A Conversation With 'SALMAN RUSHDIE'

Great writer

He is a great writer and his books were known and apreciated before satanic versus.

I read almost all of his books. For those who left comments about doubting his talent. Before exposing doubts go and read at least one of his books. Try Midnight Children for begining. 

I'm begining to like him

I was never a big fan of Rushdie and when he did get a Fatwa threatening his life I was hardly surprised. I had seen a photo of him with his book in a very small footnote in Newsweek magazine promoting his book, my first reaction was to think that he will be in trouble and shortly after so when I heard that Khomeiny had set a fatwa on this British Indian author I was hardly surprised.

On the otherhand his left wing anti-Thatcher rhetoric made me think that he was nothing else but a provocator who was taking the easy way out and not bringing anything interesting or new to the debate on Western "neo colonialism" or so called "imperialism". But I have since found that he has been a very interesting author and bold thinker ever since he became threatened by the Fatwa and became world famous. I think his most important contribution has really been to shed light on the dark side of Islam but beyond its criticism of religious fanaticism, I think he allowed a better understanding by the Western Intelligenstia on the complexities of the East both good and bad.

He is definitively a very interesting and serious thinker and I think ironically he most probably became one only after the Fatwa.

Was it worthed!

He insulted Islam and Muslims by writing his satanic versus and after that he had to go into hiding for years.He became famous but I am wondering if it was worthed for him?

A Wonderful Author

He is one of my favorite writers. I`m so glad to see him happy and well.

Thanks for providing the reviews

It helps better understand what's being said. I do remeber the Satanic Verses, and all the commotions that followed.

Various 'Reviews' Of This Book

New York Times - David Gates:
The Enchantress of Florence is so pious — especially in its impiety — so pleased with itself and so besotted with the sound of its own voice that even the tritest fancies get a free pass. "But imagine, Jodha," Akbar tells his imaginary wife, "if we could awake in other men’s dreams and change them, and if we had the courage to invite them into ours. What if the whole world became a single waking dream?" Not that again — didn't Samuel Johnson squelch such Berkeleyan whimsies back in the 18th century by kicking a stone? Maybe it's just my philistine cussedness talking, but life’s just too short.

Sunday Times - Helen Dunmore:
In fact, whether it is a novel at all in the usual sense of the word is doubtful. It's a haul of stories, gathered with magpie glee, arranged to glitter. Self-consciousness is one of the book's main purposes. Rushdie keeps coming back to his reflections on the nature of story itself, and the way in which a human being understands himself and his dilemma through story.

The Guardian (UK):
This brilliant, fascinating, generous novel swarms with gorgeous young women both historical and imagined, beautiful queens and irresistible enchantresses... ...[a] sumptuous, impetuous mixture of history with fable.

The Economist:
Paragraph by paragraph, this is a carefully wrought and often exquisite book, but the overall effect is as rich and stultifying as a month-long diet of foie gras.

Of course, like Bellow and Mr Roth, Mr Rushdie's mediocre writing exceeds most novelists' best. But Mr Rushdie ought to bear in mind that a novelist is at heart a storyteller, not a serial creator of self-delighting sentences.

Los Angeles Times - Amy Wilentz:
The magical realism in "Enchantress" is all artifice and diversion. Its decorative beauty disguises truth, or avoids it, and keeps the reader pointlessly mystified. No style should be a substitute for a story. Plot is the hard work of novel-writing. Rather than dealing with difficult reality, which is the writer's perhaps unpleasant but necessary duty, Rushdie forces Qara Köz from the Mughal Empire into Florence to make a few dubious points, distracting readers from the logistical plot problems in the book's flabby middle. In magical realism as it is practiced by Rushdie, timelines are as naught. Simultaneity is all. This can make the work seem less like great literature and, at moments, more like automatic scribbling.

When I Watch Salman Rushdie ...

I sometimes get an impression that perhaps he is a bit 'cookie' - nevertheless a 'talented' writer.

I guess it is hard to have one without the other! - Really :)