both the Arab Spring and a resurgence of protests, these chronological markers would help him organize his thoughts or at least his narrative somewhat, even if only emotionally. But no, we wind up hearing a lot about Bono and Hitchens and Padma. (Oh, do we ever hear about Padma. Eight years of relationship are compressed into an insultingly small number of pages, and yet the second-hand embarrassment -- dare I say, shame? -- I felt on reading his vengeful invective dragged out the subjective mental reading-time horribly.)
It's obvious he feels people got sick of his story (even while it was still happening to him, his family, his friends and protectors), and that it's been told and retold so many times in such distorted ways that this fancy-ass attempt at depicting himself unstuck in time is how he's trying to make it new. (And, possibly, describe the great disconnected swathe of time in his life when he was really not himself.) But the best parts of the book are when he simply and directly presents his own emotions. When he writes about literature, his thoughts aren't that novel (and at times teeter on cliche) but are given force and power by his actual lived experience; when he writes about politics it's just disastrous. Usually when a book is this thin it's because the author's tried to write it too quickly after the actual events; but he's had ten years since the willed happy ending, when his protection is removed by mutual consent and he hails a cab, and it's hard to think any more time would deepen his reflections. Perhaps the unintentional point is that some experiences are so huge and shattering you don't ever really move on past them, digest them, contain them. When people go nuts or get addicted or suffer some other near-unendurable trauma of the spirit, what they, and their families and loved ones, always want is my old life back. I want him back. I want her back. I want what we had. But you don't get to go back; if you're lucky, you get to go forward, but it's really not at all the same thing.
-- Just go read this review, it's great. Just remember: 'And William Styron's genitalia are unexpectedly on display one convivial evening at Martha's Vineyard.'
It's obvious he feels people got sick of his story (even while it was still happening to him, his family, his friends and protectors), and that it's been told and retold so many times in such distorted ways that this fancy-ass attempt at depicting himself unstuck in time is how he's trying to make it new. (And, possibly, describe the great disconnected swathe of time in his life when he was really not himself.) But the best parts of the book are when he simply and directly presents his own emotions. When he writes about literature, his thoughts aren't that novel (and at times teeter on cliche) but are given force and power by his actual lived experience; when he writes about politics it's just disastrous. Usually when a book is this thin it's because the author's tried to write it too quickly after the actual events; but he's had ten years since the willed happy ending, when his protection is removed by mutual consent and he hails a cab, and it's hard to think any more time would deepen his reflections. Perhaps the unintentional point is that some experiences are so huge and shattering you don't ever really move on past them, digest them, contain them. When people go nuts or get addicted or suffer some other near-unendurable trauma of the spirit, what they, and their families and loved ones, always want is my old life back. I want him back. I want her back. I want what we had. But you don't get to go back; if you're lucky, you get to go forward, but it's really not at all the same thing.
-- Just go read this review, it's great. Just remember: 'And William Styron's genitalia are unexpectedly on display one convivial evening at Martha's Vineyard.'
November 23, 2023
I have known about Salman Rushdie for a while but never read any of his books. When deciding to rectify that, I had to start with THE book everyone talks about in combination with his name:
The Satanic Verses
. It's the book that made him (in-)famous, the book that earned him the sentence of the fatwa. And the book that triggered this one.
In this memoir, Rushdie details what it was like receiving the news of how the imam Khomeini reacted to the above mentioned novel, sentencing him to death, and the impact this had on EVERYONE involved with Rushdie. His wife, his ex-wife, his children, other family members - but also colleagues and people who had never even met him personally.
For those of you who don't know: Rushdie wrote a book in which the prophet Mohammed wasn't portrayed as infallible and which had a character styled after Khomeini. Yes, we're talking satire and mild satire at that. We all know that many people don't take kindly to that but especially not Islamists. So a fatwa was declared on Rushdie. Which he didn't know anything about until a journalist from the BBC called him and asked for a comment. He hadn't even known what a fatwa was until that moment. What a wake-up call!
But it went further than that. There were riots and protests with people getting killed; many publishers were threatened into not publishing the book or translated versions, and those that refused to bow to the pressure got bombed or had employees attacked and, sometimes, even killed.
For any of my German-speaking friends interested in a detailed account on what happened in Germany and what was necessary to ensure a German translation of Satanic Verses could be published (and what happened in other countries at the same time), please refer to this excellent article: https://www.dw.com/de/salman-rushdie-...
Rushdie himself had to go underground, was protected by a team of armed British police officers around the clock, moving around constantly, never being alone for a minute. This went on for many years. Years this book chronicles. Rushdie was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of the writers he loved most: Conrad and Chekhov, and thus chose the name Joseph Anton which also explains the title of this book.
I loved Rushdie's unflinching honesty with which he detailed his own weaknesses and mistakes. He doesn't shy away from drawing a sometimes not so flattering but always true image of himself. Refreshing, really.
A truly shocking account of terrible circumstances in which he had to live and work and find a way to also at least keep in touch with his family.
Unfortunately, many years later, in August 2022 in fact, years after the police no longer provided Rushdie with protection and he lived a relatively normal life, an Islamist attacked him on a stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, with a knife and stabbed him multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture. Rushdie was severely injured, lost an eye even. I'm happy that he survived (as did the journalist who also got stabbed) and even managed to overcome the trauma, making public appearances again.
What a story, what a life! And one hell of a chronicle/book.
In this memoir, Rushdie details what it was like receiving the news of how the imam Khomeini reacted to the above mentioned novel, sentencing him to death, and the impact this had on EVERYONE involved with Rushdie. His wife, his ex-wife, his children, other family members - but also colleagues and people who had never even met him personally.
For those of you who don't know: Rushdie wrote a book in which the prophet Mohammed wasn't portrayed as infallible and which had a character styled after Khomeini. Yes, we're talking satire and mild satire at that. We all know that many people don't take kindly to that but especially not Islamists. So a fatwa was declared on Rushdie. Which he didn't know anything about until a journalist from the BBC called him and asked for a comment. He hadn't even known what a fatwa was until that moment. What a wake-up call!
But it went further than that. There were riots and protests with people getting killed; many publishers were threatened into not publishing the book or translated versions, and those that refused to bow to the pressure got bombed or had employees attacked and, sometimes, even killed.
For any of my German-speaking friends interested in a detailed account on what happened in Germany and what was necessary to ensure a German translation of Satanic Verses could be published (and what happened in other countries at the same time), please refer to this excellent article: https://www.dw.com/de/salman-rushdie-...
Rushdie himself had to go underground, was protected by a team of armed British police officers around the clock, moving around constantly, never being alone for a minute. This went on for many years. Years this book chronicles. Rushdie was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of the writers he loved most: Conrad and Chekhov, and thus chose the name Joseph Anton which also explains the title of this book.
I loved Rushdie's unflinching honesty with which he detailed his own weaknesses and mistakes. He doesn't shy away from drawing a sometimes not so flattering but always true image of himself. Refreshing, really.
