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Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 (Modern Library Paperbacks)

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This is the second collection of non-fiction by Salman Rushdie and like its predecessor "Imaginary Homelands," it covers a decade's worth of writing. Unlike the previous volume it contains fewer book reviews and literary criticism. Instead, it can be divided into four parts. More than half the book consists of various essays and articles. The second consists of articles Rushdie wrote against the fatwa imposed on him by the Iranian theocracy for writing "The Satanic Verses." The third consists of the monthly columns he has been writing for the past few years and the fourth consists of the title essay.

What is the result? Let's start off with the columns, which are generally the weakest part of the book. They are mostly unremarkable journalism and are often facile. Particular examples would include Rushdie's pieces on the new millenium, an outburst of creationism in Kansas, the rise of Jorg Haider and the apotheosis of Joseph Lieberman. But not all of them are so average. There are good pieces on the crisis in Kashmir, the military regime in Pakistan, the campaign against destructive and wasteful Indian dams, and the civil war in Fiji. There is a rather sharp and critical piece against J.M. Coetzee's "Disgrace." He has an amusing jibe against James Cameron's claim that his remake of "Solaris" will combine "2001" with "Last Tango in Paris": ...There is one particular turn of his phrase in his article on the police killing of Amadou Diallo. Rushdie states that it would be "unimaginably awful" to have Diallo's killers patrolling the street, and then he stops himself: it would all be too "imaginably awful" to have that, given the persistence of police brutality and the ineffective measures against it. There is also his denunciation of V.S. Naipaul for his callous response to the pogroms in Gujarat.

A reader may have concluded from the previous paragraph that much of Rushdie's best writing is about India and the Indian subcontinent. And while this is not true of all his writing (one highpoint of "Imaginary Homelands," was a lovely review of "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller") it is largely true of this one. There are good pieces on Gandhi, the 50th anniversary of Indian independence, and Indian literature in English, as well as an account of his return to India. The latter is quite good on the sinister BJP government, the impotence of the Congress party, and the widespread corruption, poverty and sectarianism. India, Naipaul once commented, is not a very subtle country, and Rushdie reminds us of that fact in the contrast between billions spent on nuclear weapons instead of relieving the horrible droughts that ravage much of the country. It is actually rather honest of Rushdie to include a paragraph which in retrospect somewhat belittles the terrorist threat from Afghanistan, when it would have been easier to highlight those columns which supported the American overthrow of the Taliban. One striking article is a short one Rushdie wrote on the Taj Mahal. He notes how the building is a classic example of kitsch and cliche, and how the entrance is surrounded by swarms of unpleasant peddlers. He also notes that it was in fact the British who preserved the building from the 19th century onwards. But notwithstanding all these reservations Rushdie points out that the Taj Mahal is still a stunningly beautiful building. Rusdhie also includes an interesting essay about the unsuccessful filming of "Midnight's Children," which was scotched because the governments of India and Sri Lanka rather cowardly and bigotedly refused to allow the BBC to film there.

There is a certain element of nostalgia in some of the other pieces. One can see it in the review of the Rolling Stones' 1994 concert. It is also present in the long essay on "The Wizard of Oz," which is full of many interesting details about the movie (Frank Morgan's coat was bought second-hand and it turned out to have been owned by L. Frank Baum himself), and where Rushdie makes some piccuant comments. (Such as that the conclusion to the movie is a cop-out, and less often remarked on, that if the Wicked Witch of the East is so evil, how come the Munchkins live in a such a pleasant and attractive place?) Rushdie clearly admires the film as a seminal experience in opening his mind, and says little about the novels. (He seems unaware of Baum's socialist and rather daringly feminist ideas-one central point of the later novels is how one character changes from a boy to a girl). There is a rather weak essay in response to George Steiner's comments on the decline of the European novel. Rushdie may be able to name 13 great novelists of the past half century. But none of these are of the stature of Proust or Kafka, and one could name far more from the first half of the 20th century. On the other hand there is an interesting essay about soccer (Rushdie is a fan), and the articles where he writes in his own defence are important to read. They are not important to read simply because Rushdie is a brilliant writer being attacked by a cruel theocracy, but also because they remind us that he is not alone, that brave people are struggling to support secularism and democracy in the Muslim world, and whether in Turkey or in Bosnia or in India, they deserve our support. As a result this book reminds us more of the author of "The Satanic Verses," and "Shame," rather than of "Fury" and "The Ground Beneath Her Feet."

