A Big, Rambling, Indian House

*



http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jul/26/salmanrushdie.bookerprize

One day in 1976 - I'm no longer certain of the date - a young, unsuccessful writer wrestling with an enormous and still intractable story decided to start again, this time using a first-person narrator. On that day, much of what is now the beginning of Midnight's Children was written. "I was born in the city of Bombay . . . once upon a time." "Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came." "Handcuffed to history." "Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon." I can still summon up the feeling of exhilaration that came over me as I discovered Saleem Sinai's voice, and in doing so discovered my own. I have always thought of that day as the moment I really became a writer, after a decade of false starts. "My clock-ridden, crime-stained birth."

By the end of 1979 I had a completed manuscript, and the book had publishers, the best there were in those days, Jonathan Cape in London and Alfred Knopf in New York. Their support encouraged me to think that I might at last have written a good book, but after the long years of unsuccess I was still plagued by doubts. I managed to set them aside and plunge into another novel, Shame, and thank goodness I did, because it meant that when Midnight's Children had its first, extraordinary success I did not have to wonder how on earth to "follow that". I had already written a first draft of Shame by the night of the Booker, and so I had work to do.

Midnight's Children took an unusually long time to be published, because of a series of unfortunate events. Cape and Knopf had agreed to print jointly in the United States to save money, and then a printers' strike began. When that ended, and the book was finally printed, a transport strike meant that copies could not be shipped to London. When the copies finally arrived, a dock-workers' strike meant they could not be unloaded. And so the publication date slipped and slipped, and I chewed my fingernails. I had other worries, too. The Knopf dust jacket was a livid shade of salmon pink, inaugurating the salmon/Salman problem that would plague me for ever after, and I didn't like it. I didn't much care for the Cape cover either, but when I timidly asked if I could see some alternatives I was told grandly that I could not, because that would delay the publication even further. (Publishers have since become more receptive to my concerns.) It was easy to see the pre-publication gremlins and uncertainties as harbingers of a catastrophe to come.

The catastrophe didn't happen. The things I remember most vividly about that wonderful moment of first success are a small lunch in Bertorelli's restaurant in Charlotte Street at which my editor Liz Calder, the book's early reader Susannah Clapp, a couple of other friends and I celebrated the book's critical reception, and a nervous, superstitious moment, just before I entered the Stationers' Hall for the Booker dinner, when Carmen Callil, then the publisher of Virago, told me I was going to win, which immediately convinced me I would not. Oddly, I remember very little about the UK reviews. The three I have never forgotten were written by Anita Desai in the Washington Post, by Clark Blaise in the New York Times, and by Robert Towers in the New York Review of Books. There was also one memorable bad review. The BBC radio programme Kaleidoscope had devoted a great deal of time to my novel, and given it the works: Indian music to introduce it, a reading, a sympathetic interview with me, and then it was over to their critic . . . who unreservedly hated the book. The programme's presenter, Sheridan Morley, kept asking this critic (whose name I've forgotten) to find some little thing to praise. "But didn't you think . . . Wouldn't you at least agree that . . ." and so on. The critic was implacable. No, no, there was nothing he had liked at all. After the magnificent build-up, this negative intransigence was delightfully, bathetically funny.

Midnight's Children, a book which repeatedly uses images of land reclamation, because Bombay is a city built upon reclaimed land, was itself an act of such reclamation, my attempt to reclaim my Indian origins and heritage from my eyrie in Kentish Town, and by far the best thing that happened to it, and to its author, was its reception in India, where people responded not to the magic but the realism; where Saleem's narrative voice felt to many readers - as it had to its author - like their own; and where the book was so heavily and successfully pirated that the anonymous pirates started sending me greetings cards. "Happy Birthday from the Pirates." "Happy New Year. Best wishes, the Pirates." These, perhaps, were the ultimate compliments.