A truly shocking account of terrible circumstances in which he had to live and work and find a way to also at least keep in touch with his family.
Unfortunately, many years later, in August 2022 in fact, years after the police no longer provided Rushdie with protection and he lived a relatively normal life, an Islamist attacked him on a stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, with a knife and stabbed him multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture. Rushdie was severely injured, lost an eye even. I'm happy that he survived (as did the journalist who also got stabbed) and even managed to overcome the trauma, making public appearances again.
What a story, what a life! And one hell of a chronicle/book.
September 22, 2012
Update 9/21/12: now that I'm reading this... it's kind of tedious. I don't think Rushdie's 3rd person affectation works well at all. It made me remember, I don't actually like Rushdie's writing all that much. Gave up on The Satanic Verses after 20 pages. I guess I got caught up in his life story and forgot about his qualities as a writer (which is ironic cos it's precisely the condition he so deplores, his literary qualities getting eclipsed by his status as a current event)
I think his crazy life does merit a biography. I just wish someone else had written this. A disinterested third party would have been useful cos as it stands this book comes across as a lot of score-settling, vindictive gossiping and not-being-above-it-all...ing.
***
Looking forward to this, especially after reading his essay that just came out in the New Yorker: The Disappeared: How the fatwa changed a writer's life
It really bugs me that religious nuts can incite people to murder over a cartoon, a book or a YouTube movie. I want to live in a world where you can draw Mohammed without getting threatened with death. I mean what century are we living in?
I'm glad Rushdie hasn't given up the fight.
I think his crazy life does merit a biography. I just wish someone else had written this. A disinterested third party would have been useful cos as it stands this book comes across as a lot of score-settling, vindictive gossiping and not-being-above-it-all...ing.
***
Looking forward to this, especially after reading his essay that just came out in the New Yorker: The Disappeared: How the fatwa changed a writer's life
It really bugs me that religious nuts can incite people to murder over a cartoon, a book or a YouTube movie. I want to live in a world where you can draw Mohammed without getting threatened with death. I mean what century are we living in?
I'm glad Rushdie hasn't given up the fight.
April 2, 2023
Nu e ușor sa te expui astfel, în văzul tuturor, și sa spui: acesta sunt eu cu fricile mele, cu furia, cu frustrările, obsesiile, oboselile mele, dar și cu dragostea și ideile mele.
În aceste memorii, Salman Rushdie încearcă, mai presus de orice, să fie sincer și să fie obiectiv (prin utilizarea neobișnuitei persoane a III-a într-o astfel de carte). O privire din exterior a propriei vieți, sau a unei părți a ei, care deși supusă unor deosebit de multe restricții a fost foarte bogată în evenimente (relații, deplasări, întâlniri, etc.). Uneori, inevitabil, transpare și un sentiment revanșard, nenumăratele atacuri nejustificate își găsesc răspunsul și în această carte precum și în altele (fragmente din acest volum se vor regăsi și în volumele de eseuri "Dincolo de limite" sau "Limbaje ale adevarului").
Salman Rushdie ne arată cum se pierde libertatea și cum se recâștigă, dar mai ales cum se luptă pentru ea.
În aceste memorii, Salman Rushdie încearcă, mai presus de orice, să fie sincer și să fie obiectiv (prin utilizarea neobișnuitei persoane a III-a într-o astfel de carte). O privire din exterior a propriei vieți, sau a unei părți a ei, care deși supusă unor deosebit de multe restricții a fost foarte bogată în evenimente (relații, deplasări, întâlniri, etc.). Uneori, inevitabil, transpare și un sentiment revanșard, nenumăratele atacuri nejustificate își găsesc răspunsul și în această carte precum și în altele (fragmente din acest volum se vor regăsi și în volumele de eseuri "Dincolo de limite" sau "Limbaje ale adevarului").
Salman Rushdie ne arată cum se pierde libertatea și cum se recâștigă, dar mai ales cum se luptă pentru ea.
October 14, 2021
4.5.
I admire Salman Rushdie. It appears some reviewers found him arrogant and conceited, too preoccupied with his own version of events, too insensitive even, to the feelings of others. However, in answer to some of these criticisms, I would argue that a memoir isn’t an exercise in history, but a version of events by one individual. It is not supposed to be impartial or objective.
What is so refreshing about Rushdie is that he is so very normal. He is a very good writer and a highly intelligent man. But he has nothing of the damaged genius in him. He has tons of friends, he likes parties, he has girlfriends and affairs, he is a father, he is a man of the world, he likes to travel, he is flawed, and he likes the attention he’s getting because you know, most people would. And then the unthinkable happens: he is placed in a situation where he is actively being hunted down by religious extremists for having written a book. A book of fiction. And then hell is unleashed. He is forced to go into hiding, surrounded by security and armed men, he gets divorced, he can’t see his son whenever he wishes to, he’s constantly afraid for his life, he can’t go anywhere except for safe houses, his freedom is severely restricted for years and then! as if all this wasn’t enough, he was treated by the press and even by the police and the government as a troublemaker who brought it all upon himself. The parts of the book where he describes people’s attitudes towards him were even more infuriating than the ravings of the fundamentalists. There’s no doubt that had Rushdie been a blonde, blue-eyed born Britishman the tune would have been quite different.
I agree with every moral stand that Rushdie took. There are values that are truly universal, that can’t be up to discussion. Everything that safeguards human life and dignity is far more important than any idea, than any religion. And you can only have dignity when you’re free to think, say, write and believe whatever you want, without being threatened or killed for it.
I admire Salman Rushdie. It appears some reviewers found him arrogant and conceited, too preoccupied with his own version of events, too insensitive even, to the feelings of others. However, in answer to some of these criticisms, I would argue that a memoir isn’t an exercise in history, but a version of events by one individual. It is not supposed to be impartial or objective.
What is so refreshing about Rushdie is that he is so very normal. He is a very good writer and a highly intelligent man. But he has nothing of the damaged genius in him. He has tons of friends, he likes parties, he has girlfriends and affairs, he is a father, he is a man of the world, he likes to travel, he is flawed, and he likes the attention he’s getting because you know, most people would. And then the unthinkable happens: he is placed in a situation where he is actively being hunted down by religious extremists for having written a book. A book of fiction. And then hell is unleashed. He is forced to go into hiding, surrounded by security and armed men, he gets divorced, he can’t see his son whenever he wishes to, he’s constantly afraid for his life, he can’t go anywhere except for safe houses, his freedom is severely restricted for years and then! as if all this wasn’t enough, he was treated by the press and even by the police and the government as a troublemaker who brought it all upon himself. The parts of the book where he describes people’s attitudes towards him were even more infuriating than the ravings of the fundamentalists. There’s no doubt that had Rushdie been a blonde, blue-eyed born Britishman the tune would have been quite different.
I agree with every moral stand that Rushdie took. There are values that are truly universal, that can’t be up to discussion. Everything that safeguards human life and dignity is far more important than any idea, than any religion. And you can only have dignity when you’re free to think, say, write and believe whatever you want, without being threatened or killed for it.
