Customer Reviews

Step Across This Line - Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

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First off, to truly enjoy this you need to have a good working knowledge of a lot of Rushdie novels, as he makes several references to them. Plus, you need to have LOVED them.

Secondly, realize that this is a lot of previously published stuff in one volume, from a lot of different sources, so it is a bit of a jumbled mess (stand alone essays, newspaper columns, letters to the editor, presentations in academia, etc.)

While some is extremely interesting, particularly his experience with fatwah, other essays are just not that exciting.

So with the above caveats, if you are a die hard fan, enjoy!

STEP ACROSS THIS LINE is Salman Rushdie's second collection of essays, which range from 1992 to 2002. Like his first collection IMAGINARY HOMELANDS, I do not think that this is essentially reading for anyone but dedicated Rushdie fans, but the collection stands out as a commentary on Rushdie's place in the current literary scene.

For ultimately what pervades this collection is a sense of desperation. During the early 1990s Rushdie didn't want to speak about the controversy of THE SATANIC VERSES and the fatwa, prefering to make the media concentrate on his newer works. However, the two novels which appeared during that time, THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH and THE GROUND BENEATH HER FEET, did not gain large critical or public acceptance, and essentially put Rushdie on the way out of public consciousness and critical esteem. In STEP ACROSS THIS LINE Rushdie starts talking about the fatwa and fundamentalist Islam again, and one gets the impression that he is only looking for some way to reach the public again because his latest novels have bombed.

That's not to say some of his insights are not thought-provoking. In "Not About Islam?" he bluntly calls the September 11 attack a manifestation of a sickness indeed widespread in the Muslim world and deplores America's insistence, for the purposes of coalition-building and not rocking the boat, that the attacks have little to do with Islam. He also bemoans the sectarian violence in India, for Rushdie has greatly benefited from mixture and melange--his first big novel MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN welded a Western genre with uniquely Indian storytelling--and to see people creating divisions and violence saddens him.

If you've never read Rushdie before, try THE SATANIC VERSES, which is a superb novel full of exciting fantasy and at the same time all too real social criticism. STEP ACROSS THIS LINE is an okay read for diehard fans.