Didn't see that coming. What's he done to deserve a knighthood? He only ever wrote one book that made people take notice and it wasn't for any literary reasons.
Not to get into the whole honours thing, but he was feted in literary circles long before The Satanic Verses. Prefer East, West myself, but that could be because one of the stories involves Star Trek.
He's one of two or three great magical realists in 20th century literature, comparable only to Grass or Garcia and generally considered second to none. Now, whether it is a sensible thing to offer knighthoods for being a world-renowned and brilliant author, I don't know. Nor am I sure that it is an honorable thing for an essentially postmodern writer to accept a knighthood.
Speaking of Star Trek, here's an entirely gratuitous pic of Rushdie's wife, who apparently had a role in Enterprise. I wonder what she sees in that ugly, old, multi-millionaire husband of hers. Not entirely safe for work.
Entirely gratuitous and borderline NSFW, in the US, anyway. Can you edit your post or do you want me to add a line to that effect?
Services to the literary world. Since the quality of said writings have been controversial, you could say he is 'critically acclaimed'. As much as his works arguably only have a small & specific target audience, he's done a lot more to deserve it than many of Labour's cronies that quietly get awarded Knighthoods every year without significant media coverage.
Or it could be that the British Government decided to pay Iran back for that whole fiasco with the captured sailors, and this is how they tweaked their nose for it. Iran has lodged a formal protest. Of course, they issued a fatwa in 1989 ordering Rushdie's execution. The Iranian representative said that it was a blatant example of anti-Islamic behavior by the British government.
That's what I thought, yes. It's a bit sad that it would take a "war on terror" to make whoever-suggests-knighthoods (?) read some of the best English books of the last century. It's likewise sad that Rushdie would let himself be used for such a political statement, especially given he disagrees with many of the UK's politics in the "war on terror".
I think that only the most ardent of conspiracy theorists would seriously assume that he was honoured for those reasons. The current government is limp & ineffective, but it isn't that petty.
I think he was honored for his contributions to literary circles, but the timing (especially with Blair on the way out) and the implications aren't lost on the current government. Nothing petty about taking a stand and rewarding a man for risking his life against the ultimate form of censorship. I think it sends a pretty strong message as to what the values are that Britain wants to represent. Nothing petty about it at all.
True. What's petty about it is that they do this now, but could hardly be bothered to take a firm stand for their citizen for several decades before, when they regarded censorship as the lesser evil to upsetting the Middle East.
You see the award of a Knighthood, an honour that has been sorely devalued over the last 10 years, as a form of making a stand against terrorism or other governments with a questionable agenda? I can't see it myself.
Actually it's pretty telling that a country would take offense to someone honoring the written word and the ideas therein.
Actually he wrote quite a few books that were very highly regarded... BEFORE Satanic Verses. Midnight's Children for example.
Wow, I've been watching (and lusting after) her for over a year (she's one of the judges of Bravos Top Chef) and I never knew who she was married to.
He aught to be given credit for having some nads. I saw the protests in london 18 years ago with 100,000+ Iranians calling for his death.
Today's idiotic comments from the Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister, Ijaz-ul-Haq, were wonderfully over-provocative & unecessary: "If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, his act is justified," he said, according to the translation by the Reuters news agency. "If Britain doesn't withdraw the award, all Muslim countries should break off diplomatic relations." Fine. Break off diplomatic relations then. What an idiotic reaction to an award that has been so devalued that it no longer holds the meaning it used it. If the Knighthood was a provocative act, then these comments more or less advocating suicide bombing are 100% more insidious.
oh those wacky muslims! really, its like they're purposefully jotting down 1001 Reasons To Genocide Us to see what happens. oh, and this but give me a giggle yeah... maybe allah was dropping you a hint there?
