Magical Realism Of Joseph Anton

                    Magic Realism of Joseph Anton

Salman Rushdie claims his story of terror and alienation through the years of the Fatwa in his memoir: Joseph Anton. Hiding under a false name, an alias created by adjoining the names of his admired writers – Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekov, he led a decade of nightmarish existence. A true story by the writer who lived each moment of it; catapulting through emotions of fear- faith, love- betrayal, horror- security, doubt – resolution. A writer who conjures up imaginative worlds and characters became a fictional character on the run battling a personal war which acquired gargantuan proportions of conflict on the world stage.

The narrative is in third person and begins with the watershed moment of the declaration of the death sentence. Thereafter he begins at the beginning, his relationship with his parents. The seed of impartial, objective study of theology was sowed in him by his father Anis Rushdie.  A drunkard who squandered his wealth away, but passed on to his children a staunch secular faith – a godless, irreligious man who questioned and thought a lot about God and the foundation of religious faith.  The legacy of his original name – RUSHDIE, which wasn’t his father’s name but invented by the latter in his admiration for Ibn Rushd  - the famous 12^th century Spanish – Arab philosopher. Rushd was acclaimed for his commentary on Aristotle’s works and his inquiry, analysis and argument for the freedom of philosophy from the stronghold of theology. When hell broke, and Rushdie’s life turned topsy –turvy , he was proud to be called Rushdie,  perpetuating  an inquiry in Satanic Verses, begun 800 years ago by Ibn Rushd himself.

The most poignant narrative in the book is about his relationship with his sons Zafar and Milan. When the world explodes around him, he can think of nothing but being with his son Zafar, then 10 years old. A universal constant that people all over feel in times of stress and danger. “It was Zafar who finally brought him back to himself. Zafar whom he worked constantly to see – and the protection police drove back and forth to bring about these intermittent meetings possible”.  In a weak moment for acceptance he signed an apology prepared by a confederation of Muslim leaders – losing the war of freedom of speech and expression in his writing for which the world over he had such an ardent following. But then these very moments of defeat and defenselessness fired his resolve to fight the battle to the very end.

His wrath and hopelessness about India – the land of his birth which was the first country to stop the importation of the Satanic Verses makes up an important part of the narrative.  A country surrounded by unfree societies of Pakistan, China, and Burma, yet free and secular itself with a supreme democracy; proved to be unfree, claustrophobic and flawed

The world of books was split in multiple ways. Everyone had an opinion and a choice to make.  Publishers and translators alike were threatened and had to seek cover or come out fighting wild.  While the author of Satanic Verses and many a European publisher crouched behind kitchen shelves and bullet proof glass, the American coterie of publishers and writers reiterated their oath to free expression and held book readings “Free people publish books, Free people sell books, Free people buy and read books”. The book was available at each bookstore and library in America. No doubt Rushdie finally migrated to the US and acquired an American citizenship.  If the list of betrayals was unending so was the colossal support of friends, writers and bureaucrats across the globe. He expresses his heartfelt debt to Andrew Wylie, Gillon Aitken(literary agents who travelled country to country to persuade publishers to print the controversial book), Liz Cadler (his first editor whom he had substituted with an American one for more money later- still she stood by him through the crisis), Gurmukh Singh(gave him shelter and the mobile phone a new invention at the time to stay in touch with family and friends). Each small act opened doors and made it possible for Rushdie to hope and live.

‘International Gorillay’ a Pakistani film (pg 254) was a story of a terrorist group out to kill Rushdie, the author portrayed as a drunk in safari suits. In the end he is killed not by the jihadists but a thunderbolt from heaven – God’s justice.  Imagine him in safari suits – a big laugh. The sartorial choice really wounded Rushdie, when he saw the film. But the heavy decision that rested with him was if he wanted to be protected by the arm of censorship. He chose otherwise and retracted from legal recourse. The film was licensed by the British Board of Film Classification but disappeared from the horizon within no time – for nobody would spend money to watch a rotten, dreadful film.  A great lesson in free speech argument- the more we hide, repress people, things, ideas, the stronger it becomes with demonic proportions. 

At the outset when the Satanic Verses was published in Britain, it was only a novel discussed in pure literally terms and was also short listed for the Booker Prize.  Within a short period of time with the furore that followed its publication it became something smaller and uglier: an insult and the writer an insulter. He often pleaded to people who wanted to help, “Defend the text”, he said. Surrounded by hatred and revenge, he despaired that if he wrote timid, apologetic, or angry, vengeful literature, his art would be completely destroyed beyond repair. Somehow through the enveloping darkness he must continue his writing imbued with the same integrity and faith. At his son’s insistence he embarked on a different genre of writing – that of children fiction, whose initial editor was none other than his son himself. The outcome was – “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”. Publishers refused or procrastinated in their commitment to publish his new writings but he nonetheless continued with his persistent effort, and next in line was “The Moor’s Last Sigh”. A volume of short stories – ‘East, West’  and essays ‘Imaginary Homelands’ along with book reviews and poems, an oasis in an otherwise shattering existence. The process of writing which entails his skill of taking cues from real life incidents and reworking them to fantastical elements is an invigorating refreshing read, a peep into a brilliant writer’s mind machinations.

The trivia juxtaposed with profound insights too finds great footage in the book.  He proclaims in his writings about his childhood – ‘to gossip and scandalize is an art I learnt from my mother’.  Self critical analysis runs rather thin, but settling scores or at least venting his angst on personalities like Peter Mayer – the Penguin Publisher, his wives Marriane and Padma and people he could not stand like Roald Dahl. On the other hand, the lucid renderings of his rapport with the British Police personnel, meets with another side to his personality. The complications and strictures arising from close proximity and confined shrouded hiding places, impinging on each other spaces, sets up a narrative resulting in close bonds of trust and camaraderie.

Salman Rushdie’s fiction celebrates levity, a tantalization of existing reality or the deconstruction of reality. Joseph Anton is an attempt at ground zero rooted to gravity, of a phase of stark reality in his life. But the entire episode appears fantastical to a reader leading a mundane , routine life. Therein  lies the magic realism of JOSEPH ANTON!