Salman Rushdie

This was probably the most surreal experience I've had in a while. I thought meeting Nick Hornby was awesome enough, but no, clearly the Fates had more in store for my beating literary heart. I got to meet Salman Rushdie. No, let me clarify that, I got to speak to Salman Rushdie, and better still, he spoke back.

He was doing a reading at Borders today and both Jude & I had been looking forward to it for a while. He's smaller than I'd expected- I'd always imagined him to be an imposing figure for some reason. But how wonderful it is to realize that someone you've admired for a large part of your adult life is at the end of the day just human like you- literary legend or not. He was wonderfully affable, funny, and in the spirit of proper Englishness, incredibly eloquent. He read from his new book Shalimar the Clown which sounds pretty good judging from what must be the choice bits he picked to read.

So anyway, here I was sitting practically at the man's feet (yes, people worship rock stars, I stalk writers...) but totally out of his line of vision, but I hazarded to raise my hand during the Q & A anyway, and voila! he says, "Yes, the lady in the corner?" I was so flabbergasted I almost forgot my question! But promptly regained my composure and asked about which of his books was a favorite to write. If I had more of my wits about me, I'm sure I could have formulated something more eloquent like how everyone almost always touts "Midnight's Children" as his best work, or "The Satanic Verses" which gained him the greatest fame (or notoriety depending on how you look at it); and about how I disagree because I personally adore Shame. So I wanted to know if he agreed with the conventional assessment, or if he had his own personal favorite. Clearly, I didn't have all my wits about me, and was gushing like a schoolgirl (ok, not gushing, but really, the question sounded infinitely more sophisticated and intelligent in my head...) so it kind of came out rather prosaic, but I think I got my point across.

He said that one always feels closest to the most recent work because it's most intimately related to the psyche you're inhabiting at the moment. The Salman Rushdie who wrote "Midnight's Children" is considerably younger than the Salman Rushdie today and for that reason, the novel is a little harder for him to identify with now. But if he had to choose one of his books, it would be Haroun the Sea of Stories, a children' book he wrote for his son. His response also involved an encounter with a Jewish German children's publisher which he recounted in a hilarious accent that was terrific! And all that time he was responding to ME! Imagine that! I thought my heart would just stop beating...