Salman Rushdie attacked on stage in New York

[killer b]

I guess it's inevitable that the level of protest and violence that happened in the wake of the publication of the satanic verses would have a chilling effect on the publication of books that might be deemed sacrilegious by fundamentalists.

I was thinking the protests around Drag Queen Story Hour are likely to have a similar effect - the tour that's currently happening will grind to its end, but the bookers in libraries will pass next time when they're looking for nice events for kids over the holidays, because it'll bring with it a high chance of a load of freaks screaming 'paedo!' Outside their library.

People - and particularly corporations (and council libraries) are risk-averse is what its down to. I'm not sure what the answer is though- you can't really blame authors for choosing not to write novels which might get them stabbed by religious nutters, or publishing houses for choosing not to publish books that might get their translators murdered etc.

 

[ruffneck23]

No.

Steve Hughes

 

[Karl Masks]

God, this is just further going to weaponise the likes of Douglass Murray.

Yes, Salman's life is more important. I don't agree with fundie murderers and religious extremists.

But the legacy of this will be more of these scumbags who just make the lives of moderates even more miserable.

 

[BigMoaner]

Serious novels did fuck with my politics, though. Destroyed any sense of certainty.

yes, this. that's why i keep reading them.

my politics is more pragmatic these days rather than thinking i know what is absoloutly perfect and best for the whole of society. that's lunacy. good literature is one way of weaking my own lunatic energy.

 

[BigMoaner]

anyway, sad news, hope he gets better.

(it must be a strange arrival in life to be lurching across a stage to try and stab someone in the neck for writing a book that's upset you)

 

[Pickman's model]

anyway, sad news, hope he gets better.

(it must be a strange arrival in life to be lurching across a stage to try and stab someone in the neck for writing a book that's upset you)

That you haven't read

 

[BigMoaner]

stabbed 15 times?

jesus christ. what a sad piece of shit. life him off with no parole. no ifs not buts. sit and rot.

 

[Pickman's model]

stabbed 15 times?

jesus christ. what a sad piece of shit. life him off with no parole. no ifs not buts. sit and rot.

What, for attempted (thus far) murder? The max sentence in ny is 25 years.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Hmm.
I am a first aider, with just perhaps 6 hours training.
I wonder if I would have known what first aid to deliver to Rushdie in the immediate aftermath. .

Lucky there was a proper doctor in the audience.

It doesn't really matter what level of training you have in that type of situation. Maintaining the airway, and pressure on bleed sites is about all you can do without the kit you would have in a A&E setting.

 

[weltweit]

It doesn't really matter what level of training you have in that type of situation. Maintaining the airway, and pressure on bleed sites is about all you can do without the kit you would have in a A&E setting.

Aha ..

So far since my brief training I have had to deal with a small but bleedy head wound, that's all so far.

 

[rutabowa]

The book is actually a masterpiece, I reckon my favourite of all of his and i was a big fan a while ago.

 

[tim]

Living openly for over 30 years knowing that there is a high likelihood of this happening to you sooner or later is terrible . Maybe he just felt he didn't have a choice but to carry on.

 

[William of Walworth]

Years ago, I read Midnight's Children, whoich I thought was excellent , but not The Satanic Verses. I'm half-trmpted to give the latter a go, now ...

I was setiously shocked when I first pickewd on this dreadful news last night

As everyone else is saying upthread, I really! hope he pulls though!

 

[8ball]

That you haven't read

Yeah, this guy wasn’t actually upset by the book. It’s more a weird deluded fundie version of “doing it for the likes”

 

[8ball]

Hannah Gadsby.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

anyway, sad news, hope he gets better.

(it must be a strange arrival in life to be lurching across a stage to try and stab someone in the neck for writing a book that's upset you)

a book that was written before you were even born...

 

[ruffneck23]

Indeed.

There is an Australian comic who goes further although not in a religious way, "offence" so someone says something and you are offended, so what? you are offended, why should I care? Wish I could recall his name, very amusing.

 

[Pickman's model]

a book that was written before you were even born...

People have been killing because of books written more than a thousand years ago for many many centuries

 

[kabbes]

It must be 20 years since I read The Satanic Verses, and I’m sure I’d have a more nuanced view of it these days. However, my memory is of being somewhat confused at the end as to what it was that had supposedly been so offensive. I’d recently read a few books like Last Exit To Brooklyn that had way more potentially explosive things in them, and dating from earlier, stricter eras to boot. By contrast, I didn’t get what it was in Satanic Verses that was causing the problem.

 

[brogdale]

Living openly for over 30 years knowing that there is a high likelihood of this happening to you sooner or later is terrible . Maybe he just felt he didn't have a choice but to carry on.

In the early days of the fatwa Rushdie had to live the life of a Secretary of State for NI during the 1970s. I subsequently learnt that he was a frequent visitor to my, then, near neighbour Ishi:

 

[tim]

Tedious cunt introducing a tedious, unoriginal, right-wing cunt who probably can't work out how he walked out of a GBNews studio, turned left, and found himself in front of several hundred undiscriminating happy clappers. One joke was stolen from Alexi Sayle who in turn stole it from Doctor Johnson. As to the Health and Safety stuff, I'd like to chain all self-styled comics who make jokes about contemporary regulation to the bow deck of the Herald of Free Enterprise and set the craft on a collision course with the Piper Alpha oil platform.

 

[two sheds]

Saw a clip of Yusuf Islam on a Question Time type programme calling for Rushdie to be murdered will never be able to listen to "I love my dog" in quite the same way again

 

[Pickman's model]

Saw a clip of Yusuf Islam on a Question Time type programme calling for Rushdie to be murdered will never be able to listen to "I love my dog" in quite the same way again

Sometimes I love my dog > I hate people

 

[two sheds]

Don't know that track

eta: aha



Better than the Willow Pill version I think

 

[Pickman's model]

Don't know that track

Play the song backwards, it's all there.

 

[story]

Saw a clip of Yusuf Islam on a Question Time type programme calling for Rushdie to be murdered will never be able to listen to "I love my dog" in quite the same way again

He later said it was just bantz

Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[story]

I remember how I always quietly respected, well, marvelled, how he dealt with the fatwa. Didn't dramatise it, double-down and take the piss, nor complain of his victimhood (as he quite rightly could have), and crucially didn't appear to back down. Not sure I would have handled it quite as calmly

(Tbh I'm writing this without fact checking the memories I stored and processed as a kid, I could be way off Am i?)

That’s how I remember it too.







I started reading it when it came out but never finished it. Far too busy with the going outs and all the youth culture stuff to read big heavy books at the time. Had intentions to read it later, later, always later. Did eventually finish Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, War and Peace and all that but not TSV. My Dad bought it (as he did all the Booker winners) to encourage us kids to keep up with what everyone was chattering about, so I guess that was a first edition. Shame his horrible third wife stripped out and trashed or sold everything when he died.





Eta
Never got through The Mezzanine either, but have thought about the bits I did read ever since.

 

[two sheds]

He later said it was just bantz

Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

didn't look like bantz

 

[brogdale]

didn't look like bantz

Looked very much considered and genuinely held views.

 

[two sheds]

Shows what being a cultist can do to you