Step Across This Line

by Salman Rushdie

The subjects of Salman Rushdie's collection of non-fiction range from The Wizard of Oz, U2, India and Indian writing, the death of Princess Diana, and football, to twentieth-century writers including Angela Carter, Arthur Miller, Edward Said, J. M. Coetzee and Arundhati Roy.

In a central section, 'Messages from the Plague Years', Rushdie focuses on the fight against the Iranian fatwa, presenting texts both personal and political, which show for the first time how it was to live through those days. Rushdie's columns for the New York Times confront current issues - Kashmir, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Islam and the West - as well as lighter topics such as reality TV, sport and sleaze. The book ends with the lectures that give it its title - Rushdie's exploration of the theme of frontiers: crossing them, breaking taboos, and - in the light of September 11 - the world of permeable frontiers in which we all live.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, India, Politics, Cultural, Literary Fiction, Literary Criticism

454 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.
After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. In total, 20 countries banned the book. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. In 2022, Rushdie survived a stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in April 2023.
Rushdie's personal life, including his five marriages and four divorces, has attracted notable media attention and controversies, particularly during his marriage to actress Padma Lakshmi.

Reviews

[leynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Step Across This Line collects Salman Rushdie's nonfiction from 1992 to 2002. In this book we find a wide variety of essays, speeches and opinion pieces by one of the most creative minds of our time. This collection concentrates Rushdie's uncanny social commentary and irresistible wit (he's funny, ya'll!)—about soccer, The Wizard of Oz, and writing, about fighting the Iranian fatwa and turning with the millennium, and about September 11, 2001. This book truly has it all.

You guys know that Rushdie became one of my favorite writers/thinkers last year when I fell in love with his most recent essay collection Languages of Truth, which collects his nonfiction from 2003 to 2020. I had never read a more clever and thought-provoking essay collection in my life. I had never witnessed someone love literature as much as I do and then be able to put it in such wonderful words. I vowed to read Rushdie's entire nonfictional work and bought Step Across This Line (1992-2002) and Imaginary Homelands (1981-1991). Having read both of them now, I can definitely say that Step Across This Line is the weakest of the bunch. And I don't think that's surprising. The pieces in this collection were written in the decade after the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie, a time of horror and turmoil for him. It makes a lot of sense to me that his literary output wasn't as great as during other time's of his life. Step Across This Line collects many newspaper columns, introductions to books, letters he wrote to different organisations regarding the Fatwa, speeches he had friends give in his stead etc. — it doesn't feel as free and original as the longer essays we find in the other collections. Most of the pieces in here are really, really short, and of its time. It was fun to see what has still relevance today (and I'll be pointing out those tidbits in the review, don't worry) but overall, the collection is just mid. Would recommend for die-heart Rushdie fans (um, hi, hello, I'm here, I have arrived) but would advise literally anybody else to just read Languages of Truth instead. But let's get into this thang!

The first essay in this collection is "Out of Kansas". In it Rushdie reviews the Wizard of Oz movie adaptation. I haven't seen it, so it was hard for me to follow along, but I was here for Rushdie's wit ("...eulogising the ideal state, which Kansas so obviously is not." or "I couldn't stand Toto. I still can't."). I think my main takeaway is in his resume at the end: "We understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home" but rather that there is no longer any such place as home: except, of course, for the home we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began."

I also like that Oz and Kansas were kind of a red threat that wove itself through this collection. Rushdie never let an opportunity slip to shit on Kansas, and I respect him for it. In his September 1999, "Darwin in Kansas", he writes: "If Darwin were able to visit Kansas in 1999, he would find living proof that natural selection doesn't always work, and that the dumbest and unfittest sometimes survive, and that the human race is therefore capable of evolving backward toward those youth-depressing apes." (Holy cow, he sure was angry! And rightfully so? How creation and evolution are/were taught in Christian schools is WILD af.) He also doesn't let Alabama off the hook: "In Alabama, a sticker on textbooks hilariously suggests that since 'no one was present when life first appeared on earth,' we canÄt ever know the facts. Seems you just had to be there." (LMAO)

Next in line is his eulogy for Angela Carter, and whilst I really didn't enjoy her short story collection The Bloody Chamber, I loved how Rushdie gave her her flowers: "She hadn't finished, she died at the height of her powers. For writers, theser are the cruelest deaths: in mid-sentence, so to speak." He also wrote a eulogy for Diana, in September 1997, which he ended with a mic drop: "Diana herself seemed far happier once she'd escaped from the Royal Family. Perhaps Britain too would be happier if it made the same escape, and learned to love without kings and queens." SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE ON THRONE, RUSHDIE!

In "In Defense of the Novel, Yet Again" (lmao, they won't let my man rest), he sums up perfectly the power and meaning of literature: "Good literature has always been a minority interest. Its cultural importance derives not from its success in some sort of ratings war but from its success in telling us things about ourselves that we hear from no other quarter." YES, YES, YES. In "Influence", he puts it beautifully as well: "I have always envisaged the world of the imagination not so much as a continent as an ocean. Afloat and terrifyingly free upon these boundless seas, the writer attempts, with his bare hands, the magical task of metamorphosis."

