Cover art for the "Satanic Verses" |
It takes a special person to write
something so offensive it motivates the leader of a country to issue a death
sentence. Back in 1988, Salman Rushdie did just that, penning the “Satanic
Verses”, which incited so much anger in the Islamic world that in 1989,
Ayatollah Khomeini, the head of Iran, issued a fatwa. That meant it was open
season on the writer.
Now, freedom of expression is
something I believe in deeply. It is part of the fibre of my life, and the
under pinning of my profession. It sickens me that, essentially, he suffered
fear and death threats for a novel he wrote.
I never read the “Satanic Verses”,
but it came out in my second year of university, while I was taking my one and
only English class. Our professor started one class by advising us there was a
public reading of the “Satanic Verses” that afternoon. Me and my friend Chris
Vining, who were also in English together, made the trip down there to a
classroom. I thought as we approached, given the publicity of the “Satanic
Verses”, the reading would be in a lecture hall or theatre. As it turned out,
the classroom was packed and we had to sit on the floor.
The author and his book. Salman Rushdie holds up a copy of his controversial book "The Satanic Verses", published in 1988. |
What followed is very difficult to
recount. I understood the words being read out, and the metaphors being drawn,
yet it seemed nonsensical. Phrases melted into successive phrases that
meandered all over without seeming to make a point. The next time I had this
same impression of a book was when I read “Tropic of Cancer” by Henry Miller
(only he used the “c” word – a lot).
I left that room with a couple
impressions. One was that I was not sure what I just heard. The other was that
our good friend in Tehran really had nothing to worry about. If the “Satanic
Verses” was blasphemy, a lot of readers would never even know it. Would the Ayatollah
even have a clue?
No comments:
Post a Comment