Book review –
In his newly released memoir, Salman Rushdie opens up about his near-fatal assault.
The novelist talks about his PTSD and coming to terms with losing an eye and why he feels no anger towards his assailant.
The book is horrific, upsetting and a masterpiece.
Bizarrely in this astonishing book Rushdie claims that he had dreamt about being stabbed just before the attack.
His skill with the pen is awe-inspiring; fun, playful, light, even when discussing the attempted murder against him when he was stabbed 15 times.
This was 30 years after the fatwa, an edict or ruling by a recognised religious authority on a point of Islamic law, was placed around his neck.
It’s a shame we still live in times where such things are imposed for criticising religion.
In Knife Rushdie talks about the would-be-killer as a harbinger of pain; he has not spent time looking for reasons, financial or social or any other reason, why the act occurred.
Knife is a tour-de-force, in which the great novelist takes his brutal near-murder and spins it into a majestic essay on art, pain and love.
There’s something to be said about this older generation of writers, which includes Atwood, King, and Gaiman.
Their analysis of social ills usually falls short and they don’t have the stomach to look at their home countries’ culpability in world disasters; their lens is softer and more forgiving.
Rushdie’s new book is a harrowing account of the attack and its aftermath, and a reminder of how gravely injured he was.
It is also a deeply moving love story that attributes much of his recovery and good spirits to the tender, brave support of his wife.
“I wanted to write a book which was about both love and hatred and one overcoming the other,” Rushdie said in a recent interview.
“And so, it’s a book about both of us.”
He is still dealing with the physical repercussions of the attack, including bouts of fatigue.
One side of his mouth pulls a bit when he talks, the result of damage to a nerve in his neck, and his left hand has only partially recovered; his right eye is permanently unusable.
But Rushdie’s voice has regained its rich timbre and air of quick, antic amusement; his manner is just as relaxed, and his mind just as supple, as ever.
So easily does he allude to and quote from books and popular culture that it can feel as if everything he has read, seen, and heard is at the forefront of his mind, instantly accessible like some sort of personal Google service.
Though Rushdie considered calling his new book A Knife in the Eye – a reference to the worst of his injuries – he decided on a single-word title, as sharp and staccato as the object itself.
“Knife can mean many things,” he writes.
It’s a weapon, of course, and an artistic device in books, movies and paintings.
In Rushdie’s book, it’s a metaphor for understanding.
“Language can be that kind of knife, the thing that cuts through to the truth,” Rushdie said.
“I wanted to use the power of literature not just in my writing, but in literature in general, to reply to this attack.”
The attack came seemingly from nowhere, long after the danger to his life seemed to have receded.
In London, where he lived when the fatwa was issued, Rushdie had round-the-clock Special Branch protection mandated by the British government.
He jettisoned that protection when he moved to New York more than two decades ago.
On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was onstage speaking about City of Asylum, a program that provides safe haven to writers under threat, when a black-clad man ran onto the stage and knifed Rushdie 10 times.
It severed all the tendons and most of the nerves in his left hand, it penetrated his right eye just short of his brain, destroying the optic nerve, it slashed into his neck, across his upper right thigh and along his hairline, and pierced his abdomen.
At first it was unclear whether he would survive.
Knife is a visceral, intimate book.
Rushdie has always said he wants to be thought upmost as a writer, but history has always intervened.
Julie Chessman