February 20, 2017
Joseph Anton is the pseudonym Salman Rushdie had to adopt for security reasons during the decade or so he spent in hiding after the Ayatollah Khomeini placed a fatwa on him after the publication of The Satanic Verses, which Khomeini deemed to be blasphemous. This memoir deals primarily with Rushdie’s life during this period of hiding but also touches upon his life before and after this time.
Rushdie makes the interesting choice to write this memoir in the third person and there are many times in the book where it feels like he is telling a tale of somebody’s life other than his own. Rushdie claims he did this in order to maintain a degree of separation during the writing process, without which he would have been unable to tackle such a daunting project. Whatever the reason, I found it leant the book a rather disjointed feeling; at times I even felt like the events described in this way took on an almost fairy tale-like aspect, as though they couldn’t possibly be real. I think what I’m trying to say is that this third person narrative approach actually bestowed upon this book a feeling of inauthenticity that I’m sure Rushdie did not intend.
This is a shame, as this is without a shadow of a doubt a memoir that needed to be written. Rushdie’s plight was a very significant event both personally and politically and his story needed to be told. I can only imagine what it must be like to have to go into hiding for such an extended period of time; to be constantly in fear of not only one’s own life but the lives of all your family and friends as well.
Rushdie tells his story warts-and-all, never shying away from retelling events which show him in an unfavourable light. To be fair, he doesn’t hesitate to show others in a bad light either and some of the verbal attacks on him by other authors, some of whom are favourites of mine, were upsetting to read. I was particularly upset by how Roald Dahl treated Rushdie; it jarred with my (probably rose-tinted) view of this much beloved author.
Still, for all its faults and discomforts, I’m glad I read this book. It makes for upsetting reading at times but I feel like I’m better for having walked a mile in Rushdie’s shoes.
Rushdie makes the interesting choice to write this memoir in the third person and there are many times in the book where it feels like he is telling a tale of somebody’s life other than his own. Rushdie claims he did this in order to maintain a degree of separation during the writing process, without which he would have been unable to tackle such a daunting project. Whatever the reason, I found it leant the book a rather disjointed feeling; at times I even felt like the events described in this way took on an almost fairy tale-like aspect, as though they couldn’t possibly be real. I think what I’m trying to say is that this third person narrative approach actually bestowed upon this book a feeling of inauthenticity that I’m sure Rushdie did not intend.
This is a shame, as this is without a shadow of a doubt a memoir that needed to be written. Rushdie’s plight was a very significant event both personally and politically and his story needed to be told. I can only imagine what it must be like to have to go into hiding for such an extended period of time; to be constantly in fear of not only one’s own life but the lives of all your family and friends as well.
Rushdie tells his story warts-and-all, never shying away from retelling events which show him in an unfavourable light. To be fair, he doesn’t hesitate to show others in a bad light either and some of the verbal attacks on him by other authors, some of whom are favourites of mine, were upsetting to read. I was particularly upset by how Roald Dahl treated Rushdie; it jarred with my (probably rose-tinted) view of this much beloved author.
Still, for all its faults and discomforts, I’m glad I read this book. It makes for upsetting reading at times but I feel like I’m better for having walked a mile in Rushdie’s shoes.
November 30, 2022
"Na sua imaginação ele continuava a tentar escrever um final feliz para a sua própria história, mas não conseguia arranjá-lo. Talvez não viesse a haver nenhum."
September 29, 2012
Salman Rushdie once again comes with another masterpiece work of art in which he recounts dispassionately his fatwa years in hiding and many interesting ,delectable experiences after the publication of a classic Satanic Verses, tragically and stupidly banned in the country of his birth!
August 14, 2022
Having not read “The Satanic Verses” or anything else by Mr. Rushdie for some reason I was interested to read his memoir. Having done so I am sure his novels would not be of any interest to me, but as for this book “Joseph Anton” I can only say that it is eloquently written, it even showed sparks of humour, rather a surprise under such alarming circumstances.
I was disappointed with the first 140 pages & almost gave up reading; gladly I did not because the rest of the book is simply gripping. At first I was confused by the third person narrative until I realized the reason for it. ‘Joseph Anton’ is the name Mr. Rushdie took when the fatwa came about & in writing this book which is a memoir of that period he is referring to Joseph Anton as ‘he’ & ‘him’ – he is not Joseph Anton, he is Salman Rushdie & Salman Rushdie is writing this book. I get it.
The so-called ‘name-dropping’ is questionable. Since these are people who played a vital role in Mr. Rushdie’s life during this period why would he not mention their names? For those who stood by him, offered friendship & help, perhaps this is his way of acknowledging them & stating his gratitude. What should he have done? Say: “Mr. X offered me a place to stay”, “John Doe came to my defense”, “Jane Doe showed me solidarity”, I mean, really?? For those who did not, well, it would have been remiss not to mention them.
Since I have never had to live under such conditions I would not dare to criticize one who did. If he made some bad decisions & choices during this time it is surely excusable. I would have caved after two weeks! For him to have come out after 10 years of this kind of prison & still have his wits about him, to be sane & able to write about it is nothing short of amazing.
Chapter X (At the Halcyon Hotel) is so insightful when it comes to people’s perceptions I had to read it twice. It is impressive & important to note that indeed Literature does live long after its authors – such as Ovid’s poetry outlasting the Roman Empire & so on. Beautifully put:
“Art was strong, artists less so” Salman Rushdie/’Joseph Anton’. Page 628.
If you have the least interest in ‘freedom of speech’; if you are interested in knowing the courage of a man with a price on his head; you will not want to miss reading this book. You will also learn a thing or two about the politics of the publishing business.
Having not read “The Satanic Verses” or anything else by Mr. Rushdie for some reason I was interested to read his memoir. Having done so I am sure his novels would not be of any interest to me, but as for this book “Joseph Anton” I can only say that it is eloquently written, it even showed sparks of humour, rather a surprise under such alarming circumstances.
I was disappointed with the first 140 pages & almost gave up reading; gladly I did not because the rest of the book is simply gripping. At first I was confused by the third person narrative until I realized the reason for it. ‘Joseph Anton’ is the name Mr. Rushdie took when the fatwa came about & in writing this book which is a memoir of that period he is referring to Joseph Anton as ‘he’ & ‘him’ – he is not Joseph Anton, he is Salman Rushdie & Salman Rushdie is writing this book. I get it.
The so-called ‘name-dropping’ is questionable. Since these are people who played a vital role in Mr. Rushdie’s life during this period why would he not mention their names? For those who stood by him, offered friendship & help, perhaps this is his way of acknowledging them & stating his gratitude. What should he have done? Say: “Mr. X offered me a place to stay”, “John Doe came to my defense”, “Jane Doe showed me solidarity”, I mean, really?? For those who did not, well, it would have been remiss not to mention them.
Since I have never had to live under such conditions I would not dare to criticize one who did. If he made some bad decisions & choices during this time it is surely excusable. I would have caved after two weeks! For him to have come out after 10 years of this kind of prison & still have his wits about him, to be sane & able to write about it is nothing short of amazing.
