"Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” by Salman Rushdie (Vintage Digital/ April 16, 2024)
On August 12th, 2022, a horrific terrorist attack took place in Chautauqua, New York, stirring up the age-old discussion regarding one of the most debated issues in the Western world: freedom of speech.
Salman Rushdie, an Iranian-born author who is internationally known for his distinctive opus that interlaces the political and historical with the subjective and magical, was stabbed multiple times by a radicalized Islamist, as he was standing on stage to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution. Ironically, Rushdie’s speech was about violence against writers. The Iranian-British author was one of the most suitable men to talk about that subject as he had suffered the consequences of persecution that religious fundamentalists initiated in his home country. Rushdie’s fourth book, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988 and its release caused an outrage all over the Islamic world, which unanimously renounced the book as blasphemous. One year later the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa- decreeing Rushdie’s death and calling all devout believers to murder the sacrilegious author. The case was billed as the “Rushdie Affair” and its ramifications forced the author to live a life on the run, eventually finding safety in Britain and America, where he established his reputation as one of the most respected authors in the free world. Knife, a recently published book of Rushdie’s, is preoccupied with diachronic existential questions raised by the author’s near-death experience in Chautauqua. In the opening chapter, Rushdie claims that the book is meant to explore his intimate encounter with death, in order for it to acquire some sense. To achieve so, he begins to relay an account of the days that preceded the attack, but he doesn’t dwell on them as he is eager to be entirely focused on the grim event itself. That is what matters most both for him and the readers. Thus, after a handful of pages, we are transported to the setting of the vicious assault, and Rushdie’s plain, matter-of-fact writing style makes the gruesome details of the occurrence so painful to imagine, the plainness in prose never overshadowing the imagery’s vibrance. We read about the confrontation between the assailant, a 24-year-old man named Hadi Matar, and the victim, which lasted for only 27 seconds. The amply dispersed cultural and literary references occasionally feel as though they detract from the narrative coherence and consistency, but otherwise, the point of the text is clear.
The author conveys the essence of his experience in the most graphic of ways: genuine horror and extreme agony. He writes about his thoughts right after the stabbing; the shame and humiliation that derived from the fact that he did almost nothing to defend himself, the gratitude that he felt towards the people who rushed to help him and perhaps saved his life, and now and then, a random thought that evokes the reader’s mirth. Rushdie was transferred to UPMC Hamot in Erie, in a critical condition with the doctors saying that there was not much hope for his chances of survival. However, almost a day later he opened his eyes and started to count his multiple injuries. He had been stabbed in the torso, neck and face. Most damaging of all was the stabbing that pierced the optic nerve of his one eye- he calls it “the cruelest blow” (13). It rendered him semi-blind for the rest of his life, and a great scene in the book reflects his experience of discovering this: in which the author and first-person narrator looks at himself in the mirror of his hospital room’s bathroom, and divulges to the reader his profound feelings of grief and fear. The stark prose shines once again, reminding us why Rushdie, a Booker Prize winner in 1981 and knighted for his services in literature in 2007, is so well known.
The knife becomes the symbolic image of hate and Rushdie can only answer by employing his own arsenal; consisting of words: “Language was a knife. It could cut open the world and reveal its meaning (…) It could cut through from one reality to another (…) Language was my knife.” (85). The Iranian author’s belief that literature is the one thing that can help him repair himself runs as a thematic undertone throughout the book. His healing journey which began in Hamot and continued in a rehabilitation center in New York covers the first half of Knife (The Angel of Death). The second one, The Angel of Life, slightly differs in terms of tone with Rushdie having won his battle with the Grim Reaper that only made him wiser.
The chapter that undeniably dominates the second half of the memoir is the one in which Rushdie imagines a fictional interview with his aggressor, whom he calls “the A.”. Even though he declares from the opening pages that he does not intend to spend much time talking about him, Rushdie devises himself as a fictional character and puts the person who nearly killed him sitting opposite him. The interaction, which doesn’t always flow so smoothly, perhaps intentionally, can be summarized as the tenacious attempts of a secular and cosmopolitan individual, that is Rushdie, to make a radicalized young man acknowledge the impossibility of being certain about our religious credos, whether Islamic or other. There are some moments of bona fide brilliance in that chapter and the author as a made-up character does an excellent job of echoing the doubts that all the free-thinking men and women reserve; the ideal spokesman on behalf of all skeptics around the world.
Apart from being a great writer, Rushdie has always been a vocal patron of freedom of expression and lack of censorship, and his struggles with authoritarianism and cultural terrorism illuminate the portrait of a brave man who has never been afraid to go against the current… even if that meant that his life would be put in danger. Knife concludes with the story running a full circle and Rushdie returning to that amphitheater in Chautauqua where he almost lost his life in the past. His wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, a poet and novelist, is beside him and Rushdie pours a lot of ink for her in the chapter that is named after her (Eliza). The details of their love affair stand out like a sore thumb in this fascinating story of pain, loss, and redemption. Written with a pizzazz that we rarely encounter in nonfiction works, Knife narrates the tribulations of an artist who has fought bigotry in every form throughout his career. Rusdhie’s sterling character and pranic energy breach the book’s pages and guarantee a memorable reading experience.
-Dimitris Passas
Dimitris Passas is a freelance writer from Athens, Greece, and the editor of the online magazine Tap the Line (www.tapthelinemag.com), in which he reviews books, movies, and TV series while also featuring articles, news, and Q+As with authors and artists. His academic background includes bachelor studies in sociology and a master’s degree in philosophy. His work can also be found in ITW’s legendary magazine The Big Thrill and various online platforms such as DMovies, PopMatters, Off-Chance, Loud and Clear Reviews and others. His latest book reviews have been accepted for publication in esteemed literary and film journals like World Literature Today, American Book Review, Alphaville, Bright Lights Film Journal and Compulsive Reader. Dimitris's short and flash fiction, as well as his CNF pieces, can be found in various literary magazines such as Litro Online, Maudlin House, 34th Parallel, Memoir Land (“First Person Singular” series), Litbreak, and several others.
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