The blazing hot publicity machine for Shalimar the Clown rolls out another feature on Salman Rushdie, this time in GQ. The cheapskate mag offers only 2 (out of 20!) sections from the print version online, so despite protestations from the Sepia Legal Dept., I transcribe the juicy bits below. Without further ado, hereÂ’s the ever-quotable Salman on:
- Comics
He liked Batman the most – “because he was the weirdest,” Rushdie says. “Strange thing to do, you know, hang upside down dressed like a bat and go out at night.” He was always happiest when Batman came unaccompanied. “I didn’t like Robin the Boy Wonder at all,” he explains, his voice still leaking some youthful annoyance. “I thought he was completely redundant and had a silly uniform.”
[Yes, but does he know about this?]
- Perceptions of his character after the fatwa, and Indira Gandhi bashing
”The thing that happened to me had certain characteristics – it was theological, it was humorless, it was difficult to understand – and all those characteristics got transposed onto me. So because it was humorless, I must be.”… Some were stung by the account of the previous few decades of Indian history in MidnightÂ’s Children. Indira Gandhi, IndiaÂ’s prime minister at the time actually sued him for suggesting that her son Sanjay blamed her for the death of her husband, his father. Rushdie eventually yielded to pressure from his publishers to remove the passage, as long as she agreed that there was nothing else in the book – a book fairly critical of her – that she considers objectionable, and he says that the Indian press concurred with his view that this settlement was more a humiliation for the prime minister than for the author.
[The Iron Lady picked that over the transistors-for-sterilization bit? Color me surprised.]5. The trials of English boarding school
Before his journey West [at 13], his mother tried to prepare him for some of the horrors he would face there. “Such as,” he remembers, “having to wipe your bottom with paper.” This he had refused to believe. “I said, ‘What do you mean? It’s not possible. No water? Not possible.’” … He brings up one of the great perceptions of such English educational establishments: “I managed to get through four and a half years of English boarding school without a single homosexual experience…I certainly never came anywhere close to it, either being hit on by anybody or the other way round. In that sense, I missed out on some apparently essential part of the experience.”
- Atheism, that pesky minute of ‘conversion,’ and his subsequent renunciation of faith
He went and ate his first ham sandwich [at 14, in Britain], “in order to prove that the thunderbolt would not strike me.”…The ham sandwich itself wasn’t so good, but soon he discovered bacon sandwiches, and that was another matter altogether… In an interview he gave shortly afterward [declaring his faith in Allah], he exemplified his new way of thinking: “I feel that had I been a Muslim at the time that I wrote the book, I would clearly have written it differently – clearly, and I want to make that point, and let there be no argument about it.” But within him there was plenty of argument about it, and this conversion to Islam, as it was widely presented, was itself soon renounced. In truth, even in his days of darkest need, deep down his atheism never abandoned him.
- Paging Michael Moore
I think if the West is to blame for anything, it is to blame for giving the house of Saud keys to the oil money and allowing them to use that money to propagate around the world Wahhabism, the most backward, primitive, and crummy version of Islam there had ever been, and to present that as OrthodoxyÂ…
- His life as an ad-man (check out the pic Rushdie circa 1974!)
He was responsible for two campaigns known to anyone living in Britain in the 1970s – for the designation of cream cakes as “naughty but nice,” and for the description of a new chocolate bar called Aero, full of air bubbles, using a chain of mutated adjectives: adorabubble, delectabubble, incredibubble… “It took me ten years to find out how to be a writer…It would have been so easy to give up. I had all kinds of temptations. I was doing pretty well in advertising, and they dangle huge sums of money under your nose and a glamorous lifestyle, you know – girls, commercial shoots, and locations, America, South Africa. The World opens up, and all you have to do is sell peanut butter and shampoo.”
And damning word of praise-
upon reading it [his widely panned debut novel Grimus], his father said, “What this tells me is that one day you will write a great book.”
- Scavenging for material
My view is that writers need to go everywhere. You need to put your hands into as many pieces of life as you can. YouÂ’ve got to go to the whorehouse or the ballgame or the prison or the nightclub, it doesnÂ’t matter. YouÂ’ve got to go everywhere. Because otherwise you donÂ’t know enoughÂ…IÂ’ve always really liked the contrast between going really inside yourself for a living and then coming out and being with friends.