Chapter X (At the Halcyon Hotel) is so insightful when it comes to people’s perceptions I had to read it twice. It is impressive & important to note that indeed Literature does live long after its authors – such as Ovid’s poetry outlasting the Roman Empire & so on. Beautifully put:
“Art was strong, artists less so” Salman Rushdie/’Joseph Anton’. Page 628.
If you have the least interest in ‘freedom of speech’; if you are interested in knowing the courage of a man with a price on his head; you will not want to miss reading this book. You will also learn a thing or two about the politics of the publishing business.
Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon may have taken “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Mr. Rushdie has done the same thing for freedom of speech & expression.
I was disappointed with the first 140 pages & almost gave up reading; gladly I did not because the rest of the book is simply gripping. At first I was confused by the third person narrative until I realized the reason for it. ‘Joseph Anton’ is the name Mr. Rushdie took when the fatwa came about & in writing this book which is a memoir of that period he is referring to Joseph Anton as ‘he’ & ‘him’ – he is not Joseph Anton, he is Salman Rushdie & Salman Rushdie is writing this book. I get it.
The so-called ‘name-dropping’ is questionable. Since these are people who played a vital role in Mr. Rushdie’s life during this period why would he not mention their names? For those who stood by him, offered friendship & help, perhaps this is his way of acknowledging them & stating his gratitude. What should he have done? Say: “Mr. X offered me a place to stay”, “John Doe came to my defense”, “Jane Doe showed me solidarity”, I mean, really?? For those who did not, well, it would have been remiss not to mention them.
Since I have never had to live under such conditions I would not dare to criticize one who did. If he made some bad decisions & choices during this time it is surely excusable. I would have caved after two weeks! For him to have come out after 10 years of this kind of prison & still have his wits about him, to be sane & able to write about it is nothing short of amazing.
Chapter X (At the Halcyon Hotel) is so insightful when it comes to people’s perceptions I had to read it twice. It is impressive & important to note that indeed Literature does live long after its authors – such as Ovid’s poetry outlasting the Roman Empire & so on. Beautifully put:
“Art was strong, artists less so” Salman Rushdie/’Joseph Anton’. Page 628.
If you have the least interest in ‘freedom of speech’; if you are interested in knowing the courage of a man with a price on his head; you will not want to miss reading this book. You will also learn a thing or two about the politics of the publishing business.
Having not read “The Satanic Verses” or anything else by Mr. Rushdie for some reason I was interested to read his memoir. Having done so I am sure his novels would not be of any interest to me, but as for this book “Joseph Anton” I can only say that it is eloquently written, it even showed sparks of humour, rather a surprise under such alarming circumstances.
I was disappointed with the first 140 pages & almost gave up reading; gladly I did not because the rest of the book is simply gripping. At first I was confused by the third person narrative until I realized the reason for it. ‘Joseph Anton’ is the name Mr. Rushdie took when the fatwa came about & in writing this book which is a memoir of that period he is referring to Joseph Anton as ‘he’ & ‘him’ – he is not Joseph Anton, he is Salman Rushdie & Salman Rushdie is writing this book. I get it.
The so-called ‘name-dropping’ is questionable. Since these are people who played a vital role in Mr. Rushdie’s life during this period why would he not mention their names? For those who stood by him, offered friendship & help, perhaps this is his way of acknowledging them & stating his gratitude. What should he have done? Say: “Mr. X offered me a place to stay”, “John Doe came to my defense”, “Jane Doe showed me solidarity”, I mean, really?? For those who did not, well, it would have been remiss not to mention them.
Since I have never had to live under such conditions I would not dare to criticize one who did. If he made some bad decisions & choices during this time it is surely excusable. I would have caved after two weeks! For him to have come out after 10 years of this kind of prison & still have his wits about him, to be sane & able to write about it is nothing short of amazing.
Chapter X (At the Halcyon Hotel) is so insightful when it comes to people’s perceptions I had to read it twice. It is impressive & important to note that indeed Literature does live long after its authors – such as Ovid’s poetry outlasting the Roman Empire & so on. Beautifully put:
“Art was strong, artists less so” Salman Rushdie/’Joseph Anton’. Page 628.
If you have the least interest in ‘freedom of speech’; if you are interested in knowing the courage of a man with a price on his head; you will not want to miss reading this book. You will also learn a thing or two about the politics of the publishing business.
Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon may have taken “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Mr. Rushdie has done the same thing for freedom of speech & expression.
November 2, 2012
… a reception at Tina Brown’s house, where he found himself standing in a small circle of guests whose other members were Martin Amis, Martin Scorsese, David Bowie, Iman, Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart and Jerry Seinfeld…For some reason this seemed like it would be an unnerving and paranoiac modernist turn on memoir-writing, with some swashbuckling-special-branch derring-do on the side. In the end you know a lot more about a typically fretful middle-aged writer and not so much about the extraordinary circumstances he lived; funny how that could be, but I think that possibly the truly exotic parts couldn't yet be printed.
(That's being kind. Odds point to yet another variation on this same theme, from the same author, perhaps ten or fifteen years hence; a director's cut, so to speak. It shouldn't feel mercenary like that, but it does.)
Seems to me there are four reasons this was not to be much of a book, and the same four reasons add up to a recipe for a fairly dissappointing outing.
First and most ship-sinkingly, Mr. Rushdie uses this occasion to settle scores, to talk back, to set the record straight according to his lights. His call, of course, and surely those messages find their way to their intended audiences. Unlike famous authors, the rest of us think of the witty retorts only by the next morning-- and chalk it up as experience. But no snippet of anything, carefully cut and preserved for later comment, escapes Rushdie's infinitely acute hindsight. Which starts to wear on the reader who doesn't care about every last slight or rebuff, and certainly doesn't need imaginary revisions; a years-later "here's how it should have been" adds up to not much.
Second, there is nothing so dismal as a middle aged man, no matter how intricate his afterthoughts, or how elegant his talent at description may be, commenting on his marriages, affairs and offspring once they have all moved on. That's your own book, Salman, the one no one should really want to be caught reading.
Third, they call it the Special Branch, the Secret Intelligence Service, because they don't want you knowing what sort of tricks they get up to. When Rushdie avers his undying respect for the men not-in-uniform, you believe him; and yet, you have to think that because of it you won't be getting the inside game, the slew of deception & camouflage that you wanted to know about. And that was the public tease, the premise of the book, as promoted in its release.
Fourth, the deeper aspect of the book is somehow wasted on trying to balance the secret jet-setting & womanizing with the holier-than-holy duty to produce High Art at his scrivener's desk all the while. Rushdie is no slouch, but judging by what's here, this is no easy needle to thread. Too much contemplative whirling-around is wasted on worrying about those questions, I'm afraid. So, zero in the Ars Longa Vita Brevis column.