In his commencement address at Southampton University, Rushdie advises the graduates: "You will find yourselves up against gods of all sorts, big and little gods, corporate and incorporeal gods, all of them demanding to be worshiped and obeyed—the myriad deities of money and power, of convention and custom, that will seek to limit and control your thoughts and lives. Defy them: that's my advice to you. [...] Its men and women who have made the world, and they have made it in spite of their gods. Do not bow your heads. Do not know your place. Defy the gods."

Step Across This Line is by far his most overtly political collection. He shares great wisdom in it. In "Notes on Writing an the Nation", he writes: "Nationalism is that 'revolt against history' which seeks to close what cannot any longer be closed. To fence in what should be frontierless." In the last section of the collection, he takes up the theme of frontiers again: "It is one of the great characteristics of frontiers to be disputed. Give me a line drawn across the world and I'll give you an argument."

What I was looking forward to the most in this collection were Rushdie's recollections of the Fatwa and its aftermath. I was kinda disappointed by the many repetitive letters and pleas that were included in this, but I'm also immensely grateful for the things Rushdie shared. Four years into the Fatwa, he wrote that it feels like a "defeat because I'm still in this prison. It goes where I go. It has no walls, no roof, no manacles, but I haven't found a way out in four years." It's crazy that he will never fully break out of that prison. He shares his disappointment regarding how many countries, among others the US, France, India and Germany, have failed him and failed to support him when he needed it most. He also reckons with his home nation Great Britain and the British public: "It's not just my freedom that is being defended but also British sovereignty—the right of British citizens not to be assassinated by a foreign power—and principles of free speech." He felt like many of his fellow citizens didn't understand that. He also shares how this entire ordeal has made him feel lost and disoriented, like he didn't belong anywhere. "Unbelonging" rules his life. He also highlights that the Fatwa and his aftermath destroyed his relationship with the East in particular, and that was most hurtful to him, the rejection he faced from his "own" people. He also shares shocking tidbits, such as that he is no longer able to vote because his address must be unknown for safety reasons, but without a known address, he is not able to register to vote. CRAZY.

Now let's get into some of the things he said that are still hella relevant (and hella depressing) today. In 1999, he wrote about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that Palestinians know that peace and reconciliation aren't the same thing. Peace can be agreed upon, reconciliation must be earned afterwards. In 2024, we are farer away from both than we have been in years.

His March 2000 column was dedicated to Amadou Diallo, a Black immigrant from Guinea who was shot dead in the Bronx by four NYDP police officers—no fewer than 41 shots being fired by the quartet—with all four shootists being acquitted of any wrongdoing. Rushdie writes: "To put it bluntly: if you happen to be Black, and a police officer stumbles while you are reaching for your wallet, his partners may shoot you dead." Nothing new, nothing's changed.

In July 2000, he wrote: "Culture is what we now have instead of ideology. We live in an age of culture wars, of groups using ever narrower self-definitions of culture both as a shield and as a sword. Culture is touchy. Use the wrong word and you'll be accused of racism by some cultural commissar or other." I find this very interesting because on the one hand you wanna go "ok, boomer" but on the other hand you can't shake the feeling that he was right, and that these culture wars are still being fought today. Public debate is as good as that, it's just people screaming at each other, being unwilling to give the other side any grace or understanding. In another essay, he also states: "Freedom is that space in which contradiction can reign, it is a never-ending debate." Whew. Yes, yes, yes. We need to remember that.

In January 2000, he wrote that the "defining struggle of the new age would be between Terrorism and Security. [...] To live by the worst-case scenario is to grant the terrorists their victory without a shot having been fired." Not even two years later he was proven right by the September 11 attacks.

Since I don't wanna leave you on a sad and depressing note, I want to leave you with some of Rushdie's most witty banter and sarcastic bangers. He loves sharing this Ghandi anecdote: When Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western civilisation, he replied "I think it would be a good idea." LIVES WERE CHANGED. I also love the more personal moments he shares in this collection, e.g. that his son owns a complete set of his books, but prefers to read other authors. "And I pretend not to care." Uff. Sucker punch to the gut. Rushdie's sarcasm is unmatched tho: "The fact that the electoral college contains an even number of votes creates the possibility of a tie. (An odd number of votes was evidently deemed Unwise, for reasons that were no doubt profound and remain incomprehensible.)" LMAO. Or his dry humor: "But then again, nobody has a memory anymore." MOOD. Or his pettiness: "O.J. Simpson swearing to dedicate his life to finding his wife's "real" killer (any hot leads, O.J.?)" Give this man a standup comedy special! No for real, I'm so happy I read this book! Quotes for a lifetime!

As always, I will leave you with some of Rushdie's recommendations for books & authors to check out:
– Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
– Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
– Beirut Blues by Hanan Al-Shaykh
– Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov
– the poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Agha Shahid Ali & Akhter Hameed Khan
– the works of Ivo Andrić, Kadaré Ismail & Jorge Amado

(Another takeaway is that Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee is not worth your time. Oops.)

[Charissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally returned to this book and decided to stop approaching it by doggedly slogging through the first 4/5ths of it in order to "earn" reading what I bought it for: what Rushie had to say after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the US. Boy am I glad I did. Here is a link to what he wrote in just the month following the attacks:

http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0...

One month later and he's already sorting through the heart of the matter, unflinchingly beginning even then to turn over stones... what's under here? Salman Rushdie, although at times you painfully reserved (must be that British education) in the end your Indian upbringing bursts through and you touch the red hot burning core of humanity. What an incandescent combination of form and freedom.

Everything that follows his October 2001 column just continues to delve deeper and deeper into the intricacies of living in the Post-9/11 world. Which made going back and reading the earlier portions of the book that much richer to me. For some reason the context of now, makes then open up. There really is no rhyme or reason to my brain sometimes.

In the following days I want to post excerpts from the essays and my ruminations on them. For now, it being the wee hours, I will say: read it. His even and relentless gaze into the core of our current affairs is a beacon of sanity in our troubled time.

[Punit Soni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere in the course of this collection of his non-fiction works, Rushdie says, "[we].. are like a child picking shells on the beach never noticing the huge ocean of magnificient beauty right in front of it..". I sit mesmerized, looking around myself in awe, wondering where to start and where to end. When there is so much to know, so much that intrigues and so much that enraptures, there is sometimes a real danger of absorbing nothing or worse, wasting one's time in indecision. This book is like the world around us, profoundly euridite, exhaustingly diverse and sometimes almost ecstatically egoistical. As if revelling in its abiity to take us on this whirlwind tour through Rushdie's thoughts. The celebrated writer in his unique style captures the essense of the demons striking at the roots of humanity in today's times. The one overriding theme of this book is his perennial almost feverish exhortions to push the frontiers of our humanity, to express ourselves in all of our vain, silly, good, bad, notorious and imaginitive glory, to "step across the line". To actually not lose in our victory by giving in to fear of the hands muffling our mouths determined not to let the voices be heard. Rushdie is simply a magnificient writer and I write this in all my twenty six year old idealistic ignorance. Step Across The Line is, mildly put, an eclectic collection of essays, notes and features on topics as diverse as Wizard of Oz to English Soccer to the 9-11. If intelligence has sex appeal, then Rushdie is the quintessential Mata Hari or even better, a reader's Marlyn Monroe forever ready to beguile us with the flowing skirts of his imagination revealed by the gust of wind which is his writing.

[Karuseliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5

[Megan H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rushdie writes with a golden pen and I have nothing new to say about that. This collection is exactly what it says on the tape -- a decade's assortment of nonfiction covering a smorgasbord of subjects. As with any topically broad collection, not every piece resonates with me equally, but I do feel Rushdie approached each piece with deep introspection, yielding compositions that were thoughtful, challenging, entertaining, frustrating, and ultimately insightful.

My criticisms of this collection fall mainly on the editor(s). Some pieces had a brief note about where the essay/lecture/etc. debuted, but most were sorely lacking context. Because several of the pieces were incredibly niche and topical, a little information regarding where/when the work was originally published would've greatly aided in understanding and contextualizing Rushdie's words.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rushdie has been hit or miss for me. I devoured Haroun and the Sea of Stories; savored Shalimar the Clown and The Ground Beneath Her Feet. but I can't seem to make myself get into Midnight's Children, I try and I stall. I've read about have of The Moor's Last Sigh and don't really mind that I don't know how it ends. I've ceased to expect much from Rushdie aside from his wonderful prose. Maybe I'll be drawn in to the story, maybe not.
Before reading this I'd never attempted his nonfiction, I'm not sure I'd ever even read an interview with him. So I had no idea what I was in for. I was enthralled: the collection is a mishmash of literary crit, political and social commentary, and the migrant experience. I saw The Wizard of Oz through news eyes, discovered new authors I'm curious to read, I learned more about Indian politics, the Indian/Pakistan conflict, and read the nonfiction version of a fictional scene in The Ground Beneath Her Feet. It was an illuminating and interesting read and it whetted my appetite for Rushdie and all things India.

[Rāhul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of various Rushdie pieces, broadly about India, Islam, America and literary topics; through the fatwa years and after 9/11. The easy humor Rushdie finds in terrible times is disarming. The final essay about frontiers, with evocative passages on what it means to straddle frontiers with an unwanted passport, is poignant, as is the essay on his homecoming to India after the fatwa controversy cooled. With the benefit of hindsight, one often finds the cosmopolitan liberalism informing many of his articles collected here rather naive and proved wrong by events to come, but they are still compelling in their sincerity.

[Yoana Misirkova · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't even know why I stuck with this book to the very end but I guess I kept hoping it will get better when it didn't. The idea of having this non-fiction collection on absolutely random topics packed together intrigued me because I thought it would be super cool if he managed to pull it off and make it work. I thought if the writing is good then I will probably be a little bit interested at least in every single chapter/essay. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, I didn't like the writing style and there were only a handfull of chapters which I found good or interesting (hence 2 instead of 1 stars). The rest was either boring or I found the points being made at times a bit questionable. This was probably meant to be read by hardcore Rushdie fans who would read even his grocery shopping list if given the chance and in my opinion is definitely not a good introduction to his work.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every word is a joy. His essays and columns are so filled with wisdom and a lightness of touch. I love having these in my collection to complement the fiction. This volume covers the fatwa years, and while I had already been over much of this ground in Joseph Anton, this is a different format and the beats are distinct enough to provide value.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth the buy purely for the long essay on The Wizard of Oz.

