Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Knife relays the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie in 2022, the journey afterwards, and the history behind his experience with hatred. It recounts in detail the multiple stabbings, his road to recovery, and the love and support he received from those closest to him as well as from around the world. It is a book about love and survival. The author, Salman Rushdie himself, conveys what he was going through after the release of The Satanic Verses and how it kept going throughout the years culminating with this attack. There is a greater message about religion, violence, and freedom of speech that is presented alongside the minutiae of Salman’s life.
I have not read any of Salman Rushdie’s works before, so this was my introduction and man, can he write. I loved his turn of phrases and how he wrote in such a relatable way. He would write about normal everyday things like using the bathroom or writing or going out to dinner. Each wound/body part that was violated was talked about and each felt like its own epic tale. You would think describing all the medical stuff would be boring but it is not. It is so vivid and real. I loved his use of knife and cutting metaphors as well. He wielded them well such as when “the knife had severed me from my world” and “language, too, was a knife.” He used language in a quotidian way but made it sound beautiful and insightful like describing his eye as “an absence with an immensely powerful presence.” The book had moments of humor and levity interspersed amongst the horror of the attack. “I’m here because of a knife attack, but let’s check the prostate, sure.” The writing was raw and I got emotional at points. Relating the reactions of his family and those that loved him was heartbreaking. Shock and sadness were the ones that showed up in myself most often. References to pop culture like the Mandalorian are sprinkled throughout as well. He focuses on this one extreme event but conveys everyday living while nodding to big-picture life and humanity. Those grandiose topics are brought in seamlessly and tied closely to certain aspects of the story. For example, talking about the best and worst of humanity on display in one single situation or how freedom of speech is under attack. He brings huge topics and distills them beautifully. Salman Rushdie is a storyteller and this came through even in this nonfiction work. I cannot wait to read some of his other work.
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Tag: survival
Sleepwalking Through Life and Other Disasters To Wake Up The World
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Station Eleven is a tale about multiple characters and a pandemic that wiped out an untold amount of people here on the planet. It jumps between moments in time and locations. I actually liked how this was done. Sometimes, when authors choose this path, it can be confusing and annoying but, in this case, it heightened the suspense and investment in the story. I felt like I was taken by the hand and brought along for the journey as I was experiencing everything firsthand. I did like Miranda a lot as she seemed chill and had an approach to life like “well this is how it is”. The author drops these little nuggets of foreshadowing that creates an ominous read which drew me in and I was hooked by page 25. I have always like disaster or survival stories and this one fits the bill wonderfully. I loved how Star Trek was mentioned at several points and a key phrase as the mantra of one group. I am a huge Star Trek nerd and it made me smile. Emily St. John Mandel does an amazing job of connecting people and events. She weaves a history and connectedness between things that is brilliant. There was a scene where a snow globe gets described but then also all the people and steps it took to make it, including truck drivers and people that package the globe. The way she also points out explicitly and aptly what life was like before and how humans interacted with the world was perfection. The depth and brilliance are lyrical. There was a description of friendship with respect to expectations and the work needed that really resonated with me. I was immersed in the world and enveloped by the prose. As one character put it, were they (are we?) just sleepwalking through life with our jobs, life, and what counts for happiness? Clark mused on in his past how he would take redeyes from NYC to LA and marvel at the sun rising as “the world was waking up.” Maybe, the world does really need to wake up and this is what took it to happen. Overall, this was a superbly written novel that brings forth all the feels and is so strongly rooted in possible reality to make it scarily relatable.
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