Once a chapter or so, we get a nice, curve-free emotional pitch from the man we used to know as Salman Rushdie, and it makes it worthwhile again, if only for that moment in time :
In Kerala he watched a famous oral storyteller work his magic. The interesting thing about this performance was that it broke all the rules. “Begin at the beginning,” the King of Hearts had instructed the flustered White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “and go on until you come to the end; then stop.”
And this was how stories were meant to be told, according to whichever king of hearts had made up the rules, but this was not what happened in that open-air Keralan theater. The storyteller stirred stories into one another, digressed frequently from the main narrative, told jokes, sang songs, connected his political story to the ancient tales, made personal asides, and generally misbehaved. And yet the audience did not get up and walk out in disgust. It did not hiss or boo or throw vegetables or benches at the performer. Instead, it roared with laughter, wept in despair, and remained on the edge of its seat until he was done. Did it do so in spite of the storyteller’s complicated story-juggling act, or because of it ? Might it be that this pyrotechnic way of telling might in fact be more engrossing than the King of Hearts’ preferred version— that the oral story, the most ancient of narrative forms, had survived because of its adoption of complexity and playfulness and its rejection of start-to-finish linearity? If so, then here in this warm Keralan night, all of his own thoughts about writing were being amply confirmed…
Everyone will read this, everyone will feel that there was a lot more there, still going unsaid, and my wager is that Rushdie himself hasn't had his last say on l'affaire Joseph Anton.
January 13, 2013
Salman Rushdie's memoir of his time in hiding during the Ayatollah's fatwa started out very promising - a real life cloak and dagger story! - but became just as tedious as his life probably was during that long, 13 year period. There was a lot of name-dropping of well-known authors, actors and politicians, some who supported him and some who resented him, and a lot of ruminating about the importance of his own work. I skipped a lot of pages just to get through the book. Really can't recommend it, despite the fact that I have always admired his sacrifice for freedom of speech.
December 4, 2013
Salman Rushdie in Joseph Anton says that that there’s no such thing as ‘ordinary life’. He tells us that he had always liked the idea of the surrealists that the miraculous nature of life on earth was dulled by habituation. The humdrum of daily life prevented people from experiencing the wonders of the world by forming a layer of dust obscuring their vision. It’s the artists who should wipe this layer and make the people aware of the amazement and beauty of the world. This was before he borrowed the first names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov and became Joseph Anton. Little he did know about the exterminating angel waiting impatiently, above the thick darkening clouds, to pluck him from his reality and hurl him to another life overwhelmed with fear, vehemence, and death threats.It was the quotidian he yearned for during those darker times and not the days of glory. The mundane life suddenly became something precious; something worth fighting for; something to die for.
My six month wait was over and it was with great intrigue and delight that I read the exemplary first chapter. With writing so masterful, Salman Rushdie describes his younger self, his family, his childhood home, and what it is like to live in a secular family. He talks about the story of satanic verses and Anis Rushdie, his father, without whom The Satanic Verses would not have been born. The first chapter definitely ups the ante and ends with a moving account of the death of his father and with this brilliant thought-
“When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it.”
The momentum wavers a little with the advent of the fatwa. Every detail is dished out richly and even the monotonous days make for a gripping read under Salman’s pen and the memoir never gets tiring at any point. It’s indeed a page turner. There are instances too at which I was quite moved - his father’s death, his transient delusion that he almost lost his wife and child, the death of his first wife et al. He employs simple words and yet I was deeply touched.
The third person narrative works and fits with absolute perfection. Joseph Anton tells the tale of a man robbed of freedom; a man succumbed to the harsh reality enforced by a contingent of religious fanatics, a man who’s flawed, a man who’s made some grave mistakes, a man whose greatest joy lies in art and in telling stories, a man who fought bravely for the freedom of speech. And to tell that tale, ‘I’ isn't apt, ‘he’ is.
One would expect Salman, in this 630 page long memoir, to tell us about his writing process and since I am an ardent Rushdie devotee I was waiting impatiently to read those parts. But it seems we aren’t invited to see his creative self fully; all we get is a peek at it. That is my only complaint. But it’s his memoir; maybe he did not want us to get more than a peek.
Joseph Anton celebrates the joy of the thing that most of us take for granted – freedom. To go for a walk, he had to request permission from his security guards and to at least play outdoors with his young son, he found it difficult. He couldn't even get his newspaper in the morning. Even that freedom was curtailed.
Most of the reviewers called the book ‘a bit too long’. But I closed it insatiably. I wanted more.
My six month wait was over and it was with great intrigue and delight that I read the exemplary first chapter. With writing so masterful, Salman Rushdie describes his younger self, his family, his childhood home, and what it is like to live in a secular family. He talks about the story of satanic verses and Anis Rushdie, his father, without whom The Satanic Verses would not have been born. The first chapter definitely ups the ante and ends with a moving account of the death of his father and with this brilliant thought-
“When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it.”
The momentum wavers a little with the advent of the fatwa. Every detail is dished out richly and even the monotonous days make for a gripping read under Salman’s pen and the memoir never gets tiring at any point. It’s indeed a page turner. There are instances too at which I was quite moved - his father’s death, his transient delusion that he almost lost his wife and child, the death of his first wife et al. He employs simple words and yet I was deeply touched.
The third person narrative works and fits with absolute perfection. Joseph Anton tells the tale of a man robbed of freedom; a man succumbed to the harsh reality enforced by a contingent of religious fanatics, a man who’s flawed, a man who’s made some grave mistakes, a man whose greatest joy lies in art and in telling stories, a man who fought bravely for the freedom of speech. And to tell that tale, ‘I’ isn't apt, ‘he’ is.
One would expect Salman, in this 630 page long memoir, to tell us about his writing process and since I am an ardent Rushdie devotee I was waiting impatiently to read those parts. But it seems we aren’t invited to see his creative self fully; all we get is a peek at it. That is my only complaint. But it’s his memoir; maybe he did not want us to get more than a peek.
Joseph Anton celebrates the joy of the thing that most of us take for granted – freedom. To go for a walk, he had to request permission from his security guards and to at least play outdoors with his young son, he found it difficult. He couldn't even get his newspaper in the morning. Even that freedom was curtailed.
Most of the reviewers called the book ‘a bit too long’. But I closed it insatiably. I wanted more.
October 22, 2012
Joseph Anton is the story of Salman Rushdie’s life during the fatwa, as defined by the years in which the British Police insisted his life needed Special Branch protection. The name Joseph Anton is one the police forced him to invent and use for his own protection. To be addressed as Joe in his own home always disconcerted him.
A memoir can be a dry piece of self-centred writing or in Rushdie’s case, a reason to write beautifully and poetically. Like me, you may never have read Salman Rushdie’s writing and wonder why The Satanic Verses caused so much trouble for him.