[Magda Pojda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dla mnie był to wymagający przeciwnik, ale jakoś poszło i satysfakcja jest ;)

[Georgia Roybal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Salman Rushdie is one of my favorite authors. This book of essays gives his thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. I especially was interested in the section including his descriptions of his life under the fatwa.

I want to include some quotes from the book. The first is a precious description of the TaJ Mahal, something agreed to be pretty much indescribable.

"I had been skeptical about the visit. One of the legends of the Taj is that the hands of the master masons who built it were cut off by the emperor, so that they could never build anything lovelier. Another is that the mausoleum was constructed in secrecy behind high walls, and a man who tried to sneak a preview was blinded for his interest in architecture. My personal imagined Taj was somewhat tarnished by these cruel tales.

The building itself left my skepticism in shreds, however. Announcing itself as itself, insisting with absolute force on it sovereign authority, it simply obliterated the million million counterfeits of it and glowing filled, once and forever, the place in the mind previously occupied by its simulacra.

And this, finally, is why the Taj Mahal must be seen: to remind us that the world is real, that the sound is truer than the echo, the original more forceful than its image in a mirror. The beauty of beautiful things is still able, in these image-saturated times, to transcend imitations. And the Taj Mahal is, beyond the power of words to say it, a lovely thing, perhaps the loveliest of thing."

About love of country, he says:
"...my characters have frequently flown west from India, but in novel after novel their author's imagination has returned to it. This, perhaps, is what it means to love a country: that its shape is also yours, the shape of the way ou think and feel and dream. That you can never really leave."

Rushdie's characteristic humor is also evident in the following:

"Down into the dirt we tumble, in the name of the gentle Christ."

President Clinton, who reportedly prayed with his spiritual advisers while the impeachment vote was being taken, is nos slouch in the faux department himself."

"No amount of Western hypocrisy can come close to Saddam Hussein's faux-Islam and the crimes committed in its name. Ye religious zealots have the nerve to accuse god-free secularists of lacking moral principles."

"...whoever we are, friend or faux."

"Yes, all right, on February 14 it will be ten years since I received my unfunny Valentine." (speaking of the day the fatwa was announced)

"Speak and I risk deafening the world to those other utterances, my books, written in my true language, the language of literature. I risk helping to conceal the real Salman behind the smoky, sulfurous Rushdie of the Affair. I have led two lives: one blighted by hatred and caught up in this dire business, which I'm trying to leave behind, and the life of a free man, freely doing his work. Two lives, but non I can afford to lose, for one loss would end both."

Some thoughts on writing:
"A writer's injuries are his strengths, and from his wounds will flow his sweetest, most startling dreams."

Some thoughts on the fatwa:
"But these dark anniversaries of the appalling Valentine I was sent in 1989 have also been times to reflect upon the countervailing value of love. Love feels more and more like the only subject."

"What happened in India, happened in God's name. The problem's name is god."

"So freedom is now to be defended against those too poor to deserve its benefits by the edifices and procedures of totalitarianism."

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sir Salmon Rushdie is one of my most favorite, still living writers. The famous and illegal fatwa against him is by now a residual threat. It was declared at some point during the writing of the collection of essays in: Step Across this Line. Remembering how real this threat was and how readily some folks wanted to blame the victim add to the poignancy of this volume.

Introduction done... These are wonderful essays. As the title suggests the essays are about the many kinds of borders a person can cross. He begins with the fictional border Dorthey crosses to arrive in the lad of Oz. I had never seriously considered this story before. I had never before thought that the Wizard of Oz was worthy of serious consideration. Rushdie reminded me of the value of thinking about traditional children's stories. I will never think of the Oz story the same way. Such is the power of any good essayist.

Among the other boarders he will cross are death, politics, literature and fame. Here is one of the first essays Sit Salmon will write about his cross into hiding as prisoner of conscious. It is noteworthy that his concerns and gratitude include the security officers who shared his risks and lost time with family members to keep him safe. There will be several essays about terrorism. Given that he wore a target for enemies of free speech and human dignity to aim their killing weapons, he is allowed to speak on this topic. He speaks not merely from his passion and his personal involvement, but from a vastly intelligent mind.

The recounting of the efforts to adopt Midnight's Children into a movie, or a miniseries was something of a tease. This was one of his better novels, (not my favorite but up there) if either the movie or series has been placed on film, it has not made it to America or to American TV.

Essays here range from as few as two pages to about 30. Roughly 60 essays total. The threat of Fatwa aside some are lighthearted others personal to the point of being domestic (On Leavened Bread); too many for individual comment here. What comes through is the depth and breadth of a man who knows how to write. This book is recommend on the merits of the use of language and for the insight into the mind of a very thoughtful -thought-filled writer.

