Salman Rushdie was here. No one died.
My notes, as they are, not cleaned up (except to be typed rather than handwritten):
laughter & forgetting
–> A novel of memory becomes a political novel
literature to preserve the human scale… that which can be obliterated
Addressing Am. power in Am. novels — but not prescriptive
can’t force it
–> but these political subjects change so rapidly
—
Why do novels try to address large scale? Space b/t public & private has shrunk – our lives shaped by things beyond the frontier of our lives – counter-example = Austen doesn’t write about Napoleonic wars – no ref to “news” – it is hard 4 us now 2 talk about our lives w/o addressing the public space
-> Heraclitus - man’s character is his fate
Moby Dick – the obsessed characters all die.
But… accidents?
–> lives shaped by events over which we have no control - 9/11 had nothing to do w/character of people who died
literature offers a pluralistic cure to the narrowing of identity, which spurs conflict
–> capaciously viewed self
Satanic Verses – problem w/people who define themselves by their rage
For Islam “history” is the enemy
–> revelation as pre-linguistic, reception is translated from divine to human language
Novel – nobody owns it– an artist offering his vision to the world
Jessica Smith