- Shalimar
Much of Shalimar the Clown is set in Kashmir, the territory disputed by India and Pakistan, and his familyÂ’s original homeland. Though it is far from what the book is about, Shalimar the Clown is at times savagely direct in its appraisal of the regionÂ’s history and dilemma, and of fanaticism and fundamentalismÂ…He points to the bookÂ’s second epigraph, borrowed from Romeo and Juliet – “A plague on both your houses” – and says this is, “very strongly what I feel. I think Kashmir got fucked twice. First it got screwed over by the Indians, then it got screwed over by the fundamentalists coming over the border. So itÂ’s had it at both ends. And during this long time, more than half a century, the views of the people living there have never been taken into accountÂ…TheyÂ’ve been trampled over in both directions. And the book tries to tell the truth about that. This is the writerÂ’s job – to tell the truth.”
18.The effect of a fatwa on his writing
Shalimar, an international terrorist at this point, is sent to kill a writer, “ a godless man, a writer against god, who…had sold his soul to the West.” In the novel Rushdie makes clear the writer is French-speaking – perhaps partly to make it obvious that it’s not him, and also as an acknowledgement of Tahar Djaout, a secularist Algerian writer who was murdered by Muslim terrorists in 1993. (“One of the things I think it’s important to say,” Rushdie points out, “is that many writers have been killed in this period in which I was not killed.”) … Describing how to prepare a venue before the arrival of a potential target: ‘Any professional knew that the so-called principal was easiest to attack in the space between the door of his vehicle and the door of the location he planned to enter.”
Also discussed: Bono, Padma Lakshmi (“She always thinks that she is the heroine of all my books, including the ones written before she was born, essentially”), The Power Rangers (“If I ever see another episode of Power Rangers it will be much too soon’), Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights (“I find as I got older that almost the only quality I look for in somebody is personal warmth”), marriage, Madonna (upon being sent The Ground Beneath her Feet “not only had she not read it, she had shredded it”), and Lou Reed (“The idea that one day I would get to hang out with Lou Reed was…it was like telling me that you would hang out with God…Only more fun.)
Love it! Thanks, Cicatrix.
Once you go brown, you never live it down:
Btw, his dad’s comment?
Classic desi parent backhanded compliment 😉
whew! Glad you don’t think this accidental double-teaming is overkill 🙂
The whole GQ piece was so quotable. Rushdie is charming and snitty in turn.
Madonna’s shredding of The Ground Beneath Her Feet is attributed to a flouncy vacuous character named “Madonna Sangria” in a novel “steeped in late-twentieth-century pop music”:
Passage reminds me why I was rather disappointed by this particular stage in his career – cheapshots and too-broad characters. But his reactions in this interview are just too snarky for words 🙂
“I think if the West is to blame for anything, it is to blame for giving the house of Saud keys to the oil money and..”
I like Salman Rushdie for his boldness for most part and do feel sorry for what he went through. However, he is “King Hubris”.
Quite often, he does not know what he is talking about a lot of times [like quote above]. I wish it was that simple.
A lot of people think he knew what wanted out of “Satanic Verses”……a lot of attention, it just took turn for worse, beyond expectation.
“I think if the West is to blame for anything, it is to blame for giving the house of Saud keys to the oil money and..”
I thought it was Allah 😐
But has Rushdie ever gone on stage and pulled his pants down to show his arse to the world? Until he does this, Shabana Rehman is the hottest infidel and apostate and Pakistani-gone-off-the-rails in town and Salman needs to get with the programme fast to trump this latest ‘act of resistance against religious opression’
Amusing yet pertinent analogy by Punjabi Boy. I think the closest equivalent for Rushdie (given the different male/female dynamics in orthodox Islam) would be for him to be interviewed inside a casino whilst eating a bacon sandwich and sipping from a class of wine.
He usually makes some good points, although I do think he was way off the mark when he jumped on the bandwagon to attack the protests during the “Behzti” controversy.
What bandwagon? He commented on a mob forcing the closure of a play and forcing the author to go into hiding. Whats wrong with that?
Say what you want about Rushdie, he is at least consistent in his advocacy of freedom of speech no matter where the attack comes from – Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or America.
Freedom of speech: Yes, absolutely. And I support this concept wholeheartedly too.
