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A review by ladyelfriede
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
5.0
This may be one of the best books I've read this year and we may have another Golden Sticks (tm) Book of the Year contender.
Rushdie was attacked on August 2023 and, while attacks on authors has been unfortunately around, it was the first time an Indian writer, that was known in the Western world, was brutally attacked.
All for an idea in a novel and a corrupted vision of what their religion meant to them.
Freedom of speech and ideas has never been more censored than what it is today.
Booktok, or any book community, HATES if you talk about ANY trigger warnings, even if done respectfully, but even if it wasn't done respectfully, that is no reason to murder or attack an author.
Social media scrutinizes anything that doesn't form to their own beliefs. Rushdie leaving Twitter was probably one of the best thing he did in his career.
In an age where ideas can be so widespread, it's absolutely shameful that authors have to think twice what they publish. Would this book be controversial? What if communities flame me? None of these questions should be even a thought in the 21st century.
I'm a firm believer that all ideas, whether I agree with them or not, should be published.
When we stifle ideas and speech, we die as a civilization.
Prose: This is a man who spent his life writing and he knows how to control his prose. If you're a writer and don't know what good prose is: just read this book. A master in his craft is at home with the word.
Plot: The plot is hard to judge here as I'm not versed in nonfiction all that well. For being one of the few memoirs I have read, it never bored me and always wanted me to keep reading.
Pace: As I said in Prose, this is a master at work, and he understands his pace, he doesn't care so much of his audience and how they would perceive it, as he so much cares how the work looks. But by doing this approach, he can focus fully on what makes Rushdie's work shine.
Vibe: Yeah, uh...this is a murder attempt, I dunno what you want me to tell you.
Characters: Names were sorta thrown about, but he does consider that you may never know who a certain writer is and does give a light introduction who they are before resuming his speech. In this way, he is considerate to his audience who may never have read in his circle of literature (me). Eliza and Rushdie are probably the strongest people in this book, and maybe IRL, and let no one tell you differently
Worldbuilding: As this is a nonfiction and not a fantasy book, I can briefly tell you some backstory that might help a reader understand this book better:
On August 12 2023, Rushdie was attacked with a knife in a lecture hall by a religious terrorist that read 2 pages in his book, "Satanic Verses." In the assassin's eyes, the author should no longer be alive to spew his filth.
"Satanic Verses" gave Rushdie a fatwa, an Islamic ruling by a religious leader. What makes this fatwa horrible though, was that the ayatolla of the time, Ruhollah Khomeini, wanted Rushdie assassinated for his book being "blasphemous".
Fast forward to 2023, the assassin was radical in his views and sought to bring his own sense of "justice" toward Rushdie.
Most of the Muslim world supports Rushdie and wanted the removal of the fatwa, but by the time anyone would want to remove it, Khomeini had passed away. Only an ayatolla who issued the fatwa, can remove the ruling.
-
I know I mostly review fantasy books and such, but this book, if you care a lick about freedom of speech in writing, needs to be read. It's a warning of what is to come and what we need, as a society, need to do 110% better than letting freedom of speech die in our words.
5/5
Rushdie was attacked on August 2023 and, while attacks on authors has been unfortunately around, it was the first time an Indian writer, that was known in the Western world, was brutally attacked.
All for an idea in a novel and a corrupted vision of what their religion meant to them.
Freedom of speech and ideas has never been more censored than what it is today.
Booktok, or any book community, HATES if you talk about ANY trigger warnings, even if done respectfully, but even if it wasn't done respectfully, that is no reason to murder or attack an author.
Social media scrutinizes anything that doesn't form to their own beliefs. Rushdie leaving Twitter was probably one of the best thing he did in his career.
In an age where ideas can be so widespread, it's absolutely shameful that authors have to think twice what they publish. Would this book be controversial? What if communities flame me? None of these questions should be even a thought in the 21st century.
I'm a firm believer that all ideas, whether I agree with them or not, should be published.
When we stifle ideas and speech, we die as a civilization.
Prose: This is a man who spent his life writing and he knows how to control his prose. If you're a writer and don't know what good prose is: just read this book. A master in his craft is at home with the word.
Plot: The plot is hard to judge here as I'm not versed in nonfiction all that well. For being one of the few memoirs I have read, it never bored me and always wanted me to keep reading.
Pace: As I said in Prose, this is a master at work, and he understands his pace, he doesn't care so much of his audience and how they would perceive it, as he so much cares how the work looks. But by doing this approach, he can focus fully on what makes Rushdie's work shine.
Vibe: Yeah, uh...this is a murder attempt, I dunno what you want me to tell you.
Characters: Names were sorta thrown about, but he does consider that you may never know who a certain writer is and does give a light introduction who they are before resuming his speech. In this way, he is considerate to his audience who may never have read in his circle of literature (me). Eliza and Rushdie are probably the strongest people in this book, and maybe IRL, and let no one tell you differently
Worldbuilding: As this is a nonfiction and not a fantasy book, I can briefly tell you some backstory that might help a reader understand this book better:
On August 12 2023, Rushdie was attacked with a knife in a lecture hall by a religious terrorist that read 2 pages in his book, "Satanic Verses." In the assassin's eyes, the author should no longer be alive to spew his filth.
"Satanic Verses" gave Rushdie a fatwa, an Islamic ruling by a religious leader. What makes this fatwa horrible though, was that the ayatolla of the time, Ruhollah Khomeini, wanted Rushdie assassinated for his book being "blasphemous".
Fast forward to 2023, the assassin was radical in his views and sought to bring his own sense of "justice" toward Rushdie.
Most of the Muslim world supports Rushdie and wanted the removal of the fatwa, but by the time anyone would want to remove it, Khomeini had passed away. Only an ayatolla who issued the fatwa, can remove the ruling.
-
I know I mostly review fantasy books and such, but this book, if you care a lick about freedom of speech in writing, needs to be read. It's a warning of what is to come and what we need, as a society, need to do 110% better than letting freedom of speech die in our words.
5/5