consistently lauded for works completed nearly two decades ago. must be frustrating for a writer to keep delivering new prose when all people want to talk about is midnight's children and satanic verses. its rough that no one for a second discussed the knighthood in relation to fury (at having shelled out $24.95 for a hard cover) or the ground beneath her feet (stomping on this book) or shalimar the clown (fool me three times shame on... but shame was a great novel).

either way, each discussion of salman rusdie, by being inextricably linked to satanic verses or midnights children, is really just a criticism of his newer work...

Grimus. It was an OK effort, but felt sort of like trade paperback fantasy. I was entranced by the Satanic Verses - the first time I read it, I couldn't lay it down, and finished the whole book in a single weekend of furious reading. I was pretty disappointed by my forays into the rest of his work. Never did get around to Midnight's Children, though...

mrbiswas huh? We have a Naipaul fan here evidently. :)

Oh how clever. How literate.

But Satanic Verses is no good... it just gets attention because of the fatwa. Look, Midnight's Children may be the best book written in the last 25 years. I think Rushdie is like a lot of people who have written a great novel: he's written one truly great book and a bunch of middling ones.

satanic verses may not be that great as a whole, but the islamist part is the first English language modern literary attempt (that I know of) to engage with the extraordinary phenomenon of the rise of Islam. One does not have to agree with his angle to see that such exploration is part of how modern people understand and interact with ancient and not so ancient historical events. Europeans have been doing it in everything from Kazanzakis to "the master and margarita" and I see no good reason why muslims should not join the party.

fully agree. for my money, book one of midnight's children is the best fiction out there.

I certainly agree that Salman Rushdie's greatest contribution to the modern literary world is his symbolic stance for freedom of speech. And given this post 911 climate we live in, his knighthood serves as a convenient reminder to us westerners that free speech comes with a heavy price. However, this is clearly an example of the British government's decision to draw another line in the sand further illustrating the great cultural divide that exist between the east and west. I wish our leaders would not take every cultural remnant we have, in this case literature, as an opportunity to make a political statement. Unfortunately, I never read Satanic Verses or Midnight's Children so my opinion of his work derives from one source, The Fury. I bought this book in the hopes that his reputation preceeded him. At the very least, I wanted to be entertained. He is an excellent story teller, vivid and clever, but very boring and a bit outdated. He like many modern british authors, paints his characters in broad and clumsy strokes. Especially those in groups they themselves are not members of (Zadie Smith). I found his portrayal of his lead character's African-American friend as very condescending. Salman, not too covertly, suggests that this character met his death because he was immoral, a sexual deviant and too uppety to stay in his place. And naturally he is humiliated and killed at the hands of a secret society of white, racist elites. Then, his lead character conveniently begins a racially and culturally illuminating affair with his friend's ex-lover who Salman's lead character did not believe he deserved in the first place. Also note that the girlfriend and his lead character were of the same race. And why must he describe every woman the lead character encounters and seduces as very young and depressingly attractive. Salman is not a racist or sexest, but he is not without prejudice. Certainly I recognize this as fiction and nothing more. Often writers will paint an ugly picture to demonstrate a deeper, less pervasive truth, but this book, however, lacked the subtlety necessary to tell a good story not withstanding his failure to reveal anything of social or political relevance. The point that I am trying to make is that it is a shame such a dim writer is being honored purely for his work's symbolic and political overtones. It's an obvious and troubling reflection of our society's political agenda. In some ways we are not much different then our enemies.

But thats the whole point. The British apparently did NOT do this as some kind of line in the sand about freedom of speech. They have stumbled into that position by accident...

check out <link> to see how the brits stumbled into the increasingly unfamiliar position of defending freedom of speech.

After reading the articles you provided I certainly see your point, to an extent. Rushdie did not create terrorism and he should not be the political magnate for western values. In fact perhaps I have been too critical of this gesture, but surely one could not assume that those in power were not making a deliberate gesture or at the very least unaware of this gestures' response