Freedom to deliberately be grossly offensive just for the sake of publicity, especially regarding religious matters (whether one’s own religion or anyone else’s), and claiming on the advertisement posters that one’s work shows “what REALLY goes on inside a [insert name of place of worship here]”….: Absolutely not. A fictional piece of work (eg. a certain controversial book) which indirectly takes the michael out of certain aspects of a religion is one thing, a piece of drama which one is attempting to publicise by lying outright about the veracity of the events depicted (especially when sacred verses are being played simultaneously during key scenes) is an entirely different matter. Especially when you bear in mind that large sections of the majority population of the country in which these events are set have little idea of either the religious tenets or what it is really like inside the aforementioned place of worship. We all already have enough PR problems in the UK as it is.
Death threats or general intimidation in either of the above scenarios, however, are of course not justifiable.
I do agree with Kush Tandon’s comment that the Satanic Verses affair, whilst generating the required publicity, did possibly escalate far beyond the author’s expectations. Ditto for Behzti, although I don’t think they’re necessarily analogous situations (despite attempts by some sections of the media to make them so). The Devil is in the details, as they say.
And then you say
So in fact your first statement is not true.
I dont care what people say – mob rule and violence is wrong whoever does it – so are threats and everything that goes with it whatever the provocation.
Rushdie didnt say anything wrong.
And the mob violence and threats really helped that didnt it? Nobody could give a damn about some obscure play in a theatre with a capacity of 140 people that ran for ten days – instead lets have a riot and get beamed all around the world and then fret about bad PR – what a joke!
I cannot believe that people can be so myopic.
Well said.
Aside -… freedom of speech has been alive and throbbing for a while now in India – anyone remember O V Vijayan – writer, journalist, illustrator – who wrote these sharp allegorical tales about the emergency and large festering boils oozing pus and goo.
Cicatrix,
there can NEVER be enough rushdie for the Vij. 😉
Hear Hear Punjabi Munda I’ve had the literate members of household read it for me and as that well known Punjabi LBJ said if you poke shit it just gets the flies happy ( or something)
I don’t know how well does Vij hold up against Subir? http://www.subir.com/rushdie.html
That is where I used to go previously for my Rushdie fix. It was a dead link for a while but I looked it up today. I am glad it is back up!
I loved the way he picks on Rushdie-bashers. Intelligently and politely.
Say what you want about Rushdie, he is at least consistent in his advocacy of freedom of speech no matter where the attack comes from – Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or America.
I am not so sure about it. This is my vague recollection from 10 years ago, he was quoted saying that two of the most brilliant ideas of the mankind – Islam and Communism. Hmm.. makes you think!
Heh..I wouldn’t turn Rushdie for consistency, keen analysis or political insight but I do love him for the being absolutely fascinating as a writer. His love of wordplay, hi-lo aesthetic, zest for life, childlike absolute curiosity, an attitude that veers wildly between caring too much and not giving a toss, and sense of humor…I keep coming back to read him for these.
Considering he’s not a Muslim, and he’s clearly a capitalist, did it strike you that the quote might be sarcasm?
I don’t know if this is the quote, but he’s not advocating communism, he’s advocating literature:
No, gross, doesn’t the guy have enough fatwas on his head already ? Padma Lakshmi on the other hand …
You’re absolutely right here. I made it clear in my previous post that I agree with you about this.
Hmm. I don’t agree with you on this one, but since I don’t think it’s a good idea to dig up the Behzti issue which has now (hopefully) been put to rest for quite a while, let’s amicably agree to disagree.
Yes of course, you’re right here too. It’s a tricky one — ignore something grossly offensive and (to Sikhs) blasphemous in the knowledge that keeping quiet about it will result in everyone else ignoring it too, or do something to stop the sacrilege from continuing. Bit of a double-edged sword, that one.
Again, I stated unequivocally in my previous post that I didn’t agree with either the rioting or the threats. (In fact, at the time I argued both sides of the case extensively on the Sikhnet Discussion Forum — if you’ve ever browsed through that website — and the rights & wrongs of both the writer and the protesters, so ironically you and I are actually on the same page here).
By the way, it wasn’t actually a “mass riot” as depicted in the media at the time — a handful of people at the front started pushing and shoving and attempting to force their way into the building, but the vast majority of the protesters didn’t do anything of the sort. Anyway, this is ancient news, and you can always read through the archived debates on Sikhnet about this for further information, especially regarding eyewitness accounts by people — both men and women — who were actually present.
