words bright and brave

Over the years, it has been hard to avoid Salman Rushdie. Many moons have risen and sunk again since he rose to notoriety and fame. It was one book, The Satanic Verses, that made his name instantly recognizable.

That's how the story is told most of the time, and it is false. It was not by writing the book that Rushdie became famous and notorious. I hear that the book is good and it might have added to his oeuvre, but what turned him into a celebrity was the fatwa that Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran at the time, issued, calling on good Muslims everywhere to kill the heretic because he had soiled the name of the prophet, denigrated Islam and mortally offended followers of the true faith the world over.

Ever since this imbecile, offensively asinine decree was pronounced and repeated too many times, I was intrigued by the writer and the book. How can words be so powerful to drive people to make complete fools of themselves, to forget their human roots and to become animals, howling at the light much as wolves howl at the moon? I want that power, too. I want to have inflammatory thoughts and be able to put them down to paper in all their explosive power, for people to read them and get enraged.

Alas, nothing the like. I have filled paper and screen a thousand times in countless pathetic ways. But I don't give up, I keep writing and, just as importantly, I keep reading.

Today I went to the Oxfam charity bookstore to see if they had anything on Istanbul, the city I'll be spending Easter in. Not even close, sadly, but I found, and bought, for all of two pounds, Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. Contrary to common belief, it was this book that put him on the map, never mind The Satanic Verses seven years later. It won him the 1981 Booker Prize, the highest literary award given out in the UK, and the Booker of Bookers in 1993. I'm on page 12 – the book started at nine – and I'm already enthralled. The ideas, the language, the joy! On Wednesday, I'll be traveling, first to the City Airport, then to Zürich and lastly to Istanbul. I hope I won't finish the book before.