With the passage of time there have inevitably been some revisionist assessments. Such critics as DJ Taylor in England and Amit Chaudhuri in India have deplored the book's influence - which, according to Taylor, has been "almost entirely malign", while for Chaudhuri my novel embodies "all that was most unserious about India - its loudness, its apparent lack of introspection and irony, its peculiar version of English grammar". I don't much care. I remember the day Saleem's voice first burst out of me, the joy and liberation of that day, and I'm proud of the way that young voice immediately attracted and still attracts a legion of younger readers - and that, I'm happy to say, will do.

Salman Rushdie.



He had interviewed Salman Rushdie in the room the same room where he had written Midnight's Children. It was before the Fatwah and his fame had spiralled out of all control. Serious breaches were breaking through the fabric of things. He had walked with Al Alvarez on Hampstead Heath, he had used his new found status as a freelance journalist to pursue all his literary idols, and had been successful to quite some degree. He met Anthony Burgess, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Heller, all gone now, he interviewed Gore Vidal and hunted down Paul Bowles in Tangiers, he had dinner in Madrid with Ian Gibson, who had just written a biography of the Spanish poet Lorca, and he climbed and he twisted here about, the lonely voice from far off Australia.

The British, of course, treat Australians with something between amusement and contempt, or at least they did in those days, and it was relatively easy to inveigle his way into all sorts of situations. Salman was a special case. In those days, before time and age and numerous life pressures crowded out the days, he would always read the books before interviewing the author. He had particularly loved Midnight's Children, as had millions of other readers, and had read it in Bombay, or Mumbai as it is now known, even chasing down some of the locations in the book, the sprawling, chaotic, wealthy areas of Bombay with its fading glamour and crumbling old temples.

The book had resonated with the chaos of India, and with his friend Martin they had embraced these days of chaos and charm. The house where Rushdie lived at that time, in Kent Town he remembered, was a large hushed house which would have required substantial wealth to have bought, even back then. He was living in squats at the time, and the wealth struck him as much as anything. Rushdie had come from a well off merchant Indian family, and this surprising wealth, here in London, at the centre of things, was impressive to an antipodean. Oh how he had valued that walk with Al Alvarez on Hampstead Heath, as they talked of Sylvia Plath and The Savage God. Oh how it all seemed to point to a glorious literary career, if only he kept writing, if only he kept on moving.

The house was hushed. A maid had opened the door. It soon became apparent that all four floors of the house were the Rushdie family; an astonishing thing to him. A wife appeared briefly, very briefly, before disappearing into the bowels of the house. He was taken up to Rushdie's study. In those days, before his short hand and personal hieroglyphics were anything to write home about, he used a tape recorder, which he set up duly. His own life had been riddled with failure and dereliction, excessive drinking and bohemian friends, and he was quietly overawed, although he tried not to show it, at all that was being shown him, the windows that were opening up, this different world of wealth and influence and success.

Rushdie told him of his first science fiction novel - Grimus - which he utterly related to because his own first novels had been science fiction. And then Rushdie showed him a black and white photograph of the house that features in Midnight's Children, a big, rambling, Indian house where he had grown up. Outside, before he knocked on the door, he had frantically read the last pages of Shame, the book he was ostensibly interviewing him about, a sprawling, black work set in Pakistan, where few of the characters are admirable, the plot confusing and the politics dark. Rushdie seemed impressed that he had actually read the novel.

The interview went well. He spoke disarmingly of the fame that had been thrust upon him with the phenomenal success of Midnight's Children. He showed him the desk where he had written it; and asked, if you had written a book like that, just sitting here, not really talking to anybody, without any orthodox plot, with multiple voices inside it, the voices of India, sitting here, could you have possible imagined it would be a success? No, he answered, as if they were equals, as if he, too, would ultimately go on to have a famed career, for the beauty of the young is there is always hope, the disasters, the failures, the bites of reality, none of it has set in yet.

