Knife

Reviews

Salman Rushdie’s memoir is horrific, upsetting – and a masterpiece… Knife is a tour-de-force, in which the great novelist takes his brutal near-murder and spins it into a majestic essay on art, pain and love…full of Rushdie’s wit, his wisdom, his stoicism, his optimism, his love of all culture from the so-called “high” to the so-called “low”. Knife is a rich, immersive, feisty account of [Rushdie's] journey through darkness back to the light. Part thriller, part love story, part celebration of literature, it’s an incandescent book full of hair-raising descriptions of hard-won survival and beautiful, philosophical passages about art, freedom and resilience…Rushdie has not just enlarged literature’s capacities, he has expanded the world’s imaginative possibilities — and he has paid a tremendous price for it. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Rushdie’s triumph is not to be other: despite his terrible injuries and the threat he still lives under, he remains incorrigibly himself, as passionate as ever about art and free speech... At one point he quotes Martin Amis: “When you publish a book, you either get away with it, or you don’t.” He has more than got away with this one. It’s scary but heartwarming, a story of hatred defeated by love. Knife is a clarifying book. It reminds us of the threats the free world faces. It reminds us of the things worth fighting for. Rushdie’s friend Christopher Hitchens, in the wake of the initial fatwa, eloquently explained the stakes. The affair drew a line between “everything I hated versus everything I loved,” he wrote. “In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual and the defense of free expression.” His words apply to this book. With both candour and rich detail, and reminding us again of his knack for storytelling, Knife celebrates art and love over violence, resilience over acquiescence Expand reviews