Now many years later, Rushdie reflects on his life and specifically the years that he spent in hiding because of the fatwa. He has an ability to unselfconsciously explore his own childhood and student days and takes an unflinching look at his own warts and all life as an adult and writer. He takes us to the India and Pakistan he didn’t grow up in. We learn of his irreligious family and his difficult father with his invented name. As a young person who found life unfair in how he as “other” was treated, Rushdie finds it now is his nature to fight and not back down. He was someone different to the others at school in England and singled out. For the adult Salman, this meant he was determined to no longer be ashamed of who he is and where he comes from. This inflexibility with regards to pride and identity, which would be both a good and a bad thing in the fatwa years.
In The Satanic Verses, Rushdie created a fictional story which included looking at what Muhammad actually meant to say and what his motivations were for declaring his recitation had erred and was not angelic but actually of Satan. In this novel where believers are persecuted, some characters had to be seen to persecute. It is these parts of the story that are held against him. However the curious fact is that the Imam who issued the ban, never actually even read the book.
It seems to Rushdie that interpreting or reflecting upon Islam is itself deemed to be a sin. Good Muslims’ simply do what Islam states without any thinking at all. Like the Bible, the Quran is not a historically accurate record of what a man actually said, but a committee decision on what the best historical record might be. Therefore there is much uncertainty of what Muhammad and his Suras really meant in his own time let alone what they mean for people today.
In the Fatwa fall out from fanatical Muslims in Britain and around the world Rushdie felt he saw a new direction of Islam. What had begun as Saudi funded fundamentalism was becoming a widespread anti-west movement, which the West itself did not want to acknowledge was happening.
This is a memoir about the difficulty of writing, the freedom to be able to write and publish, enjoying and appreciating family and friends and in Rushdie’s case, the joy of receiving great generosity from friends and acquaintances when his days looked to be the most difficult they could ever be. People died and were injured because of the reaction to what he had written. This is Rushdie’s remembrance and celebration of the triumph of the goodness of humanity over the ignorant and bad. I was forever drawn to read more of this evocative book. It teaches us a lot about the world of recent years.
A memoir can be a dry piece of self-centred writing or in Rushdie’s case, a reason to write beautifully and poetically. Like me, you may never have read Salman Rushdie’s writing and wonder why The Satanic Verses caused so much trouble for him.
Now many years later, Rushdie reflects on his life and specifically the years that he spent in hiding because of the fatwa. He has an ability to unselfconsciously explore his own childhood and student days and takes an unflinching look at his own warts and all life as an adult and writer. He takes us to the India and Pakistan he didn’t grow up in. We learn of his irreligious family and his difficult father with his invented name. As a young person who found life unfair in how he as “other” was treated, Rushdie finds it now is his nature to fight and not back down. He was someone different to the others at school in England and singled out. For the adult Salman, this meant he was determined to no longer be ashamed of who he is and where he comes from. This inflexibility with regards to pride and identity, which would be both a good and a bad thing in the fatwa years.
In The Satanic Verses, Rushdie created a fictional story which included looking at what Muhammad actually meant to say and what his motivations were for declaring his recitation had erred and was not angelic but actually of Satan. In this novel where believers are persecuted, some characters had to be seen to persecute. It is these parts of the story that are held against him. However the curious fact is that the Imam who issued the ban, never actually even read the book.
It seems to Rushdie that interpreting or reflecting upon Islam is itself deemed to be a sin. Good Muslims’ simply do what Islam states without any thinking at all. Like the Bible, the Quran is not a historically accurate record of what a man actually said, but a committee decision on what the best historical record might be. Therefore there is much uncertainty of what Muhammad and his Suras really meant in his own time let alone what they mean for people today.
In the Fatwa fall out from fanatical Muslims in Britain and around the world Rushdie felt he saw a new direction of Islam. What had begun as Saudi funded fundamentalism was becoming a widespread anti-west movement, which the West itself did not want to acknowledge was happening.
This is a memoir about the difficulty of writing, the freedom to be able to write and publish, enjoying and appreciating family and friends and in Rushdie’s case, the joy of receiving great generosity from friends and acquaintances when his days looked to be the most difficult they could ever be. People died and were injured because of the reaction to what he had written. This is Rushdie’s remembrance and celebration of the triumph of the goodness of humanity over the ignorant and bad. I was forever drawn to read more of this evocative book. It teaches us a lot about the world of recent years.
May 6, 2016
This was a chore to read. I wanted to quit over and over again, but I felt like I had to persist and finish it anyway. The book could have been 400 pages thinner. It is filled with name dropping, receiving awards and dinner parties. Just when I was about to give up, a good page or two would pop up and keep me going through the next thicket of dreariness.
The book is informative as to just how pathetically the West kowtowed to Iranian terrorism from the late 80's onward. Governments bent over backwards to Islamic opinion and did not defend free speech in the way we might think they would. I was surprised to learn of the associated casualties related to the publication of The Satanic Verses. As Wikipedia says, "Hitoshi Igarashi, his Japanese translator, was stabbed to death on 11 July 1991. Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing in Milan on 3 July 1991. William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, was shot three times in an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993, but survived. Aziz Nesin, the Turkish translator, was the intended target in the events that led to the Sivas massacre on 2 July 1993 in Sivas, Turkey, which resulted in the deaths of thirty seven people."
Rushdie ends the book with the events of 9/11, and it does seem fitting as this ordeal stretched from the late 80's through the 90's and were a prelude to 9/11 and the endless war that followed. To Rushdie, this all boils down to artistic freedom vs. religious zealotry, and so many important questions go unanswered or glanced at only in stereotypes. He doesn't strike me as a deep thinker, but rather as emblematic of the thin cultural elite that our present oligarchy imposes on us.
The book is informative as to just how pathetically the West kowtowed to Iranian terrorism from the late 80's onward. Governments bent over backwards to Islamic opinion and did not defend free speech in the way we might think they would. I was surprised to learn of the associated casualties related to the publication of The Satanic Verses. As Wikipedia says, "Hitoshi Igarashi, his Japanese translator, was stabbed to death on 11 July 1991. Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing in Milan on 3 July 1991. William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, was shot three times in an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993, but survived. Aziz Nesin, the Turkish translator, was the intended target in the events that led to the Sivas massacre on 2 July 1993 in Sivas, Turkey, which resulted in the deaths of thirty seven people."
Rushdie ends the book with the events of 9/11, and it does seem fitting as this ordeal stretched from the late 80's through the 90's and were a prelude to 9/11 and the endless war that followed. To Rushdie, this all boils down to artistic freedom vs. religious zealotry, and so many important questions go unanswered or glanced at only in stereotypes. He doesn't strike me as a deep thinker, but rather as emblematic of the thin cultural elite that our present oligarchy imposes on us.
November 21, 2012
This memoir was an eye-opening look at living under threat. Whether it is the actual fear from the threats by Muslim extremists, the restrictions placed on his movements by the police and security officials, the reaction of media, the public reaction or his own family member's reaction, we see the effects on Rushdie's life. Joseph Anton was the pseudonym he chose for the police to use for him during most of this time, initiated once they realized this was not a short term situation.
