Hooves on the Turf

The book jacket of his newest, The Enchantress of Florence, describes Salman Rushdie as “one of the world’s most important living writers”. When these words were used to introduce him yesterday, the grinning author shook with the whole of his laughing belly. Though known to be “arrogant”, a word often used interchangeably with “outspoken”, he’s had a jovial air about him every time I’ve seen him (having just finished reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I’m reminded of Behemoth the cat). I’ve also heard the phrase “show off” when his work is spoken of unfavorably, but I really think he writes glorious books only because he can hardly contain himself.

Continued, and photos after the jump.

Fighting what seemed to be a creeping cold, Rushdie read entertaining passages between sniffles to an overflowing room. They involved the Turkish love for tulips, the Italian hero’s adopted love for Turkish tulips, the enchantress herself, her mirror, a potion or not a potion, gardeners who always end up the executioners, the lack of sportsmanship involved in using guns at battles, and so on.

Someone asked him what books should be read in order to understand The Enchantress better. He said, it depended on what the reader hoped to understand better: if it was sex (laughter from the overflowing crowd), there are the three big volumes from the eastern tradition, one of which is Kama Sutra. He made it clear that the expertise to do with sex did not come from his own experience, that he has in fact not tried many tricks he learned from the three volumes, such as the one in his book, involving the use of nails in enhancing “the act of love”. When the next person asked him, Kama Sutra aside, what book would be a good first Salman Rushdie book, the author jumped in excitedly: “Oh I didn’t write the Kama Sutra!”, but that he would advise him, as had the caterpillar to Alice, Start from the beginning and stop when you reach the end.

He was asked what he thought of the political nature of the book, since in an interview he’d said that he was losing interest in political writing. Rushdie replied that he meant he was no longer interested in writing political non-fiction, especially op-ed’s and so on. He is not interested in becoming a talking head. He also said that with this book he hoped to clean up Machievelli’s misrepresented image; to highlight the fact that the man was the opposite of what is meant by the word Machievellian. His case is a prime example of “shoot the messenger.” He was punished simply for what he observed. If he can do that for Machievelli, a man demonized in his own time, he hoped that someone would do the same for him later, he added jokingly. Speaking of power and the themes of the book, he conveyed his fascination with how little human nature changes over time: We were brutal then, we are brutal still. The same applies to positives too, but human nature appears to be more of a constant than a variable.

One of the early questions concerned his reading habits. He said that he avoids reading fiction while writing, in fear of being influenced by someone else’s style, but that he often reads poetry during the process to remind himself to remain disciplined in the use of language. Now that he is no longer writing the book, he is most likely reading 15 books at time, as he says he is prone to do.

The Enchantress of Florence is now available, and a winner of the Booker Prize.