Rushdie emphasizes power, neccessity of storytelling

Acacia O'Connor Senior Editor

“The truth about the world is that the world is not realistic. The world, in fact, is a fantastic place.” These words, pronounced to hundreds of students and community members in the Vassar College Chapel, shed light on where author Salman Rushdie places himself in the world of literature. In many ways, Rushdie, this year’s William Starr Freshman Course Lecturer, personifies a mixture of reality and myth—a fact that was apparent in his interactions with the student body on Wednesday, Sept. 20.

Considering Rushdie’s long list of achievements and a 30-years’-deep body of work that has stirred up a fair amount of religious controversy, it was possible that his address would take a somber, dry and political tone. Instead, those who attended his campus-wide talk, as well as the more intimate conversation beforehand, found him to be funny, relatable and, above all else, real.

Rushdie was born in 1947 in Bombay, India just several weeks before the partition of India and Pakistan. The separation of the two nations led not only to alienation within the author’s extended family, but also fermented his interest in disjoint and frontiers, themes which he would later incorporate into many of his works.

“[On] the subject of frontiers, I could go on forever,” said Rushdie with a smile, addressing a freshman’s question at a small meet-and-greet before the campus-wide lecture in Rockefeller Hall. “The subject of frontiers has always been very big in my own life.”

The Class of 2010 summer reading selection, Shalimar the Clown, is Rushdie’s latest book, a work that took him four years to write. The novel delves into the complex nature of humanity and transformation, themes that are of great interest to the author.

“I wanted [Shalimar the Clown] to not be capable of a simple moral reduction,” Rushdie told the students. “In the real world you don’t have such a thing as ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ They are jumbled up, just as they are in each one of us.”

Following the conversation, students lined up to have Rushdie sign their books. Many of them asked personal questions about Shalimar, which the author fielded with interest and humility. Some asked to have their copies of The Satanic Verses signed as well. Published in 1989, The Satanic Verses is perhaps the greatest contributor to the making of the legendary quality surrounding Rushdie. After its publication, a fatwa was issued by the then-spiritual leader of Iran, calling for Rushdie’s death.

Though the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses has shaped his career, Rushdie hardly touched on his years in hiding, the book-burnings, or the call for his execution by Islamic leaders the world-over. Instead, he related his conclusions regarding freedom and the future of storytelling.

“The telling of stories is something that is absolutely at the heart of what human nature is,” stressed Rushdie in his evening address, entitled “Step Across This Line.” “That is why it is very, very dangerous when people start meddling with the kinds of stories we’re allowed to tell. If you live in a society that says, ‘we will tell you what the story is and how to tell it,’ that seems to be one definition of prison. Of tyranny.”

Regarding Vassar students, Rushdie said he “was impressed by their readings. It was a very interesting conversation. They seem like very smart readers.” Although he has never taught in a classroom as of yet, he noted that he is increasingly tempted to do so.

“As you get older, you get a sense of wanting to return some of the things you learned,” said Rushdie.

Currently, Rushdie is in the midst of writing, an arduous process for the self-described “slow writer.” He has been working on his current novel for more than a year now, and estimated that he has at least another year of work until it will be complete.

When asked how he had envisioned his future as an undergraduate student, Rushdie replied that, while he always wanted to write, he was and remains interested in acting. Rushdie said after his afternoon talk that he has a supporting role playing a gynecologist in the upcoming movie Then She Found Me, starring Colin Firth, Bette Midler and Helen Hunt, set to be released in 2007. In 2001, he made a cameo appearance as himself in Bridget Jones’ Diary, and was invited to do a reprisal of that role for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, an invitation he declined.

“But you can’t go on playing yourself,” remarked Rushdie.

Now 30 years into his career, Rushdie indicated that he felt “more expressed” than he had as a young writer. When asked if he would write any differently today regarding the controversial Satanic Verses, he thought for a moment before replying. “I can’t imagine my writing career without it,” he said finally. “To me writing is a journey. Each step is indispensable.”

Rushdie marked his greatest achievement as “having a life in books.”

“I’ve wanted to use books to respond to the world I’m in at a given time,” said Rushdie. “There’s no one book that can contain your response to the world.”

It is this belief in the power of nuanced expression that cuts to core of Rushdie’s storytelling philosophy. In his evening address, as well in his books, he asked, “Do we have the right to tell each other the stories of our lives in the way that we see fit, or is someone else going to do that for us?”

Though the question remains unanswered, Rushdie’s assertion that “We better try our hardest to retain that power, or we’ll be in deep excrement,” certainly resonated.