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Mar 17, 2018Waluconis rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
There was never before, as far as I know, a writer threatened with a fatwa, an assassination, for one book that he wrote, which was "The Satanic Verses". "Joseph Anton" is a detailed memoir of Rushdie's life during those years. Now much 0f the furor has died down (although there is still someone fairly high on the Google search who claims the current Salman Rushdie is not the real person). Others look back and say that the threat was exaggerated. They seem to forget that not just the author, but publishers and bookstores were also threatened, while translators were seriously wounded and killed. The moving security box in which Rushdie had to live his personal, social, and professional lives is brought to life. In the first few hundred pages I could not put down this unique chronicle. The beginning is a memoir of the writer's early life, including many inspirations that became elements of the book. That portion is especially intriguing. However, when the fatwa is reached, it of course dominates events, and is so detailed and the events often become oppressive and repetitive. The last third of the book took me a while to finish. The details of the fatwa no doubt made the time a long grind for the author. However, we also get detailed gossip of the literary scene at the time. In addition, Rushdie is self-admittedly excited by media stars, especially from music and film. Add to that he is a bit of a name dropper, and we get a chronicle of many of the famous from those years. This includes political figures because the fatwa pushed his life into politics. This book really needs an index, which would be long and amazing, running from Duckburg to Edith Wharton and everything in between. It is helpful but not necessary to read "Satanic Verses" as well. Of course the irony exists that probably only those in literary reading circles would have taken much notice of the book without the fatwa. Many of the angriest attackers of the work would have probably been bewildered if they had just sat down and read it. So, even though it slammed his life, it also made him much more famous than he would have been. He has his attackers because of this, and he takes those on, always pointing out particularly those from the world of writing that slammed him, as well as those who supported him. He does say himself, "Were there no limits to the shamelessness of the literary imagination? No. There were no limits." The time period covered in the memoir includes the beginning of the significant changes the Internet brought with it. He wrote of himself (in third person as he sometimes does), "If "Google" had existed in 1989 the attack on him would have spread so much faster and wider that he would not have stood a chance." Rushdie is very human so we see the ups-and-down of his family life, which of course was affected by the fatwa. We now know how singularly beautiful one of his wives was. But we also read what his mother said about a new book he was working on: "This time, write a nice book." I love that line, but Mr. Rushdie does not play that game. Not nice, because as he writes, "freedom was always taken, never given." He gains his freedom through practicing his art, so he can write: "The value of art lies in the love it engenders, not the hatred. It's love that makes books last. Please keep reading." My personal favorite of his is "The Ground Beneath Her Feet", but this is an amazing primary source of history. Just the same - it really needs a complete index.