As we reach the end of the summer season, it's time to consider good books. The Post and Courier asked its regular reviewers what titles have stood out so far this year. Here are their answers: KNIFE.
By Salmon Rushdie Catherine Holmes The book that I can’t get out of my mind this year is Salman Rushdie’s “Knife.” Rushdie has often made the point that storytelling and self-mythologizing are at the center of our being: “I think stories are what we are, we all live in our stories of ourselves.” The bedrock of “Knife” is Rushdie’s belief in what turns out to be a false but beautiful story: he has come to trust that he has outlived earlier threats to his life.
He has been out, openly on the world’s stage, living and loving freely. Then a spectre from the past comes to life: the Ayatollah’s fatwa. “Knife” opens with an attack on Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institute, one that leaves him blind in one eye and fighting for life.
The last thing his right eye would ever see was the “squat human missile” running toward him. After the attack, he asks himself if his happiness can survive such an assault. It’s not giving away too much to affirm that the answer is yes.
“Knife” ends with a return to the scene of the crime. Rushdie and his wife, the poet Eliza Griffiths, stand on the stage on the spot where his assailant attacked. A burden lifts, and he feels light and whole.
—Catherine Holmes LULA DEAN’S LITTLE LIBRARY OF BANNED BOOKS. By Kirsten Miller..