Salman Rushdie lays out his life before the reader, both good and bad, embarrassing and uplifting, to show that he is a person just like the rest of us. Being a writer meant that he was still able to work during this time, but his circumstances also limited in his work in terms of doing research, promoting his work, and dealing with publishers. He had a core group of friends and family that helped keep him going, supported him intellectually, emotionally, and through physical means like offering temporary homes.
During his time under security restrictions, the life of Joseph Anton, Rushdie had one marriage end, another begin and end, a son grow up, and another son born. It was years before he was allowed to return to the country of his birth, and his restrictions cost him a great deal both financially and emotionally.
With support, he found ways to deal with and work around these restrictions as he tried to lead as normal a life as he could under the circumstances. This memoir is revealing and open about his own feelings and reactions, with moments of sadness and humour. A joy to read.
Salman Rushdie lays out his life before the reader, both good and bad, embarrassing and uplifting, to show that he is a person just like the rest of us. Being a writer meant that he was still able to work during this time, but his circumstances also limited in his work in terms of doing research, promoting his work, and dealing with publishers. He had a core group of friends and family that helped keep him going, supported him intellectually, emotionally, and through physical means like offering temporary homes.
During his time under security restrictions, the life of Joseph Anton, Rushdie had one marriage end, another begin and end, a son grow up, and another son born. It was years before he was allowed to return to the country of his birth, and his restrictions cost him a great deal both financially and emotionally.
With support, he found ways to deal with and work around these restrictions as he tried to lead as normal a life as he could under the circumstances. This memoir is revealing and open about his own feelings and reactions, with moments of sadness and humour. A joy to read.
September 30, 2021
"قدر الإنسان،الإنسان ذاته" —برتولت بريشت -هو شاعر وكاتب ومخرج مسرحي ألماني.
سيرة يروي من خلالها رشدي السنوات العشر السوداء التي عاش فيها متخفياً ، لمخاوفه من فتوى ايرانية ل الزعيم الديني الإيراني آية الله الخميني، التي صدرت بإهدار دمه، بعد إصدار روايته الشهيرة “آيات شيطانية” التي أثارت الكثير من اللغط والجدل في العالم الإسلامي بعد صدورها في عام 1988 ، ولسنوات عديدة تلتها. حيث فهم منها وقت ذاك أنها تحمل إساءة لشخصيات إسلامية.
يروي رشدي في هذه السيرة الكثير من مجريات حياته الخاصة والعامة، ك تهديدات القتل التي كان يتلقاها من وقت لآخر ، ومحاولة اغتياله، كما لم تسلم العديد من دورالنشر والطباعة من تلك التهديدات والهجمات، اذ تعرضت بعض المكتبات للحرق، كما قتل بعض الناشرين على أيدي الجماعات الإسلامية. وعلاقته بالشرطة التي كان تحت حمايتها لأعوام مديدة، الحب والزواج والعائلة، والأصدقاء ووقفتهم معه في أحلك الظروف ، وعن صعوبة سفره وما يحف ذلك من مخاطر جمة، وغيرها الكثير من الأحداث والتفاصيل الدقيقة التي عاشها
ككابوسٍ حي .
December 14, 2015
On February 14 1989, Salman Rushdie got a call asking how he felt about being sentenced to death. The call was from a journalist who told him that the Ayatollah Khomeini has put a fatwa on him. His novel The Satanic Verses was accused of being “against Islam, the Prophet, and the Quran.” This is a memoir of the 10 years he went into hiding and was under police protection because of this fatwa.
When they asked Rushdie to pick an alias the first thing he did was think of the writers he respected, in this case Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. This is a memoir of complete honesty about the effect his novel The Satanic Verses had on his life. I found Rushdie to be very honest about the whole situation, from the bonds formed, the struggles, the fears and the idea of freedom of speech.
One thing that really stood out to me was the use of a third person narrator; a rarity in a memoir but it seemed to really work. It was like Salman Rushdie was telling a story of someone else. I’m not sure if Rushdie was trying to look at the situation from another perspective or if he felt like the situation changed who he was, but it really worked.
I remember The Satanic Verses and I know I had to research Islam to understand the book, but I never thought of it as a religious insult; I always viewed the book as one man’s struggle to make sense of his religion in a culture completely different. The importance of this book and its literary achievements really was out shadowed by the controversy. In Joseph Anton, Rushdie really does try to look at the entire situation in a unique way.
Salman Rushdie’s healing process is displayed on the page for everyone to see, but you can still see the bitterness and animosity in his narrative. This is what I found made this book so great; the author never held back and never tried to hide his emotions. It would have been a scary time of his life and I’m glad to understand what he went through a lot more than I expected.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
When they asked Rushdie to pick an alias the first thing he did was think of the writers he respected, in this case Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. This is a memoir of complete honesty about the effect his novel The Satanic Verses had on his life. I found Rushdie to be very honest about the whole situation, from the bonds formed, the struggles, the fears and the idea of freedom of speech.
One thing that really stood out to me was the use of a third person narrator; a rarity in a memoir but it seemed to really work. It was like Salman Rushdie was telling a story of someone else. I’m not sure if Rushdie was trying to look at the situation from another perspective or if he felt like the situation changed who he was, but it really worked.
I remember The Satanic Verses and I know I had to research Islam to understand the book, but I never thought of it as a religious insult; I always viewed the book as one man’s struggle to make sense of his religion in a culture completely different. The importance of this book and its literary achievements really was out shadowed by the controversy. In Joseph Anton, Rushdie really does try to look at the entire situation in a unique way.
Salman Rushdie’s healing process is displayed on the page for everyone to see, but you can still see the bitterness and animosity in his narrative. This is what I found made this book so great; the author never held back and never tried to hide his emotions. It would have been a scary time of his life and I’m glad to understand what he went through a lot more than I expected.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
August 13, 2016
I was entranced by the fatwa and Salman Rushdie's situation back in 1989. I was a college freshman and I couldn't get my hands on a copy of The Satanic Verses, so I read a mass-market copy of Midnight's Children and then Shame that summer (finally reading the Verses when the Consortium edition was published a few years later). In the 1990s I found myself surprised as Rushdie turned to more pop-culture themes and when his later novels were poorly-reviewed. I haven't read him since Moor's Last Sigh, but yeah, I was interested in reading this memoir.
I borrowed an e-book and hadn't initially noticed the length of the book. Oh, but it's long, as in I've been reading for the last ten minutes and I'm still at 7%?-long! - I read the first 52% (the equivalent of 300+ pages) with sedulous attention and then the rest (300+ pages) I had to skim. Yet if I skimmed too fast I wouldn't get to gloat at how awful the book was, so I resorted to a kind of attenuated skimming interspersed with close reading. And I found:
An awesome display of ego. This is little more than a celebrity-memoir replete with score-settling and self-aggrandizement. Rushdie appears to name every incident in which he ever felt betrayed or given the cold-shoulder - he names names and it's unseemly. It's also full of sycophantic name-dropping that is so shameless it's embarrassing to read ("Everything felt intensely exciting. Willie Nelson was there! And Matthew Modine!" Matthew Modine, eh?). The Madonna incident was inadvertently amusing: a comp copy of The Ground Beneath Her Feet had been sent to her in hopes of getting a favorable comment. Madonna doesn't deign to speak to Rushdie when he appears, and when her personal assistant is asked whether "the great lady" read his novel the assistant replies that Madonna shredded it.
