I read with horror this morning, not even an hour ago, that Mr. Rushdie has been stabbed on stage, about to lecture in NY.
I remember as a young writer in the 80s, when a price was put on him—a fatwa—for The Satanic Verses, and he went into hiding for almost a decade. I remember thinking “how can this be?” and feeling naive and overwhelmed. Writing, for me, felt both exciting and terrifying—but not in a way that meant one could die for it.
I remember the next time I sat to write at that time. I wondered what it is to write on the outside. For the first time I began to sense the shadow of the written word. The ‘pen is mightier than the sword’—and all that. Later, the translator of his book to Japanese was stabbed to death, and the Norwegian publisher shot and wounded. The sword speaks loudly in our world.
Not long ago, here on Substack, a couple of writers were joking about jostling aside Mr. Rushdie on the so-called leaderboard for “Fiction” newsletters. I found the exchange disrespectful. No, I can’t compare—and am not—a moment of levity with this, now. But the exchange took me back to ’88, and I had to think about what some writers endure for their work. And how others among us might pull back from saying what needs to be said, or exploring how a story needs to be in the world. Some write to entertain or inform about the day-to-day, and are blessedly free of this. But we live in times of words being considered “violent” and, unwittingly, entertainment or information can be read as something else. What happens when the violence includes blood and not ink?
Some stories must be told. Questions need to be asked. We need to be able to write and publish and read and share and speak.
I have been enjoying Mr. Rushdie’s work here, and hope to see more of it. Soon.
Wishing medical wisdom and strength for his healing—
Alison
And 3:07 p.m. — the amazing Charlie Demers just posted this:
This was the first I've heard of this. So sad this still must be part of his life.
It recalls to me a poem by Heather McHugh, called "What He Thought". It's published in her collection "Hinge & Sign" (a great collection). It reminds us that there is always the danger of violence when we write or speak: these are actions that we don't have control over how they are handled after we create them. Even more pertinent, when we're not exactly sure who is reading them, either.
To quote the poem, it ends with a beautiful exposition on Giodrdano Bruno,
'brought to be burned in the public square
because of his offense against
authority, which is to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government, but rather is
poured in waves through all things. All things
move. "If God is not the soul itself, He is
the soul of the soul of the world." Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him
forth to die, they feared he might
incite the crowd (the man was famous
for his eloquence). And so his captors
place upon his face
an iron mask, in which
'he could not speak. That's
how they burned him. That is how
he died: without a word, in front
of everyone.
And poetry—
(we'd all
put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on
softly)—
poetry is what
'he thought, but did not say.'
I found the whole poem on Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50609/what-he-thought
All the writers around the world who are jailed, killed, silenced. How grateful I am for their bravery. And we must keep writing about these oppressive regimes