This collection of Salman Rushdie's non-fiction spanning the early years of the Iranian Fatwa to the immediate post September 11th aftermath displays all the characteristic intellectual pyrotechnics that Rushdie is famous for. There is much in this book for readers who engage with global culture and politics to enjoy. The first essay is an extended piece of film criticism on Rushdie's first acknowledged literary influence - the Wizard of Oz, a movie which reflect's his accustomed condition of a person uprooted from his homeland and adjusting to a strange and, at times, unnerving new world. In 1989, Rushdie fell victim to one aspect of these turbulent modern times - Islamic Fundamentalism. Many of the essays focus on the terrorist threat that hung over Rushdie following the publication of the Satanic Verses, a satirical riff on the birth of Islam. Before that time, Rushdie was a staunch advocate of an approach to life that was founded on the principles of secularism, freedom of expression and liberty of thought, and his experience under the Fatwa strongly redoubled this conviction. The final essays entitled 'Step Across this Time' were written in the massively uncertain September 11th aftermath and discuss the nature of frontiers and their significance. Rushdie argues that we are all living in a frontier time in which great changes are thrust upon us all the time. We must develop a frontier spirit of humanistic liberalism, become custodians of freedom and justice in order to thrive in this current climate. This is the central thread of Rushdie's argument that he returns through repeatedly in these essays and he musters all his considerable intellectual powers to state a formidably powerful case for liberty.

Step Across this Line is not just about the critical political issues of this era however. Also included are an exquisitely tounge in cheek autobiographical piece about Rushdie's experiences as a twenty year old living above a boutique in West London called Granny Takes a Trip. This was my favourite essay in the book and I hope Rushdie decides to write more autobiographical descriptions of his youth in the future. Essays on football and rock music link sublimely with more intellectual subjects such as post colonial Indian literature - a subject on which Rushdie is extremely knowledgable and a secular cry to the world's six billionth person to eschew the restrictive power structures of religion and embark on his or her own ethical development.

Rushdie is a controversial writer who doesn't shy away from stating his opinions bluntly and forcefully, and his views on subjects such as religion are fiercely contested by those who reject his secular view of the world. But I would strongly recommend this collection of writing to intellectual readers who will appreciate these outpourings from a man who is a genuine global thinker, assiduously well read and a first rate writer.

This is a collection of essays and opinion columns encompassing Salman Rushdie's arrival in New York and his continuing work as a novelist and critic.

His essay on THE WIZARD OF OZ is a beautiful piece, written as a migrant and a father, in which he explores "one final, unexpected rite of passage," when we must inevitably disappoint the expectations of our child and be exposed - like the wizard as portrayed by Frank Morgan - as humbugs.

At times, Rushdie's thought seems constrained by double standards. Although the long section relating the story of the campaign to defend him from Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence is valuable, I was disappointed it did not include his own infamous public embrace and then disavowal of Islam. Perhaps it is a moment he would rather forget, even though he could submit this as evidence of the fact that scripts were continually being forced upon him by various parties during his years in hiding. There is even a darkly amusing echo here of Muhammad's disavowal of the so-called "Satanic" verses mentioned in a certain famous novel. It is, however, an event that belongs in the record.

Rushdie's views on the September 11 attacks and the war on terrorism (which is to some extent a war on violence wrought in the name of Islam) is surely of interest given his personal experience with radical Islamists. Yet a contradiction in his moral reason appears over the course of his writing. He upholds, as a basic principle of morality, the view that an individual is responsible for his murders no matter what his rationale is. Hence, it is unacceptable to excuse terrorism on the basis of anti-Americanism. On the other hand, Rushdie is willing to relieve individuals of personal blame in order to blame religion itself for murder. He writes, "...religion is the poison in the blood... What happened in India, happened in God's name. The problem's name is God."

