Salman Rushdie’s ‘Knife – Thoughts after an Attempted Murder’ Reveals Deep Insights into His Private Life and Recovery Process

On August 12, 2022, a 24-year-old man stabbed and seriously injured the Indian-born British-American author at an event in the US. The now 76-year-old man survived, but lost his right eye and was seriously injured. Today the book “Knife – Thoughts after an Attempted Murder” is published, in which Rushdie deals with the attempted murder and its effects.

Rushdie gives a deep insight into his private life

On 255 pages, the main storyteller, who became famous with his novel “Midnight Children” in 1981 and whose book “The Satanic Verses” earned him the Ayatollah’s call for murder in 1989, reports largely in history about the crime and his healing process as well. because the people who helped him along the way helped.

It gives a deep insight into his private life, position and family. The less stupid Rushdie shows his vulnerable side. One thing becomes very clear: the attack on his life, so many years after he thought he was already safe, has shaken him deeply – but it has not broken him.

A fictional conversation with the murderer

He also devotes an entire chapter to the murderer, but doesn’t mention him by name, just letting him appear as A. (short for asshole). Rushdie is completely disappointed by the man’s poor justification for the crime – that his victim was a “dishonest person”. It seems almost offensive that the murderer awaiting trial has not gone through his works and hardly seems to know anything about it. Rushdie engages in a false conversation with A. in which he wants to explore his Islamist cause and reject arguments.

“Knife”, although not fictional, reads like a typical Rushdie novel, only this time it is the writer himself, born in Bombay (now Bombay), who immerses himself in a magical world -real, man with man almost supernatural A powerful beauty – the American poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths – falling in love and struggling with evil, small-minded forces. Even the knife says: “I’ve been waiting for you. can you see me I’m right in front of your eyes, sinking my killer sharp into your neck. “Are you feeling it?” it releases.

“As if my punishment begged for mercy”

The first look in the mirror at the face disfigured by the knife stacks becomes a journey into a childhood marked by painful experiences with an alcoholic father. “Who are you?” he asked the figure in the mirror. Have we ever met?” Then he is drawn into a parallel world where memories from the past appear in small amounts.

It’s hard to come back to life. But Rushdie recounts the small progress and obstacles in his recovery process with humor as only Rushdie can. For example, when he describes how a urinary catheter was inserted: “It seemed that my punishment was crying out for mercy.”

Who is Salman Rushdie?

But the book is also a reflection on who Salman Rushdie is. The answer is that there are several versions of it, at least in the public eye. There is an “arrogant, selfish Rushdie” who, through no fault of his own, put himself in danger with the “Satanic Verses,” at least according to the British tabloid papers.

He himself denies this. Then there is the “party animal” who has never missed a cocktail event despite death threats. This was also created by the media. Finally, Rushdie’s image of freedom of expression, which has been celebrated around the world, is especially from the assassination attempt.

He would like to see himself judged by all his literary work, but he admits that this hope has been severely damaged by the assassination attempt. “If my destiny is to turn me into some kind of triumphant, free-spirited, freedom-of-expression Barbie doll, I want to accept that destiny,” he sums up.