Freedom of speech has to be balanced by the need to act responsibly, at least in a progressive society where one is supposed to act in a civilised and considerate manner towards one’s fellow citizens. “Freedom of speech” doesn’t mean “freedom to be a complete jerk”, whilst expecting — indeed, demanding — that the target of your deliberately offensive words should not have the right to speak up in response, and — if appropriate and via lawful means — to attempt to stop you from continuing your malicious behaviour.
As you know yourself, Sikhism does not advocate retaliatory, tit-for-tat actions against actual or perceived negative behaviour (either verbal or physical), but it does stress the importance of standing up against deliberate maliciousness. The former is in the spirit of revenge and anger (a big no-no), whereas the latter is about preventing the malicious behavior from continuing.
nice analysis Cicatrix. Though, much like Murakami after him, his pop-culture references run dangerously close to product placement (perhaps not surpring given his ad-roots). When Naipaul recently compared the “modern novel” to a circus act, I couldn’t help but think of Rushdie. Maybe it’s just my Kramer-esque disdain for clowns…
Thanks bureau-cat! Naipaul and Rushdie strike me as having rather diametrically opposed sensibilities, so it makes sense that Rushdie fits into Naipaul’s sneer 🙂
If it is a circus act (and I think the image can be glorious one. What was White Teeth if not one fantastic juggling-act?) Rushdie is the ringmaster. It’s his laziness that irritates me…plotlines that echo preceeding novels, characters that are too broad to convey anything significant, etc.
But product placement? When Bret Easton Ellis allots twelve brand names, per page at least? When Fay Weldon accepted money from Bulgari FOR The Bulgari Connection?? His ad roots are entwined with his writing style I think. All that word play. So admirabubble, commendabubble, readabubble…
you try it! so addictive:)
If Rushdie’s the ringmaster, then “Satanic Verses” was like putting his head into the lion’s mouth. Inadvisabubble 😉
Considering he’s not a Muslim, and he’s clearly a capitalist, did it strike you that the quote might be sarcasm?
well, I don’t know how long he has been a clear capitalist, definitely not in those years, as I recall. During the years after fatwa, he has said a number of things to appease the muslim fundamentalists, and I only think this quote belongs to those years.
bureau-cat… Yes. I see what you mean. Not very sensibubble.
;0
You all should meet Rushdie (I did last year!) and the guy is pretty nice in person, but in his lectures and interviews he does seem to be quite full of himself. His writing style is great, but I agree with Cicatrix, there’s something about him and his books that doesn’t really exude “greatness.” Good, but not really worthy of a Nobel or anything like that.
worthy of a Booker? or 2?
Remarkable, I think you may have misunderstood me. I think Rushdie often does soar to “greatness.” Every great novelist has a stinker or two in his/her bibliography. And not every novelist can lay claim to greatness like Midnight’s Children.
They can’t all be John Kennedy Toole you know 😉
Is he a supporter of capitalism : I quote “It was hard to believe that such an administration [that of President Reagan] could claim moral superiority over the likes of Miguel d’Escoto [Nicaragua’s foreign minister].”
Mrs Thatcher as “the Bitch” & “Mrs Torture” how insightful !
Great author he is, role model he ain’t
That’s a very legimate criticism of Reagan’s foreign policy, not of capitalism.
All this policy and insightful literary criticism….but wait, hasn’t anyone noticed the picture?
Why is Rushdie trying so hard to come off as some kind of GQ model. I prefer his former dishevelled and nerdy look. Looks like his wife must be rubbing off on him.
Next up for Rushdie: a cookbook, chock full of references to everything under the sun, plus gratuitous sexuality! Mmmm…tasty! Coming to a bookstore near you!
In the article he says something (don’t have it with me, sorry) about that actually Vurdlife! I think his wife nagged him to shave. He’d had a beard for 16 years, so he says he felt shocked when he saw how old and saggy his face had become 🙂
Cicatrix, Manish,
Seen M. Kakutani’s review in the Times?
In Kashmir, Toxic Love Breeds Terrorism
“These are the sort of words spoken by mustache-twirling, snake-eyed villains in old cartoons – villains who are a lot less interesting and a lot less dangerous than the ones at large in the real world that Mr. Rushdie strives by indirection to address in this ambitious but ham-handed novel.”
Ouch.