a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002 Salman RushdieLast night's "evening with Salman Rushdie" at the Berkeley Rep was a zoo, naturally, because admission was free and because everyone in the Bay Area seems to love Salman Rushdie. When they ran out of seats, the organizers let a bunch of Berkeley students sit around Rushdie's chair onstage, and an overflow crowd crammed the lobby to watch him on closed-circuit TV. He talked about Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which the Rep is west-coast premiering on Wednesday. (Haroun was his first published book after The Satanic Verses, and the only novel of his I can read; it's been turned into a play in several languages as well as an opera, which has yet to premiere in New York). Rushdie is always a good conversationalist. He mentioned that his son, Zafar, gave him the "best piece of literary criticism in his life," after reading a draft of Haroun. Zafar said, "Well, some people might be bored.""What do you mean?" Salman asked. "...It needs more jump." Which is the problem with most of his novels. To me Midnight's Children, in particular, has no jump. Anyway, he said an interesting thing about the war in Iraq. He thinks it's inevitable, but he pointed out that "the people you would loosely call the bad guys" in the U.S. administration, meaning "Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld" (this got a raucous cheer), "are the ones who advocate democracy after Saddam." (Total silence.) "The Republicans are in favor of a democracy, and the Democrats, in effect, are for dictatorship." For Rushdie the only good reason to invade Iraq is to set up a democracy and end Saddam's dictatorship; but the Democrats have relinquished that side of the rhetorical battle. This confuses and unsettles Rushdie, because he doesn't trust the Bush administration to wage a proper war. Exactly my feelings. And that's why the lack of leadership among the Democrats is such a low and miserable tragedy. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:15 PM | |
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