Reading Notes W17: Rushdie, Part A

Salman Rushdie, “The Perforated Sheet” (1129-1143)

Salman Rushdie:

·         Born 1947

·         Born into a wealthy Muslim business family in Bombay 1947

·         Spoke his mind freely in his works

·         His works are more of “Novels of Ideas”

·         Magic realism writer

·         “Rushdie’s goal is to bring the reader closer to reality, which has its rational or rationally explicable features (as described by science) but is also irrational, unpredictable, and bizarre” (1130).

·         Many of his characters are allegorical or personifications of ideas

·         “Rushdie builds his narratives around conflicting ideas and fantastic characters and events with wit and playfulness, and with precise attention to the sensuous details of everyday life” (1130).

·         Writer on: migration, immigrant communities, Diasporas, cultural mixing, and hybridity.

The story:

·         Protagonist and narrator: Saleem Sinai

·         Protean narrative

·         Sinai is born August 14 and 15 1947: “The moment at which India and Pakistan became separate nations; as a “child” of that historic hour, he finds that his destiny is entwined with India’s fate as a nation, so that his life unfolds as a precise parallel to the country’s collective history thereafter” (1130).

·         Histories of India/Hinduism and Pakistan/Islam.

·         Babies are switched: Sinai grows up thinking he’s Muslim when he is actually biologically Hindu. This story is the beginning of a story that is comical and tragic.

Some Quotes:

·         “Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world” (1131).

·         “It’s the place where the outside world meets the world inside you. If they don’t get on, you feel it here. Then you rub your nose with embarrassment to make the itch go away. A nose like that, little idiot, is a great gift. I say: trust it. When it warns you, look out or you’ll be finished. Follow your nose and you’ll go far” (1138). Uses his nose to teach a lesson.

·         “Doctor Aziz’s fall was complete. And Naseem burst out, ‘But Doctor, my God, what a nose…” (1143). He had fallen in love with her even though he has never seen her face. We see the nose pop up again: referring to quote from page 1138.