Rushdie and Lethem in Chicago

Salman Rushdie and Jonathan Lethem spoke at the Harold Washington Library yesterday, care of Colombia College's Story Week Series (and sponsored by Coca-Cola). It was an animated series of talks, despite gluttonous fifteen-minute long introductions and dismal lines of questioning from Colombia College's Fiction Dept. head and host Randy Albers. He took the time to list every book either man had written, give plot synopsis, wax superflous, and follow that up by listing every award either had been given. At one point the crowd began laughing, to which he replied, "I'm almost finished," and continued listing awards.

Rushdie's two appearances, the first with Lethem discussing writing, and the second alone, discussing himself, gave considerable insight into his life, in particular his childhood. He described it as happy, and uneventful, as most happy childhoods are. He recalled his mother as being "a world-class repository of stories" about the neighborhood, who later threatened to stop telling him stories because, as he put it, "a writer hears a good story and thinks, 'hmm...good story.'" When asked about what kind of mythology he grew up with, Hindu or Muslim, he answered that he grew up with a Nationalist myth, the myth of things being new. Midnight's Children, the book which most delves into his childhood, deals with this myth in overt and subtle terms, both as central context and and as model. The new day which ends the book recalls both the dream of Indian Independence and the Wizard of Oz. He mentioned the Wizard of Oz in both interviews, both as a book which was improved by the movie, and as the inspiration for the first story he wrote, when he was fourteen. Named after the movie, his story was described by him as beginning with a boy in Bombay (Mumbai, he said earlier, is a fake name and should be resisted) who discovers the start of the rainbow, which has convenient steps, and leads him into many adventures. "My father kept the story, as though it were his own, not mine," he recalled, "and later lost it. Well he kept it, and then died, and we couldn't find it, which is probably for the best." The highlight for me was his recollection of an assignment to write limmericks in school. While other students barely made one, he wrote thirty seven. "It was my first experience of thinking, you know, I was good at that sort of thing." The teacher accused him of cheating, the sting of which he still remembers. "How could I have cheated?" he joked, "did she think I'd memorized limericks on the off chance we would be asked to write them that day?" He recalled one for the crowd, which went (roughly),

There was an old man from Japan
who never could get his limmericks to scan.
When people asked why,
he replied with a sigh:
It's because I always try and fit in too many words in the last line and the rhythm just goes out the window, and (trails off)

Not a bad limmerick. "That's my post-modern limmerick," he laughed. It was just before the question answer session, so if he was trying to pull down PoMo's pants a bit to avoid any heavy questions (he was once asked, heatedly: "Are you a postmodernist or not?"). Rushdie recalled in the early session that he enjoyed teaching his book and telling classmates they did not need Derrida to interpret the book. What did they think? Nothing against Derrida, but I could relate, it would have been a breathe of fresh air in college to discuss books in this way. "I am worried," Rushie said, "the literature is being taught wrong. The intellectual impetus of post-modernism creates grids of theory, and if something pops up through the grid, then it's a good book!"

Nevertheless, Rushdie seemed interested in promoting the idea of writing with the "full orchaestra", and mentioned that magic realism was but one section of that orchaestra. He reinforced my own sense that he was he may be backing away from the style still. There was no magic at all in Fury, and a mere "dusting," as he described it, in Shalimar the Clown. "The problem is people hear Magic-Realism and hear 'Magic.' The project was realism," he lamented. "Realism and naturalism are not the same thing. If you can use magical instances but if it resonantes with the audience, who feel some truth has been uncovered, then it is realistic. That was the project."

The discussion between Lethem and Rushdie had a few salient points. They both contrasted certain of their books (Midnights Children and the Moor's Last Sigh; Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude) as being lighter tributes to the locales of their birth which enabled a darker, more searching follow-up. I have to say it was a bit difficult to follow Rushdie on this point, for Midnight's Children is hardly a Disney-like treatment of childhood, but rather, as he said himself "fucked-up." Lethem's idea of Motherless Brooklyn was a love-note to Brooklyn, he said, which explains why it is so silly. My favorite question from this interview came from Rushie, who asked whether "the guy actually flew." "Yes," replied Lethem, "I like to think so."