|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He has survived a fatwa and is an undisputed titan of modern literature.
But Sir Salman Rushdie appears to have made a new foe in the shape of fellow British writer Zoe Heller whose scathing review of his memoirs has been described as the most "devastating hatchet job of 2012". Heller's piece, published in The New York Review of Books, condemned the "shuddering hauteur" of Rushdie's efforts, adding that "an unembarrassed sense of what he is owed as an embattled, literary immortal-in-waiting pervades his book". Joseph Anton: A Memoir is an autobiography depicting Rushdie's struggle in the aftermath of The Satanic Verses, which forced him into hiding for nearly a decade. The work attempts to shed light on the experience and bury the ghosts of the past. But it found little favour with Heller. In a stinging 2,600-word essay, she wrote: "One would hope that when recollecting his emotions in freedom and safety, he might bring some ironic detachment to bear on his own bombast. Hindsight, alas, has had no sobering effect on Rushdie's magisterial amour propre." Born in north London, Heller started her career at The Independent on Sunday, later moving to New York. Her second novel, Notes on a Scandal, was nominated for the 2003 Booker Prize and made into a film starring Judi Dench and Bill Nighy. Some of her sharpest criticism is saved for Rushdie's assessment of his marriages, which she deems "egregiously uncharitable". "Rushdie has a habit of excusing his own fairly frequent infidelities and betrayals with reference to the imperative nature of his own desires," she wrote. Heller describes herself as "struck by the lordly nonchalance with which Rushdie places himself alongside Lawrence, Joyce, and Nabokov in the ranks of literary merit". Describing the book as written in a "de Gaulle-like third person" she adds: "Throughout this memoir Rushdie claims kinship with any number of great literary men men who, like him, suffered for their genius, but whose fame was destined to outlast that of their oppressors." But her greatest criticism is saved for the last lines: "Some readers may find, by the end of Joseph Anton, that the world feels rather smaller and grimmer than before. But they should not be unduly alarmed. The world is as large and as wide as it ever was; it's just Rushdie who got small." A spat with fellow British author John Le Carr้ in 1997 led to a lengthy exchange of letters and a final assessment in which Rushdie branded the spy novelist "an illiterate, pompous ass". The New York Times recently criticised Rushdie's "relentless public presence" which it said "occurs precisely at a moment when many of New York's most successful writers appear to lead lives of domestic tranquillity in Brooklyn". Writer Mallory Ortberg: says:"It is exciting to watch important British people insult each other. They are much better at it than Americans, partly because reading is a blood sport there, but also because they've had centuries of practice." The Independent
|
|||
|
|
|||
Naipaul sold a
signed copy of a book given to him by Theroux for $1,500.
Theroux branded Naipaul a racist, egoist and mercenary. They
finally buried the hatchet in 2011.
When Peruvian
Vargas Llosa punched the Colombian Marquez in 1976 allegedly
over a woman it sparked a simmering feud with the pair not
speaking for 30 years.