supplementary readings (pamuk & rushdie)
Some midweek pleasure reading, featuring leading characters from the previous post:
Orhan Pamuk in the Guardian again (they like interviewing him, no?) on his desire to get back to his real work--writing novels--and some thoughtful observations about the way his recent travails have been interpreted and 'used' both in Turkey and Europe, often by forces he despises.
And then (via Moorishgirl) the Times has this wonderful little essay from Rushdie, a new introduction to Midnight's Children on the eve of its twenty-fifth birthday. Full of good backstory, literary gossip, the-making-of tales, etc. (I laughed aloud at one little sidenote, but I can't tell you why without giving away something.) This makes me want to reread the book again, which I do probably once a year (the best rereading: cover to cover, awake half the night on the 25-hour train ride from Cochin to Bombay in 2004). So many people I love have histories with this book. When we went to see Rushdie read in Seattle in 2002, my mentor (erstwhile professor, by then employer and increasingly the almost-family sort of friend he is now) carried the tattered, ugly original paperback he'd bought during a trip to London in the early '80's, excited as a schoolboy to have it autographed. Thariel can't stop asking, what happens to the grandchildren? It made more than one person I know want to become a writer; it turned up in various discussions with various lovers, and at least one of those memories still has sharp teeth. And I will always feel a certain kinship to Midnight's Children myself, because we came into the world in the same largely-disastrous year (though it is the elder, by a few months), which gives me faith that some good things did come out of the Reagan era after all.
Orhan Pamuk in the Guardian again (they like interviewing him, no?) on his desire to get back to his real work--writing novels--and some thoughtful observations about the way his recent travails have been interpreted and 'used' both in Turkey and Europe, often by forces he despises.
And then (via Moorishgirl) the Times has this wonderful little essay from Rushdie, a new introduction to Midnight's Children on the eve of its twenty-fifth birthday. Full of good backstory, literary gossip, the-making-of tales, etc. (I laughed aloud at one little sidenote, but I can't tell you why without giving away something.) This makes me want to reread the book again, which I do probably once a year (the best rereading: cover to cover, awake half the night on the 25-hour train ride from Cochin to Bombay in 2004). So many people I love have histories with this book. When we went to see Rushdie read in Seattle in 2002, my mentor (erstwhile professor, by then employer and increasingly the almost-family sort of friend he is now) carried the tattered, ugly original paperback he'd bought during a trip to London in the early '80's, excited as a schoolboy to have it autographed. Thariel can't stop asking, what happens to the grandchildren? It made more than one person I know want to become a writer; it turned up in various discussions with various lovers, and at least one of those memories still has sharp teeth. And I will always feel a certain kinship to Midnight's Children myself, because we came into the world in the same largely-disastrous year (though it is the elder, by a few months), which gives me faith that some good things did come out of the Reagan era after all.
posted by kitabet at 9:18 PM
2 Comments:
That's one of my favorite novels - thanks for highlighting the new essay!
sepoy: no, I haven't, but next time I'm in a bookstore I will. I have to say, I think Rushdie's become a better nonfiction writer/essayist than a novelist--I'll still read any novel he writes, but they all still fail to live up to Midnight's Children, Shame, & the Moor's Last Sigh etc. The essays on the other hand have remained very good; my copies of both of his nonfic collections are well-thumbed.
baraka: it's almost inexhaustible--every time i read it I find something new. I like books that manage to surprise me more than once.
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