[Maksym Karpovets · Rating 4 out of 5]

от Салман Рушді у доволі непоганому, але якось надто рівному есе Ще раз на захист роману, пише: Бо література - справжня література - завжди була надбанням меншості. все вірно, але я ніяк не можу скласти конструкт "справжня література". та, яка лікує? очищає? чи, як пише Рушді у есе про Артура Мілера, є конденсатором моралі?..

тут насправді треба чітко відрізняти моралізаторські романи і романи, де питання моралі/етичний нерв - вихідне (Достоєвський, Філіп Рот, Уільям Голдінг - спонтанно пишу). так от, Рушді, напевно, має на увазі саме останній курс і ракурс, що і робить Міллера маргінальним в ситуації постмодерного релятивізму, позааксіологічних тарантіно і паланіків. із цитати: в часи, коли багато літераторів і ще більше літературних критиків повернули погляд всередину себе, гублячись у дзеркальних кресленнях, Артур Міллер твердо відстоює реальність реального і моральну функцію літератури, що на сьогодні постає не меншим радикалізмом, аніж у його юності. потім вже далі Міллеру, немов, мораль була дарована із дитинства. як бачимо, це якийсь особливий імпульс, енергетика прози і сміливість розмежовувати добро від зла без делитантського "все відносно". тому, Рушді хоче бути чесним із читачем, не зважачи на тему розмови. його чесність може балансувати від концертів Боно і Міка Джаггера до хвилюючих рядків, присвячених Анджелі Картер. такий він Рушді - завжди відкритий до світу, який так часто його не приймає у свої обійми.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I previous enjoyed reading Salman Rushdie’s first book of essays Imaginary Homelands, so I thought I would also read Step Across This Line: Collected Essays from 1992-2002. I also enjoyed many of the essays in this volume, however, many of them were concerned with personal freedom and Islam due to this experience of having gone underground to avoid the fatawa that was on his head-which is completely understandable given the situation. However, some of his points are repeated too frequently in these writings. I most enjoyed his essays about other writers and literature the most. For example his defense of Granta magazine’s Best Young Novelists for 1993 (Rushdie had been named one on the 1983 list). I also enjoyed his essays about India: ”Gandhi, Now” (exposes the real man behind the myth) / “The Taj Mahal” / “A Dream Of Glorious Return.” Some of the column he wrote for The New Yorker were entertaining as well-his use of Shaggy’s infectious song-“It Wasn’t Me.” I was also impressed by “Step Across This Line” from the Tanner Lectures on Human values at Yale University from 2002.

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my. This is the first of Rushdie's writing I've read. I read it in bits and pieces over the course of a week, staying with a friend up in the Northwest Territories.

The essays were brilliant, each one thought-provoking, readable without being dumbed-down, and witty. Likewise, the fourth section pieces on frontiers and ideas - incredible, and absolutely warrant a re-read (or three) at a later point in time.

I knew only the basic details of the 'Rushdie affair' before I started this, so I found the middle two sections informative, since I've not been over-saturated with the topic before.

I'm glad this was my introduction to Rushdie, and I must say I'm excited to tackle some of his fiction, and other non-fiction as well.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only previous exposure (other than popular media) I'd had was the excellent (and sadly OOP) audiobook version of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, read by the author.

So far, this book a wide-ranging collection of essays, speeches & articles. Some have been more engaging than others (his look at the movie version of The Wizard of Oz was fascinating!), but I'm generally enjoying it & feel more comfortable about moving on to some of his fiction.

I did start feeling a bit of "fatwa fatigue" towards the middle/end of the book - tho one can hardly blame him for allowing a death threat to be the focus of his attention....

[Moira]

Bought this basically for the huge, enormous, gigantic essay on the Wizard of Oz which I read in the New Yorker when it came out, marveling at each turn of the page how it just went on and on and on. (There was an equally huge, enormous, gigantic essay -- not at the same time -- on Judy Garland's entire ouvre. I forget who wrote it. Probably Anthony Lane. .....hunh, nope. (I have both those issues, somewhere, moldering and yellow, in a box. In a closet. Decaying slowly in the dark.)

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important collection of essays I have ever read. He covers a wide range of topics (soccer, movies, writers, political movements, his own fatwa, India, America, etc) but his values never falter. Always he will return to the concept of freedom; what is freedom? What does it look like? Do we value it? How can we protect it? Freedom of speech and the arts. Freedom of and from religion. Freedom from political or economic or philosophical oppression. It all ties together and it all matters.

Read this book.

[Karan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous to see Rushdie the essayist in peak form here. Throbbing with candour and erudition, the collection offers pieces that are at times prescient, at times personal, at times deliberative and then some carefree notes-to-self that collectively offer a wide-ranging, decade-long snapshot from an intellectual engaged sincerely with politics, literature and world affairs. Having read his autobiography Joseph Anton before, the middle section containing pieces from his fatwa years held little sway, but the rest I devoured whole.

[Prithvi Shams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rushdie has a flair for painting with words, or cooking them into a sumptuous meal. But he flounders when it comes to political commentary. His view of geopolitics has that Occidental tone of the "civilizing West" vs. "to-be-civilized East", and his analysis of contemporary affairs is one dimensional. However, he is a master chef of literature and literary criticism, and perhaps, he should stick to his cuisine.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection opens with an interminable, overreaching, boring essay on the Wizard of Oz and closes with a smart, insightful, wide-ranging essay on the idea frontier. The filler in between is mediocre and mostly about what it's like to be Salman Rushdie.

