I
have just finished reading Salman Rushdie’s latest book, “Knife: Meditations
After an Attempted Murder”. Amongst contemporary writers, Rushdie
stands out as one whom God has repeatedly selected to undergo several rigorous tests
of commitment to writing. I know of no other living writer or an artist who has
faced wrath of the world the way Salman Rushdie has faced. And
yet after experiencing every such fierce attack, he has emerged and re-emerged
like that proverbial phoenix bird that rises from its own ashes. One would naturally wonder what makes him so
controversial and why his writing evokes such hatred in many people around the
world. But equally, one ought to wonder, perhaps more, what makes him rise
above all the vilifications he is subjected to. At the end of this book, one cannot but
conclude that he owes his ability to rise through ashes to his undying and eternal
commitment to the art and craft of writing.
All this began in 1988 when his book “Satanic
Verses” was published. A part of the book
was regarded as a great insult to prophet Mohammad. Iranian cleric Ayatollah Khomeini issued a
Fatwah, a religious order, awarding him death penalty. It was an appeal to the
Muslims in the world to execute him. It was a serious matter; he could not have
protected himself even with all security provided to him by the British
Government. So, he had to go underground to escape bid on his life. That drove him away from his family and shattered his personal life. He spent a long and dark period of fifteen
years under death threat. During this
period of wilderness, he lost his wife; his family suffered and he spent lonely life of a fugitive running from place to place escaping killers who
never left his back. At the turn of the century,
threat to his life waned, or so it
looked like, and he began new lease of life. It
appeared that all he wrote in 1980s and death threats he
received in turn were left behind. But
alas, the Fatwah and the death penalty it decreed did not leave him. It
followed him, as it appears in retrospect, secretly, unbeknownst to him and to
his well-wishers. When everyone thought
that the dark period of dance of death was over and life was brighter
again, it struck suddenly and more ferociously.
And this time tragic fate overtook him more dramatically too, with greater irony. For, in August 2022 Rushdie was brutally
attacked in a New York theatre by an assassin; a greater irony was that he was attacked when
he was delivering a lecture on “Guarding Writers’ Freedom of Speech”. So
ferocious was the attack that Rushdie suffered twenty-seven deep wounds, lost
an eye and was almost given up as dead. It was a great medical miracle that he
somehow survived. The present work
“Knife” is an account of that dark period and his resurrection, both physical
and spiritual.
The first part of the book deals with
meticulous details of attack, injuries he suffered and detailed descriptions of
critical and crucial medical treatments he underwent. It is a brave story of how with courage and
fortitude he came out of pall of death and pain. The later part is a creative meditation on our precarious and troubled existence and the
purpose of art, especially the art of writing. These meditations show Rushdie’s great
qualities as an artist who comes to terms with himself.
His writing extensively dwells and philosophically lingers on broader issues of
art and its purpose. Although the assassin and his motives bother Rushdie and
he tries to explore them, there is no anger or bitterness in his mind; all the
while he is trying to make sense of his assassin and his motives. There is no hatred in his writing. Instead, there is an
attempt to comprehend the enormity of the phenomenon. Ultimately,
there is revelation in his writing about the purpose of art. Rushdie seeks to
engage his killers and violent opponents through his writing.
He appears to be saying to his opponents, “If you hate me that’s fine; but I
will go my way and will engage you through my art; for art is more enduring and powerful than all the violence you want to unleash on me.” Rushdie’s writing on art and its purpose is lucid and luminous; it has its own light and aura that shines on what he writes. He may
call himself an atheist and yet his love for art, for humanity, for human
civilization transcends his atheism. This
is perhaps the most beautiful part of his writing.
There
was another reason why I was curious to read Rushdie’s “Knife”. Many years ago,
after the years of “Satanic Verses”, when the clouds of death hanging over his
head started clearing and he began breathing somewhat easily, Salman Rushdie
wrote his famous memoirs “Joseph Anton”.
I had reviewed this book immediately after its release in 2012, for a
Marathi newspaper, “Maharashtra Times”. I was truly fascinated by his
uncompromising and awe-inspiring courage and struggle he raised for freedom of
expression. Apart from its great literary merit, his memoirs were also a
chronicle of a great fight he put up on behalf of the artists of the world. And
yet, I carried an impression that Rushdie had not fully come to terms
with his tormentors. Somewhere in his narrative I had sensed a small but discernible complaint. In
contrast, the narrative of “Knife” is admirably free of any complaint even
about the killer. Rushdie’s writing, therefore, rises above the ordinary, the mundane and
the everyday!
Here, Rushdie uses a novel literary
device, an imaginary dialogue with his assassin. I have not come across anywhere
such a dialogue between a murderer and his victim, both sitting facing each
other and talking it out openly. This literary technique ferrets out
aesthetically what goes on in the minds of the enemies of art. The dialogue and the conversation bring
up a picture that shows the civilizational mindlessness we are heading for and
also the challenge it poses to the sanity of the world. For, the dialogue elicits nothing except a
deep nihilistic void in the mind of Rushdie's assassin. Rushdie and his readers
alike are shocked to learn that the assassin had not read a single page of
Rushdie’s writing. It is this nihilism, born of the hate speech and hatred
peddled through the ubiquitous social media, that is the greatest existential
threat to the world and to our civilization. This reasoned dialogue with the murderer is
not merely a literary device; it’s much more than that. It is art at its divine work. Rushdie may be, as he
claims and others endorse, an atheist; but this work flows with great warmth
and love that transcends all that circumscribes and defines atheism.
I have
no hesitation accepting that through his book Rushdie has reached great literary height few other contemporary writers have reached.
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