If an individual kills for the sake of a totem, why is that God's fault rather than the individual's? Why is it okay to blame a person's religion, but not their politics?

Salman Rushdie is one of my favorite novelist' The Ground Beneath Her Feet' and 'The Moor's Last Sigh' are just two of his masterpieces. Rushdie has but together a collection of wonderful Essays. Rushdie gives his thoughts and insights on the Wizard of Oz, Arthur Miller, rock music, leavened bread, Ghandi ( did you know he liked to sleep with naked young girls to show everyone he could do it without indulging). Soccer (not even Rushdie can make that boring game sound interesting).

I didn't need to know about movies that where never made, And some of his answers for problems seemed rather naive. But most of all he made me thing a different way on a lot of subjects.

I bought this book new, but cheap, on the street from a book vendor. I had not read anything by Rushdie before and assumed these short stories would be mostly about India. The author opens up this collection of essays and short stories with the influence the film The Wizard Of Oz had upon him. It is quite an intriguing read. There is a lot about India here and the affects that country has on the author. His perceptions and opinions are open for debate which he acknowledges and thats why reading him is invaluable.

Salman Rushdie is perhaps one of the most famous writers alive mainly on account of his magic-realist novels, which has won him both bouquets and brickbats, the latter most infamously in the form of Iranian fatwa for his novel Satanic Verses.

Not surprisingly for a writer as tough-talking and opinionated as Rushdie, he is also a prolific journalist and essayist. His latest book ??Step Across This Line: Collected Non-Fiction 1992-2002,?? offers a glimpse into the writings of Rushdie, the essayist.

Frequent readers of global newspapers may have come across some of his columns, written especially in the aftermath of the 9-11, many of which may very well be included in the ??Best of Post 9-11 Essays,?? if a publisher decides to embark on such a project.

For having suffered the wrath of the radical Islam for his writings, which they have denounced as blasphemous, he seems to thrive when commenting on the consequences of the tensions between the radical Islam and the West.

Consider the dazzling following line from one of his columns in which he argued that to defeat terrorists one must first learn how not to succumb to the threats of terror.

??To prove him (the fundamentalist) wrong, we must first know that he is wrong,?? he writes. ??We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world??s resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons.??

The first part of the book is a collection of early essays, the second part is a compendium of his syndicated columns in the New York Times, followed by his languorous, and rather abstract, Tanner Lectures delivered at Yale, which gives the book its cover title.

In these writings, he ruminates on a broad array of pressing issues of our time. He writes on politics (Palestine, Kosovo, Kashmir, U.S. elections), Literature (Arthur Miller, J.M.Coetze, Angela Carter, Arundhati Roy), Arts (photography, movies, rock music), and other most visible icons of our age (such as cricket, soccer, Princess Diana, Taj Mahal).

Nor does his pen escape other fellow public intellectuals. Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee, whose writings he doesn??t particularly admire, the late professor Edward Said, who he sympathizes and defends, and that other great writer of Indian origin, Nobelist V.S. Naipaul, whose pro-Hindu politics he does not subscribe to.

One of the best pieces in the book is piece, A Dream of Glorious Return, originally published in the New Yorker, which describes his return to India with his son 21-year old, Zafar, and his visit to a controversial ancestral home in the North Indian town of Solan. He says the exile is ??a dream of glorious return.??

For the readers of his novels, lot of these essays may seem familiar and the traces of them can be found in his novels: the Midnight??s Children, the Satanic Verses, the Moor??s Last Sigh, the Ground Beneath the Feet, the last of which some critics have called the Rushdie??s ??first American novel??.

If the Ground Beneath her Feet (which traces the rise and fall of a jet-setting Bombay born rock musician) is not American enough, then his latest novel Fury surely seem to have completed that process of Americanization. (??Everybody has two homes,?? he has written. ??His own country and America.??)

Published in September 2001, Fury was oddly prophetic if you like, particularly in its depiction of Islamic rage, in the fury of immigrant taxi drivers in New York city. (He currently lives in New York.)

