bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

I just got home from seeing Salman Rushdie speak. There is so much he said that I want to write about, but I'm also so tired, I don't know if I can do any of it justice, or if I can even remember most of what he had to say that seemed relevant at the time. He was (still is, probably signing books as I type) in Spokane for the Get Lit! literary festival. At the very least he is interesting, funny, provacative and relevant to the world we are in, as readers, writers, thinkers, learners and livers.

The most humorous part of the evening was a tirade against The Davinci Code, lambasting Dan Brown for the many errors in the text and his plot construction. Some of those errors, of a factual or literary sense, were the manner in which the supposedly best code-breaker in France couldn't figure out the writing was done to be read in a mirror and how she couldn't figure out the anagram code scrawled in blood on the floor of the Louvre. What he also found nonsensical was the manner in which a dying man would write a code in blood on the floor, the desire of anyone in their death throes no doubt. There were a good many other errors and falsehoods (but it is fiction, despite the headnote to the accuracy of much of the information) such as the supposed headquarters of Opus Dei being a Jewish girls college. In short, he described it as crap. I didn't think much of it myself, thinking a mediocre mystery, but I don't real a lot of mysteries. The most damning bit of information he passed along was that the whole "God's Blood" from the rearranged "holy grail" is something that only works in romance langauges, not aramaic and the other languages of the time of Christ. Not that I care much one way or the other about The Davinci Code, but it was an intersting rant.

While he talked quite a lot about his writings, and read from some non-fiction, it was his comments on the state of the world and the role of writers that I found most engaging. Rushdie described the role of the writer, at least for himself, as trying to expand the bounds of the universe. He was clear that this was about opening possibilities and opportunities. He noted that it is often the aim of those in power to be doing pretty much the opposite, to be closing off opportunities and possibilities. Because writers are working to expand these roles, they become the target of those who want to limit individual roles and freedoms. To this end, he suggested that Americans read more literature in translation, complaining that only three percent of the books published in the United States last year were translated from foreign tongues. Part of his effort in this regard is working with the Pen Awards, bringing foreign writers to the U.S. to get their ideas some play here.

I wish I had a tape recorder to better pass along what he had to say. I'll leave it here for now, maybe coming back to this when I'm not sure tired and fuzzy headed.