This Just In: Don’t Mess With Salman
Salman Rushdie is reportedly upset about having been misquoted by Patrick French in his review of the widely lauded Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. (I haven’t yet bought the book, but plan to this weekend.) The review quoted an old essay by Rushdie, in which he described Rajashtan as “colourful” as proof that the writer was out of touch with reality, and using an “insider-outsider” perspective.
Rushdie went on: “As a look at my essay A Dream of Glorious Return, published in Step Across This Line, will quickly show, I was talking somewhat satirically about the tourist-Rajasthan that was presented to Bill Clinton on his visit to India (”People wear colourful clothes and perform colourful dances and ride on colourful elephants and these are things a President should know”) while the non-colourful realities of the drought and so on were not drawn to his attention.”Rushdie added: “It is quite improper to quote my essay selectively so that he can praise my friend Mehta by making me look foolish.”
On a lighter note (or darker, depending on your perspective), Rushdie threatened to take a baseball bat to a reporter who’s written mean things about his wife, Padma Lakshmi.
First link via Kitabkhana.
Second link via TEV.