Snap.

[Todd Wilhelm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of articles and essays. Articles on terrorism and freedom were the ones I found most interesting. These were mainly contained in Section II - Messages From the Plague Years. Most of Section One did not hold my interest.

A few good quotes:

"Moral stature is a rare quality in these degraded days. Very few writers possess it. Miller’s seems innate but was much increased because he was able to learn from his mistakes. Like Günter Grass, who was brought up in a Nazi household and had the dizzying experience, after the war, of learning that everything he had believed to be true was a lie, Arthur Miller has had—more than once—to discard his worldviews. Coming from a family of profit-minded men, and discovering Marxism at sixteen, he learned that “the true condition of men was the complete opposite of the competitive system I had assumed was normal, with all its mutual hatreds and conniving. Life could be a comradely embrace, people helping one another rather than looking for ways to trip each other up.” Later, Marxism came to seem less idealistic. “Deep down in the comradely world of the Marxist promise is parricide,” he wrote, and, when he and Lillian Hellman were faced with a Yugoslav man’s testimony of the horrors of Soviet domination, he says, unsparingly: “We seemed history’s fools.”"

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (p. 47). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition

"When Arthur Miller says, “We must re-imagine liberty in every generation, especially since a certain number of people are always afraid of it,” his words carry the weight of lived experience, of his own profound re-imaginings. Most of all, however, they carry the weight of his genius."

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (p. 48). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

"I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow-citizens’ opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammeled. A free society is not a calm and eventless place—that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect of journalists—for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors—that I would like to celebrate this morning, and that I urge you all, in freedom’s name, to preserve."

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (p. 135). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

"I have tried repeatedly to remind people that we are witnessing a war against independence of mind, a war for power. The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation—[robbing] those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. [For] if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error. Those words are from John Stuart Mill’s great essay “On Liberty.” It is extraordinary how much of Mill’s essay applies directly to the case of The Satanic Verses. The demand for the banning of this novel and indeed the eradication of its author is precisely what Mill called the “assumption of infallibility.” Those who make such demands do so, just as Mill anticipated, because they find the book and its author “immoral and impious.” “But,” he writes, “this is the case in which [the assumption of infallibility] is most fatal. These are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity.” Mill gives two examples of such occasions: the cases of Socrates and of Jesus Christ. To these can be added a third case, that of Galileo. All three men were accused of blasphemy and heresy. All three were attacked by the storm troopers of bigotry. And yet they are, as is plain to anyone, the founders of the philosophical, moral, and scientific traditions of the West. We can say, therefore, that blasphemy and heresy, far from being the greatest evils, are the methods by which human thought has made its most vital advances. The writers of the European Enlightenment, who all came up against the storm troopers at one time or another, knew this. It was because of his nervousness of the power of the Church, not of the State, that Voltaire suggested it was advisable for writers to live in close proximity to a frontier, so that, if necessary, they could hop across it into safety. Frontiers will not defend a writer now, not if this new form of terrorism, terrorism by edict and bounty, is allowed to have its day. Many people say that the Rushdie case is a one-off, that it will never be repeated. This complacency, too, is an enemy to be defeated. I return to John Stuart Mill. “The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. . . . Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted.” There it is in a nutshell. Religious persecution is never a matter of morality, always a question of power. To defeat the modern-day witch-burners, it is necessary to show them that our power, too, is great—that our numbers are greater than theirs, and our resolve, too. This is a battle of wills."

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (pp. 214-215). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.


"British Muslims may not wish to hear this from the author of The Satanic Verses, but the real enemies of Islam are not British novelists or Turkish satirists. They are not the secularists murdered by fundamentalists in Algeria recently. Nor do they include the distinguished Cairo professor of literature and his scholarly wife who are presently being hounded by Egyptian fanatics for being apostates. Neither are they the intellectuals who lost their jobs and were arrested by the authorities in Saudi Arabia because they founded a human-rights organization. However weak, however few the progressive voices may be, they represent the best hope in the Muslim world for a free and prosperous future. The enemies of Islam are those who wish the culture to be frozen in time, who are, in Ali Shariati’s phrase, in “revolt against history,” and whose tyranny and unreason are making modern Islam look like a culture of madness and blood. Alibhai-Brown’s interviewee Nasreen Rehman wisely says that “we must stop thinking in binary, oppositional terms.” May I propose that a starting place might be the recognition that, on the one hand, it is the Siddiquis and Hizbollahs and blind sheikhs and ayatollahs who are the real foes of Muslims around the world, the real “enemy within”; and that, on the other hand—as in the case of the campaign on behalf of Bosnia’s Muslims—there are many “friends without.”"

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (pp. 240-241). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

"No religion justifies murder. If assassins disguise themselves by putting on the cloak of faith, we must not be fooled. Islamic fundamentalism is not a religious movement but a political one. Let us, in Djaout’s memory, at least learn to call tyranny by its true name."

