Rushdie: Fundamentalist religion 'evil'

[deadparrot]

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Salman Rushdie, the British-Indian novelist, told a German magazine religious fundamentalism is "the fundamental evil of our time."

"Almost all my friends are atheists -- I don't feel as though I'm an exception," Rushdie said in an interview with Der Spiegel. "If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea."

Rushdie's most recent novel, "Shalimar the Clown," is about a Kashmiri circus performer who becomes a terrorist out of a mix of political and personal motives.

Osama bin Laden had one good effect, Rushdie said, convincing some groups like the Basque ETA to abandon terror.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060828-074929-4330r

[InkAddict]

1. He is my most favorite author

I just finished Shalimar the Clown, and WOW - a story as rich and wild as a fine handwoven carpet from the Orient. You'll be reading along for the romance of a story/plot, and then POW! right between the eyes there's a knockout paragraph, character's dialogue, or some narrative imagery that will just blow you away and force your considerations on the power/beauty/savagery of it's applications/implications to the past, present, and/or future of humanity on the planet. Well, okay, I'm one of those impoverished Americans who has only had the privilege to visit the foreign country of Canada @ Niagra. :thumbsup:

[niyad]

2. glad to hear that he has improved as a writer. during the whole insanity

of "the satanic verses", I tried, I REALLLLLY tried, to get through the book. I managed about three chapters, and thought that the book wasn't a crime against islam, it was a crime against literature. always thought his wife the better writer.

[InkAddict]

3. Try another

Satanic Verses was my first, too. I initially had the same problem until I read a few reviews and got the hang of the fantasy of it all...but Shalimar TC, Ground Beneath her Feet, and Moor's Last Stand are far-less fantastical political dream sequencing and a whole lot more like story-telling that your family patriarch/matriarch might do around the adults-only firepit on the eve of one's final family reunion. BTW, Midnight's Children was weird too though I liked it less.

[cali]

6. He's not my favorite author

by a long shot, but he's still worth reading, and I completely agree with him about fundamentalism.

[stepnw1f]

8. I'll Pick Up One of His Books

Which one would you recommend for a first-time reader of his?

[Strabo]

10. some great Rushdie books...

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is one of those great children's books that works for adults too (personally, I feel the Harry Pothead novels are a pastiche of juvenile crap, Haroun is real literature). It's completely fascinating. I'd really love to see Hayao Miyazaki do a film version of it.

East, West is an anthology of a couple short stories. I believe there are nine total in the book. It's a great way to get a sampling of Rushdie without requiring the massive amount of time required for his larger novels.

If you want to dive right into the weightier novels, then you can start pretty much anywhere, though I would suggest reading them in close to their order of publication. That gives you:

Midnight's Children
The Satanic Verses
The Moor's Last Sigh
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Fury
Shalimar the Clown.

You can skip Verses unless you want to read the novel that earned him the fatwa. The Ground Beneath Her Feet can probably be read out of sequence (and might be a good starting point anyway if you just want a sampling of Rushdie). Fury is also largely stand-alone (yet one of his lesser works). Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh, and Shalimar should probably be read in specifically that order whenever you read them due to their political and historical content.

I should add that I have not read Grimus or Shame, so do not know where to place them in his canon.

[stepnw1f]

11. Wow... Thank You Strabo

and welcome to DU!

[Taxloss]

4. Hooray for Rushdie!

Religious fundamentalism is, indeed, the great evil of our time.

[treestar]

5. He would know

One can only be glad he survived it.

[eccles12]

7. That should include Christian funddies as well. nt

[warrens]

12. It did. He said fundamentalism

Anyone who believes every word in a book written by admittedly imperfect men is absolutely true and accurate has mental problems. They can't process information well, and they can't accept that two seemingly opposing ideas might both be true. It's not quite mental illness, more like mental defect.

[yellowcanine]

9. He and Galileo would know.

[JVS]

13. Well he has a rather obvious agenda! How about asking an author...

who the faithful haven't been ordered to slay? ;-)

[TrogL]

14. Bravo!!

A man after my own heart.