What I Learned About Freedom from Salman Rushdie (Book Report)

What does freedom mean to you?

I just finished reading Knife, by Salman Rushdie. In case you never heard of him, he’s a novelist who dared poke fun at a religious figurehead and had a fatwah put out in him. That means someone pretty humorless wanted him dead.

Regardless of the merits of his writing or his attempts at humor or anything like that, it had to be hard living with bodyguards 24/7 and always wondering when the assassin would show up. That’s the opposite of freedom to me, maybe worse than being imprisoned. In prison you know where all the murderers are.

He eventually got to where he didn’t worry about being attacked anymore, but then he was. The book is his way of getting his processing done. I guess since he gets paid to write, he decided to publish his memories and their effects on him rather than writing in a journal, or blogging like us other self-absorbed people.

By the end, though, I think Rushdie comes out free. He’s free to live the rest of his life without dwelling on what happened, his attacker’s motivation, or looking over his shoulder constantly. He’s faced death and knows what it’s like.

That’s freedom: being able to live without worrying that someone or some institution is out to kill you, confine you, or strip you of your rights. In this case, I’m not free anymore. I’m no longer confident that women can be free in this country.

I digress as usual. As for the book, it was okay. There were some genuinely funny parts, and I give Rushdie credit for doing his best to be introspective, but he comes across (to me) as someone who has a great need to prove how smart he is. He extensively quotes from world literature when I swear he could just say what he meant rather than forcing the reader to remember every book they ever read (IF they happened to be literature majors) and draw the proper inferences from it.

I felt like there was going to be an essay test at the end.

He also quotes himself, or his novels, repeatedly. Is he trying to sell books? I didn’t end up dying to read any of them, which is good, since I have some good ones queued up already, thanks in part to kind people who keep handing me books.

Now, I do feel for the guy. He went through a lot, lost vision in one eye, and has a permanent droopy mouth. He does seem pretty chipper for someone less than two years after nearly dying. He sure made Jon Stewart laugh when he interviewed him.

So, freedom is not a buzzword for me. It’s the ability to live in your society with a reasonable about of agency and feeling safe among your community members.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll be less dour. But here’s an example of why I’m that way: I didn’t share the link to yesterday’s blog about what public figure I dislike most on Facebook out of concern that it might put a target on my back. So, freedom? Not so much.