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (p. 249). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

"The attack on all those concerned with the publication of The Satanic Verses is an outrage. It is a scandal. It is barbaric. It is philistine. It is bigoted. It is criminal. And yet, over the last seven years or so, it has been called a number of other things. It has been called religious. It has been called a cultural problem. It has been called understandable. It has been called theoretical. But if religion is an attempt to codify human ideas of the good, how can murder be a religious act? And if, today, people understand the motives of such would-be assassins, what else might they “understand” tomorrow? Burnings at the stake? If zealotry is to be tolerated because it is allegedly a part of Islamic culture, what is to become of the many, many voices in the Muslim world—intellectuals, artists, workers, and above all women—clamoring for freedom, struggling for it, and even giving up their lives in its name? What is “theoretical” about the bullets that struck William Nygaard, the knives that wounded the Italian translator Ettore Capriolo, the knives that killed the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi? After nearly seven years, I think that we have the right to say that nobody has been angry enough about this state of affairs. I have been told in Denmark about the importance of cheese exports to Iran. In Ireland it was halal beef exports. In Germany and Italy and Spain other kinds of produce were involved. Can it really be the case that we are so keen to sell our wares that we can tolerate the occasional knifing, the odd shooting, and even a murder or two? How long will we chase after the money dangled before us by people with bloody hands? William Nygaard’s voice has been asking many such uncompromising questions. I salute him for his courage, for his obstinacy, and for his rage. Will the so-called Free World ever be angry enough to act decisively in this matter? I hope that it may become so, even yet. William Nygaard is a free man who chooses to exercise his rights of speech and action. Our leaders should recognize that their lack of sufficient anger indicates their own lack of interest in freedom. By becoming complaisant with terror, they become, in a very real sense, unfree."

Rushdie, Salman (2002-09-10). Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (pp. 255-256). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Dr G · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a collection of non-fiction writing from 1992-2002, read in 2018, this was always going to struggle from issues of anachronism.
However, I appreciate Rushdie and am interested in his ideas, and this book popped up at a remainders sale. I could not overlook it.
There are many rewards for the reader, primarily in the writing skill, but also in some of the ideas:
He writes of, "...suffering from culturally endemic golden-ageism: that recurring, bilious nostalgia for a literary past which never, at the time, seemed that much better than the present does now.” Common sense, beautifully expressed.
Or his attempts to do, in "Midnight's Children", something he found in Dickens:
“Dickensian London, that stench, rotting city full of sly, conniving shysters, that city in which goodness was under constant assault by duplicity, malice, and greed, seemed to me to hold up the mirror to the pullulating cities of India, with their preening elites living the high life in gleaming skyscrapers while the great majority of their compatriots battled to survive in the hurly-burly of the streets below….his real innovation: namely his unique combination of naturalistic backgrounds and surreal foregrounds. In Dickens, the details of place and social mores are skewered by a pitiless realism, a naturalistic exactitude that has never been bettered. Upon this realistic canvas he places his outsize characters, in whom we have no choice but to believe because we cannot fail to believe in the world they live in.”
More connections, this time with the Roman historian Suetonius:
“From Suetonius, I learned much about the paradoxical nature of power elites, and so was able to construct an elite of my own in the version of Pakistan that is the setting for Shame: an elite riven by hatreds and fights to the death but joined by bonds of blood and marriage and, crucially, in control of all the power in the land.”
And simply cheerful Gothic punning about his English unfaithfulness to flat-breads:
“In the whorehouses of the bakeries, I was serially, gluttonously, irredeemably unfaithful to all those chapatis-next-door waiting for me back home. East was East but yeast was West.” (Also clean water from the tap.) “A regime of bread and water has never, since that time, sounded like a hardship to me.”
And some fine second-hand humour:
“was once a goalkeeper name Dracula because he was afraid of crosses. Also a goalie named Cinderella, because he was always late for the ball.”
Many of his thoughts, articulated twenty years ago, have perhaps even greater importance now when the warnings have clearly not yet been heeded:
“However, we live in an increasingly censorious age. By this I mean that the broad, indeed international, acceptance of First Amendment principles is being steadily eroded. Many special-interest groups, claiming the moral high ground, now demand the protection of the censor. Political correctness and the rise of the religious right provide the pro-censorship lobby with further cohorts. I would like to say a little about just one of the weapons of this resurgent lobby, a weapon used, interestingly, by everyone from anti-pornography feminists to religious fundamentalists: I mean the concept of ‘respect.’”
“I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by pussyfooting around their fellow-citizens’ opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impassioned and untrammelled. A free society is not a calm and eventless place – that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked…”
Rushdie does not hold back in his criticisms, writing of Rajiv Gandhi and then Sonia:
(Rajiv's) “stunningly tedious oration in broken schoolboy Hindi, while the audience simply and crushingly walked away. Now, here on television is his widow, her Hindi even more broken than his, a woman convinced of her right to rule but convincing almost nobody except herself.”
So, there are many gems one takes away, and they are not all isolated; his sustained commentaries on his own travails (the jihad pronounced against him); religion in general and of any form; and the many issues of the sub-continent and of partition are all articulately, intelligently and thoughtfully presented, even though it is virtually certain no one reader would agree with everything he has written. One does not only defend his right to say these things, but thanks him for his courage and for his intellect as he says them.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

You really need to know who Salman Rushdie is and have some knowledge of his writings before tackling this. It's mainly for Rushdie fans only. Personally, I enjoy his non-fiction just as much (and sometimes more) than his fiction.

