Salman Rushdie, the Beauty of Death

SALMAN RUSHDIE — QUICHOTTE ­– 2020

We must, first of all, eliminate what Salman Rushdie is trying to trap us into. The central character in the book is a writer of thrillers who writes under a penname, Marcel DuChamp which is the name of a French artist of long ago in the 20th century who is so famous for his male urinal seen as a work of art, generally shown flat on its back which is at least disorienting. This here thriller writer Marcel DuChamp is originally from Mumbai with quite a few people in his family and Salman Rushdie would like us to believe this Ismail Smile, aka Marcel DuChamp is a personification of Salman Rushdie himself. He heavily insists on the biography that is in many ways similar to his own. If we reduced this novel to this, we would just be unable to understand what this novel stands for, though I don’t think it stands, at least not stand up. It rather kneels on a praying carpet and prays us to believe this is true. But it is not. By principle and essence of literature. Even in a direct autobiography, the person represented in a work of fiction is not the author of the work of fiction but only a character, and this fictional author wants us to believe what he says about himself is true. But it can be just a bunch or a cluster of lies. If we let ourselves be invaded by the idea this fictional author is the real author, then the book would…