In an event capping the month-long Midnight's Children Humanities Festival at Columbia author Salman Rushdie answered student questions in a students-only event held in Miller Theater Friday night.
Rushdie alternated between serious religious and political discussion, critical discussion of his own works, and lighthearted remarks about a variety of topics that occasionally elicited loud laughter and applause.
The talk, moderated by School of International and Public Affairs Dean Lisa Anderson, caused long lines outside of the theater on Wednesday and Thursday as students tried to obtain tickets to the sold-out event.
Rushdie, who is usually reclusive due to the death fatwah issued by Iran's former leader the Ayatollah Khomeini, has appeared on campus several times during the course of the festival. Last Saturday he engaged in an "informal conversation" with University President Lee Bollinger, but Friday's discussion, which was proposed by students, was intended as an opportunity for students to engage in dialogue with Rushdie.
As students entered the theater they passed a box in which to drop any questions they wished to have answered by Rushdie, which Rushdie had an opportunity to read prior to the session. The event was structured so that the first hour was devoted to these questions, read to Rushdie by Anderson, while during the final half-hour students addressed Rushdie directly.
The speakers, who were seated close to the audience in two chairs near the front of the stage, created an intimate and informal environment. Rushdie seemed particularly at ease, even when dealing with highly political and emotionally-charged subjects.
Anderson began the discussion by introducing Rushdie and laying out the format for the talk.
"It is our intention that the evening be provocative, revealing, and enlightening, both for Columbia students and ... Mr. Rushdie as well," Anderson said.
The discussion began with questions pertaining to Rushdie's works themselves. Rushdie is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction, some of which have created storms of religious and political controversy. The fatwah on Rushdie was issued in response to his novel The Satanic Verses, which many Muslims see as a blasphemous satire of the prophet Mohammad.
"His work has been both celebrated and condemned in far more extravagant terms than nearly any other writer of our time," Anderson said.
The first question read by Anderson dealt with the influence of the Russian author Vladimir Nabokov on Rushdie's own writing. Rushdie expressed great admiration for the author.
"I think he's probably the only example of a great writer who was a great writer in two different languages," Rushdie said. "I've always been interested in writers who have made journeys in their lives, who are transcultural writers. ... Nabokov is that, kind of to the max."
Anderson then turned to questions dealing with specific literary issues within Midnight's Children. One question, dealing with the "comic" nature of the depiction in the novel of the Amritsar massacre, led Rushdie to read the passage from a copy of the book he had with him. He took issue with the implication of the student asking the question that he had had not lent enough gravity to the situation.
"It seemed to me that passage in Midnight's Children is there exactly to create that sense of disorientation in the face of atrocity. Yes, there's a comic element ... but it's a very black comedy in the context of what's happening," Rushdie said.
Rushdie went on to answer questions dealing with the character of Shiva and the nature of the sexual relations between characters depicted both in the novel and the dramatization. However, Rushdie professed his inability to account for some decisions made in his own writing.
"You know, it's 23 years since I finished Midnight's Children. ... It is very difficult to cast one's mind back to creative decisions made almost three decades ago, so anything I say will be semi-fictional," he said.
The discussion then turned to Rushdie's own political opinions. Anderson first addressed a question to him about his perspective, as an expert on India's role as the "jewel in the crown" of the British empire, on the current role of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The problem with the United States ... is that it's an imperial power that doesn't seem to have any follow-through," Rushdie said. He expressed concern about U.S. commitment to the reconstruction of the two countries, citing the fact that out of $75 billion requested by President George W. Bush for the war on Iraq, only $2.7 billion has been allotted for the reconstruction of the country.
"To call that peanuts is to insult peanuts," Rushdie said. "It's just nuts."
He later addressed his opinions on the current war in Iraq and the political climate in the U.S. right now.
"I've been represented as being rather more hawkish on this subject than I really am. ... I would have very few regrets about the fall of [Saddam Hussein]. ... At the same time, I have never supported pre-emptive strikes [or] I have never supported the unilateral action of the United States," he said.
He also expressed surprise at the vast cultural divergence between Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington.
"The Republicans express themselves not just partly but entirely in religious language," he said. "Their whole mode of political discourse [is] Christian."
The talk took a grave and somewhat confrontational turn at times in the evening. One such time was when Anderson read a question comparing Rushdie to Khomeini. Although Rushdie kept the mood light, he expressed indignation at and complete disagreement with such a comparison.
"If there was a period in which I had large numbers of my political opponents murdered, I forget that," Rushdie said. "... I'm not like that. The intention may not have been to insult me, but the effect is to do so."
Students in attendance were impressed by the scope of the discussion as well as by Rushdie's understanding of the issues at hand.
"I thought it went really well," Daniel Kraft, CC '04, said. "I was impressed by Rushdie and what he had to say. I was surprised that he was not entirely anti-war."
Rushdie ended the evening on a light note when addressing the final question posed by an audience member, whether or not he had any advice for aspiring writers.
"If you need my advice," he said, "don't do it."