Rushdie dismisses his literary critics when/if they don't like a particular work, saying that his is an "intellectual, linguistic, formal, and emotional journey" - and if the critics don't approve then it means they "were unable to go down the road he'd taken."
I'm sure the early days of the fatwa were frightening and difficult and changed him: he gives pages and pages of this, with the result that he turned into an icon - "the symbolic icon-Salman his supporters had constructed, an idealized Salman of Liberty who stood flawlessly and unwaveringly for the highest values ..." Thing is, he seems to believe that.
Includes exchanges that Rushdie presumably thinks make him look good but in fact do the opposite. E.g., the John le Carré exchange that he quotes at length, which left me thinking le Carré sounded pretty sensible and Rushdie not.
I don't think it was that well written; it was not "literature" in any way I understand the concept. Contradictory grand statements about "happiness" appearing in sequential paragraphs. The tedious name-dropping and catty comments. A bewilderingly inaccurate remark about female reproduction: "She was pregnant. He at once began to fear the worst. If one his faulty chromosomes had been selected then the fetus would not form and she would miscarry very soon, probably at the end of the next menstrual cycle." ?? If she's pregnant then she's not HAVING menstrual cycles. Which brings me to:
Rushdie on women and his "need for love": He cheats on first wife. He makes his soon-to-be second wife jealous by flaunting his relationship with Robyn (Tracks) Davidson. He later portrays this second wife, the novelist Marianne Wiggins, as deranged. When he cheats on his third wife (Elizabeth something?) he faux-innocently tosses his infidelity off:
Then there is Padma, aka "the Illusion" - as Rushdie calls her, because he seems to hate her so much he can't write her name. His depictions of Padma Lakshmi are weird: a woman he spent 7-8 years with and marries, but here calls shallow, self-obsessed, stupid, and more-or-less a whore (seeing her being photographed at a Vanity Fair Oscars party
Now I look forward to reading some other reviews of Joseph Anton on Goodreads and elsewhere. I will probably never re-read Midnight's Children now, which is too bad.
I borrowed an e-book and hadn't initially noticed the length of the book. Oh, but it's long, as in I've been reading for the last ten minutes and I'm still at 7%?-long! - I read the first 52% (the equivalent of 300+ pages) with sedulous attention and then the rest (300+ pages) I had to skim. Yet if I skimmed too fast I wouldn't get to gloat at how awful the book was, so I resorted to a kind of attenuated skimming interspersed with close reading. And I found:
An awesome display of ego. This is little more than a celebrity-memoir replete with score-settling and self-aggrandizement. Rushdie appears to name every incident in which he ever felt betrayed or given the cold-shoulder - he names names and it's unseemly. It's also full of sycophantic name-dropping that is so shameless it's embarrassing to read ("Everything felt intensely exciting. Willie Nelson was there! And Matthew Modine!" Matthew Modine, eh?). The Madonna incident was inadvertently amusing: a comp copy of The Ground Beneath Her Feet had been sent to her in hopes of getting a favorable comment. Madonna doesn't deign to speak to Rushdie when he appears, and when her personal assistant is asked whether "the great lady" read his novel the assistant replies that Madonna shredded it.
Rushdie dismisses his literary critics when/if they don't like a particular work, saying that his is an "intellectual, linguistic, formal, and emotional journey" - and if the critics don't approve then it means they "were unable to go down the road he'd taken."
I'm sure the early days of the fatwa were frightening and difficult and changed him: he gives pages and pages of this, with the result that he turned into an icon - "the symbolic icon-Salman his supporters had constructed, an idealized Salman of Liberty who stood flawlessly and unwaveringly for the highest values ..." Thing is, he seems to believe that.
Includes exchanges that Rushdie presumably thinks make him look good but in fact do the opposite. E.g., the John le Carré exchange that he quotes at length, which left me thinking le Carré sounded pretty sensible and Rushdie not.
I don't think it was that well written; it was not "literature" in any way I understand the concept. Contradictory grand statements about "happiness" appearing in sequential paragraphs. The tedious name-dropping and catty comments. A bewilderingly inaccurate remark about female reproduction: "She was pregnant. He at once began to fear the worst. If one his faulty chromosomes had been selected then the fetus would not form and she would miscarry very soon, probably at the end of the next menstrual cycle." ?? If she's pregnant then she's not HAVING menstrual cycles. Which brings me to:
Rushdie on women and his "need for love": He cheats on first wife. He makes his soon-to-be second wife jealous by flaunting his relationship with Robyn (Tracks) Davidson. He later portrays this second wife, the novelist Marianne Wiggins, as deranged. When he cheats on his third wife (Elizabeth something?) he faux-innocently tosses his infidelity off:
One other thing happened in Paris. Caroline Lang, Jack Lang's brilliant and beautiful daughter, [me: needless name-dropping] came to keep him company at the Hotel de 'Abbaye one afternoon, and because of her beauty, and the wine, and the difficulties with Elizabeth, they became lovers; and immediately afterward decided not to do that again, but to remain friends.Elizabeth finds out: at some point she "did what people always did and read his journal when he wasn't there and found out about his day in Paris with Caroline Lang and then they had the painful conversation people always had ..." Did what people always did? What a pompous jerk.
Then there is Padma, aka "the Illusion" - as Rushdie calls her, because he seems to hate her so much he can't write her name. His depictions of Padma Lakshmi are weird: a woman he spent 7-8 years with and marries, but here calls shallow, self-obsessed, stupid, and more-or-less a whore (seeing her being photographed at a Vanity Fair Oscars party
"he looked at the expression on her face and suddenly thought, She's having sex, sex with hundreds of men at the same time, and they don't even get to touch her, there's no way any actual man can compete with that." [italics in the original].There is this bizarrely bile-filled and nonsensical passage recounting when Padma/Illusion "stabbed him in the heart" nd something I couldn't follow about ancient Scrooge McDuck and his pleasure dome in Duckburg, USA with a tame tyrannosaurus flanked by his loyal velociraptors and ... - I have no idea but it was just ugly to read. Amazing.
Now I look forward to reading some other reviews of Joseph Anton on Goodreads and elsewhere. I will probably never re-read Midnight's Children now, which is too bad.
August 28, 2023
Nach einem kurzen Teil über Kindheit und Werdegang, erstreckt sich der Hauptteil des Buches über die Zeit nach der Fatwa über etwa 13 Jahre bis die englische Polizei die Schutzmaßnahmen aufhob. Ich hatte zeitweise Mühe mit diesem Buch und nach einer Pause habe ich es wieder genossen. Was für ein Drama des dauernden Versteckens, der Organisation des privaten Lebens mit Polizisten in einer Familie. Welche Einschränkungen im privaten Bereich.
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