Afterwards, Rushdie had seen him graciously to the door, all the charm and magnificent courtesy of the wealthy Indian, all the vast diversity of their wealth and the complex, accepted wisdoms of their culture, and he walked back down the road into his own contrasting life in that overwhelming city. And he always followed, after that intimate hour with one of the world's greatest authors, his career with interest, the extravagances of Satanic Verses, the fatwah, the security, the changed wives, his increasing status into the literary stratosphere. While he went back to Australia and all his own books failed, and ultimately he became a journalist. The public relations person for Jonathan Cape told him Rushdie had told her it was the best interview he had ever done. That was a source of pride in a disintegrating life, as chaos after chaos proceeded to mount upon him.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/07/hurricanegustav.mediabusiness

Two big polls in America and Britain this summer told the same story - 45 per cent of Americans asked what caused global warming said 'natural causes' or 'case unproven'. In the UK, 60 per cent of respondents told Ipsos-Mori that scientists weren't sure what triggered climate change - and 40 per cent thought it might not be as bad as painted anyway. In short, you can have 2,500 scientists all signed up to the same grim hymn sheet - but still not commanding belief.

Who do you blame for that? Mediamen blame the media, naturally enough. George Monbiot of the Guardian finds Channel Four at the root of all evil, and affronted scientists join him in that charge. Yet the spectacle of Gus running out of gas raises a somewhat different hypothesis.

The entire weight of the White House, its scientific advisers and its climate service warned of impending tragedy. Every TV weather forecast had its red ball of destruction rolling in. A million souls rolled out of town. And yet, in essence, very little transpired.

'Gustav does its worst but New Orleans survives,' said an almost reproachful Guardian headline. Gustav's worst was simply not bad enough... And, in turn, that raises an awkward emotional hiatus. The god of science, speaking via assorted oracles, thinks it knows what cities will be under water by 2050, which lands will be burnt and arid by 3000 - but it can't tell us, here and now, where a hurricane will hit in five hours' time, or with what velocity. And the contrast opens wide. 'Phew!' - the blinking Bun is mopping its brow. Take your tablets of doom with a pinch of salt. Scientific prophesy, as my dad used to say, can be 'all wind and water'.

Now, I don't doubt the threat or reality of climate change. It's ominous that such a threat isn't widely believed - and widely thought to be exaggerated. But have we - the scientists, the politicians, the hacks - got our tone of voice right? Every step we take is complex, and pretty uncertain. (A press seminar I was at recently saw one distinguished green belabouring another for daring to link hurricane frequency to global warming.) Tracking Gustav's last offshore hours isn't like measuring polar ice caps, to be sure. Moving butts in a bind isn't like mapping rainforests.

But credibility is common to both, and crucial. It counts when the likes of Hanna and Ike threaten devastation - and when they don't. So it's time to ask, more deeply, why the public's scepticism about climate change is growing, not fading. And every assertion we make has to be argued in detail stripped of hysteria, not wrapped in the mother of all hyperbole.

Advancing Hysteria by Editing Skeptical Views of Global Warming
Photo of Noel Sheppard.
By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
August 18, 2008 - 12:32 ET

Remember back in November when Nobel Laureate Al Gore actually told NBC's Meredith Vieira that trying to cover global warming from a fair and balanced perspective was wrong, and only climate alarmists should be given any attention in pieces concerning this controversial subject?

Well, a Stanford social psychologist has recently done a study of how people's opinions about global warming change if skeptical views are edited out of news stories, and the results, though not surprising, should scare the heck out of free thinkers around the country.

As reported by USA Today on August 13 (h/t NBer nofate, emphasis added):
Story Continues Below Ad ↓

Armed with new research into what makes some people environmentally conscious and others less so, the 148,000-member American Psychological Association is stepping up efforts to foster a broader sense of eco-sensitivity that the group believes will translate into more public action to protect the planet.

"We know how to change behavior and attitudes. That is what we do," says Yale University psychologist Alan Kazdin, association president. "We know what messages will work and what will not."

During a four-day meeting that begins today in Boston, an expected 16,000 attendees will hear presentations, including studies that explore how people experience the environment, their attitudes about climate change and what social barriers prevent conservation of resources. [...]

News stories that provided a balanced view of climate change reduced people's beliefs that humans are at fault and also reduced the number of people who thought climate change would be bad, according to research by Stanford social psychologist Jon Krosnick. [...]