But like all exiled writers, he is still best writing about his home from afar, reminiscing the India of his boyhood from a great distance, the India of his imagination, which he left behind in his teens when his parents packed him to a boarding school in England. His is that familiar voice of a rootless artist-intellectual finding home only in the figment of his own rich imagination. And it is exactly in this frontierless land of "unbelonging" he said he has finally found what he calls his "artistic country."

Connecting this broad and disparate canvas of writings is a central idea, his defense of freedom: a characteristic Rushdie, ??tough-talking, spirit-dazzling?? argument for artistic and literary freedom and the freedom to travel (and in his case, the freedom to return home) .

As Thomas de Quincy noted that there are two types of literature: ??Literature of knowledge and literature of power.?? His non-fiction may belong the latter category - for its ability to provoke you, move you and make you laugh at the most ordinary of events.

Rushdie himself have said he is known for writing ??difficult books,?? but his non-fiction offers an easy and accessible guide to his view of the world, a sort of ??Rushdie Lite.?? And after reading them, you still come across convinced that he is a tireless man of letters, not only deeply in love with literature but not a bit afraid to write what he believes in.

Like most essay collections, this one is hit or miss.

When Rushdie hits, the results are sublime. His essay about being sports fan, namely of Tottenham Hotspurs of the English Premiership, is one of the most compelling and true accounts of what it is to be a sports fan. Rushdie traces the origins of his fandom as a young boy fresh from Bombay to the present day. He accurately captures the ups and downs a fan feels as his team's fortunes rise and fall with the years, the 180 degree turn in feelings about a player from a former rival who suddenly joins his team, and the energy felt on game days. This essay is an excellent primer on sports journalism. I also loved Rushdie's essay on Alice in Wonderland. It was like reading one of Chuck Klosterman's essays, minus the snark.

Of course, there are also essays that come off as self-indulgent. These essays are mostly about Rushdie, the man and the star. Two essays I did not particularly enjoy were the one about the making of a miniseries of Midnight's Children and the one about Rushdie's return to Bombay.

All of the Rushdie traits are present here: humor, intelligence, wit, verbosity, and fresh insights into each topic. I found this collection to be more accessible and easier to read than Rushdie's fiction because he has had to tone down his verbose style to appeal to magazine readers. It is this verbosity that makes it impossible for me to read his fiction.

If you have ever read Salman Rushdie, this book is a perfect way to get inside his head. He tells you all about his trials, tribulations, and happy endings he has went through during his lifetime. This book is a great buy!

It's not rocket science.

Take one of the most gifted and prolific of writers, add extraordinary living conditions (say, in exile and under the brooding shadow of a headlining Iranian fatwa), writing about the gladiatorial idea battles of the last 15 years - between godliness and secularism, free speech and peace, compromise and violence.

The first collection of non-fiction essays, speeches, op-ed letters and columns of Salman Rushdie is (predictably) nothing short of excellent.

Ever the seasoned heavyweight, his essays (much like his novels and short stories) swing, fly, bite and sting effortlessly. Unlike his fiction work, though, this collection rewards the reader with a little somethin- somethin' extra: a piece of the writer himself.

Interwoven with tiny glimpses of the life behind the veil of novelist, exiled asylum-seeker, and fatwa-refugee, this collection offers a rare peek at his lesser-known roles of father, husband, colleague, son and displaced Indian. Plus assorted memories, random pleasures and inner demons of one of the world's most extraordinary writers.

Author's collected nonfiction, 1992-2002.

Noted excerpts: pg 359 contrasts "pre-literate" mythology of American West vs. literate constructors of these so-called "legends". In retrospect we were propagandized in the 50's and 60's with this historical nonsense!

First essay, Out of Kansas, is an homage and analysis of the Wizard of Oz which the author praises for its entertaining and metaphorical value. The end of the book covers recent views on artistic license; the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Islam's culpability and myopia. Mr. Rushdie is a very thoughtful author, though his application of the notion of "frontier" to our existing social, political and artistic scenes is at times vague and overused; not a serious problem as overall the book is recommended.