Joseph Anton

Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was while reading I Am Malala earlier this year that I first heard that Salman Rushdie had a fatwa against him for many years after the publication of The Satanic Verses. Years ago, I had read Haroun and the Sea of Stories and loved it, and so I had placed several of his other books on my to-do list, though I had never gotten around to reading them. Malala's brief mention of Rushdie's fatwa made me curious about his backstory, so I downloaded his memoir to listen to next.

Salman's story is indeed quite fascinating, and I pity him for the life of seclusion he was forced to live for so many years. I agree that literary expression should not be censored just because people don't like what one has written, or find it offensive. In the end, it's just a book, and if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to read it. There's lot of books out there that I find personally and morally offensive, but I don't think they should be burned, or their authors murdered.

As for the writing of this book, the prose is certainly compelling and beautiful, though I still find it a bit odd that he wrote his own memoir in the third person. I feel like choosing to use that particular narrative device gave himself as the author some distance from himself as the character, and also provided a feeling of objectivity of the account that we don't always believe of personal remembrances. Everyone remembers events differently, and the use of the 3rd person narrator implies facts and objectivity where in actuality we have memories and subjectivity. I wonder how each of his wives (all of them now ex-wives) would describe these same events, and who would seem a more reliable narrator, Salman or the women. Marianne in particular is not described in particularly kind terms, and I'm left with the general impression that she is an unstable, compulsive liar, who only married Salman because he was rich and famous, and never really loved him. Is that true? Or just how Salman remembers things? What about the odd way he described Padma Lakshmi, now of Top Chef fame? From what I hear, her memoir is not very kind to him, either.

I particularly enjoyed the sections where Salman described how he crafted and created each book. He clearly loves writing and these works become like children to him. The thought and care and work that goes in to each one is fascinating. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is one of my favorites, and I loved hearing how his son encouraged him the write it, and helped him along the way. I completely understand why he refused to change anything in it for the publishers - how could he ruin what was a special, unique gift for his son?

There were also sections that were so detailed that they became repetitive and tedious - I'm not sure we needed to know about every house change, and every conversation between every person Rushdie ever spoke with, and the back and forth and back and forth and back and forth of what was negotiations with Iran and then what wasn't and so on. Clearly Rushdie had major issues with the way the British government handled the fatwa, the negotiations with Iran (or lack there of), his persecution in the press, and his protection.

I did appreciate how much he lauded his many friends for supporting him and helping him out so graciously over the years. His effluent praise was so frequently that I have to think that he wasn't just keeping a journal during this time, he must have been taking meticulous notes of where he went and who he saw and what happened each and every day. How was he moving these journals around with him? Did he ship them off to his agent for safekeeping? Did friends store them for him? I'm not sure he would have trusted anyone not to try to read them. His journals also never forgot a slight against him, and he chronicled each of those, as well, calling out people who hurt and offended him.

In the end, the book was just too long by a mile, and could had benefited from a drastic editing process. By the time I made it halfway through, I just wanted things to move along, but I knew I still had a ways to go, so I tried to push through as fast as I could. Maybe that's the primary drawback to an audiobook - you can multitask and listen while you're doing other things, but it's much harder to "skim" when you get to a section you're not as interested in. If I could pull out just parts about writing, I would recommend that book to everyone. As it is, I would have to say that, despite being glad that I read it, I would only recommend this book to big fans of Rushdie, or those interested in middle eastern culture, politics, and religion.

View all my reviews