This is a diverse collection of articles, columns, book introductions, and speeches given during 1992 - 2002. The title of this book comes from the name of a lecture given months after 9/11. The very first selection, "The Wizard of Oz" was turned into it's own book, generously illustrated with photos, put out by the British Film Institute.

If you have no knowledge of the history and times Rushdie is talking about, then you're going to have problems. Since his native country is India, he does talk a lot about India and Pakistan. He was a British citizen for decades, so there is also plenty of commentary on the UK. He hadn't moved to America until 2000, so American-centered works are slim. The final part of the book is devoted art in America, urging artists to step into the frontier.

There were some selections I just couldnt get into, or found it was written for an audience other than someone like myself. I found a lot of tidbits I really liked, but others probably won't. They include:

* Rushdie likes Tom Waits!
* Rushdie hates Toto (the movie dog character, not the rock band)
* Rushdie reveals how much the British taxpayer actually paid for his police security and "safe houses" during his years spent mostly in hiding.
* Rushdie dedicated the book to Christopher Hitchens, who was one of the few commentators who spoke up for Rushdie right after the fatwa was announced. Most UK commentators, journalists and even other writers thought Rushdie deserved to be killed.
* Rushdie giving commentary on news just as it happened.

[Cho Timbol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is divided into four parts. The first part, Essays, in which Rushdie wrote about his love affair with football, thoughts about the Wizard of Oz, the revolutionary nature of rock music, and the unreplicable experience of seeing beautiful things in person, is the most enjoyable. In these essays we see Rushdie the world citizen, the man with gravitas yet able to poke fun at himself, the man with the mercilessly trenchant pen and an endlessly mischievous sense of hunor.

The second part, Messages From the Plague Years, shows Rushdie at his bravest. In this section he addresses the fatwa leveled against him by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1988. What struck me here was Rushdie's unwavering support for free speech and thought, and his clear-eyed assessment of the fatwa not just an attack on his person, but on the free world in general.

The third part, Columns, is this book's low point. While Rushdie's newspaper columns addressed important issues, columns are inherently reactionary, and we have enough columnists on social media in our day.

By the time I got to the end of Columns, I had no energy left to read the fourth part, a two-part essay entitled Step Across This Line.

This book reminds me of Nick Joaquin's Culture and History, because both Rushdie and Joaquin are supremely gifted, brutally honest writers who will irritate you and challenge your assumptions. I only wish Rushdie did away with Columns, or at least made that part shorter.

[Lenora Good · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read, no, make that "devoured," his first collection of essays, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 and loved every word of it. It struck me as a potpourri of subjects, each essay different from its neighbors. This book seems to be a lot of writing about the same subjects. The writing is clear, and enjoyable, but for me, too much almost repetition on a topic. I loved the first section, enjoyed the other sections, started all of the penultimate section—didn't finish most of them, and loved the last section.

Essays are some of my favorite reading, and Mr. Rushdie is marvelous at writing them. His humor comes through, as well as his passion. I have learned a great deal from his essays, especially about living in different countries.

I believe most, if not all, of these essays were previously published in various venues, so some might be familiar to you. Having never read his fiction (on my list) I can't tell you if doing so would make these essays better or not. He begins with an essay about Kansas and how The Wizard of Oz affected him as a child and later his writing.

All in all, I recommend this book. It won't appeal to everyone, nor will all the essays be of equal interest, but all are of equal and high literary value.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rushdie has an enviable body of work, into which he's breathed his vast, vivifying wit, clarity, and intelligence; at once worldly and place-bound, parochial and universal, his writings - novels, essays, etc. - have continuously enraptured me ever since I came across his name at the beginning of my third decade. I would like nothing more than to spend a week with him in India, so that I may be strictly, categorically humbled by my ignorance of it; as he writes in his essay on the Taj Mahal, I would like my distant, cheap image to be exploded, so that the reality of the thing can replace its simulacrum.

[Erica Bouris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays is very much of its time (decade between 1992-2002) and in fact, reading it nearly 20 years out from that makes it feel even more so I think. Rushdie is at his best when he is reflecting on the moments and stories - human ones - and steeping them in a nuanced perspective on how people and politics and culture intersect in ways that are both sharp and fluid, across time and borders. He is less effective when he indulges (overindulges?) his own personal story and narrative too much. These essays, like all of Rushdie's work, are strengthened by his natural gait with the written word.

[Aaron Culley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a diverse collection of Rushdie's non-fiction writings, mostly columns and editorials, along with several speeches and a few other things mixed in. Some of the pieces weren't on topics that weren't of great interest to me, but even those included moments of his characteristic snark and wit. However, his essays on current events, even over 15 years later, still seem very timely, and his arguments in favor of freedom of speech and expression against all forms of bigotry and censorship remain both powerful and timely.