By editing CNN and PBS news stories so that some saw a skeptic included in the report, others saw a story in which the skeptic was edited out and another group saw no video, Krosnick found that adding 45 seconds of a skeptic to one news story caused 11% of Americans to shift their opinions about the scientific consensus. Rather than 58% believing a perceived scientific agreement, inclusion of the skeptic caused the perceived amount of agreement to drop to 47%.

American Psychological Association leaders say they want to launch a national initiative specifically targeting behavior changes, including developing media messages that will help people reduce their carbon footprint and pay more attention to ways they can conserve. They want to work with other organizations and enlist congressional support to help fund the effort.

Wow. So, the APA wants to work with media to brainwash citizens, and it's going to ask Congress to fund their efforts.

No Global Warming Since 1998 As Planet Cools Off
UN scientists admit that natural weather occurrences more powerful than CO2 emissions


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet

Top UN scientists have been forced to admit that natural weather occurrences are having a far greater effect on climate change than CO2 emissions as a continued cooling trend means there has been no global warming since 1998.

But despite overwhelming signs of global cooling - China's coldest winter for 100 years and record snow levels across Northeast America - allied with temperature records showing a decline - global warming advocates still cling to the notion that the world is cooling because of global warming!

"Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said," reports the BBC.

"The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer."

"This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory."

The report admits that La Nina and its counterpart, El Nino, are "two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world."

Wait a minute.

According to man-made global warming advocates, CO2 emissions are the main driver of climate change and natural weather patterns caused by sun activity and other native contributors play second fiddle.

But here we have UN climate scientists admitting that natural climate change contributors have eclipsed the effect of CO2 emissions for the past 10 years, even as carbon belchers like China and India have increased CO2 output at record levels!

Global temperatures have remained reasonably flat since a decline in 1998 and cooling trends are now being observed despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels have increased in the atmosphere.

Following the accelerated industrialization period of 1940-1970, when carbon emissions reached a crescendo, global temperatures plummeted, prompting an international fearmongering campaign about the deadly consequences of global cooling.

So-called experts were lavished with media platforms to tell us that all animal life in the sea would be extinct by 1979 and England would be underwater by the year 2000, amidst a myriad of other outlandish proclamations.

As the graph above shows, an expected downturn in global temperatures over the next 15 years will force climate change alarmists to become even more feverish.

Al Gore's army are going to have to get more creative and blame any weather event whatsoever, be it hurricanes, tsunamis, or floods that have battered the planet for eons, and yes even global cooling, on their favorite justification to tax, regulate and control every aspect of our life - global warming.
http://www.easttexasreview.com/story.htm?StoryID=5726

Texans do not fall for green schemes
by Peggy Venable / Contributing Writer

Traveling to West Texas recently, I marveled at the wind farms that appear to have sprung up between Sterling City and San Angelo. It is a sign of the times.

Many states are clamoring to be green, and though Texas has programs in place to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, it has refused to jump on the global warming regulatory bandwagon.

It appears that whatever Texas is doing, we are doing it right.

While a number of states have created climate change commissions with action plans relying on regulations, mandates and taxes, Texas has considered, and rejected, the need to regulate greenhouse gases, instead embracing a free-market approach.

Global warming schemes increase energy costs. Affordable and plentiful energy is the cornerstone of a good economy. And Texans are enjoying a relatively good economy.

If Texas were a separate nation, it would have the 10th largest economy in the world. It has consistently been ranked one of the best states in the nation for doing business.

While many states are facing budget shortfalls, Texas is experiencing another huge budget surplus.

Yep, Texas is doing something right.

As the Legislature convenes in January 2009, Texas will likely have a budget surplus of over $14 million. This is at a time when 29 states face budget shortfalls totaling $48 billion in 2009.

The state facing the most critical shortfall is California with a whopping $22.2 billion deficit, over 21 percent of the current budget. California also has aggressively embraced global warming policies, which can be a major drag on economic growth.

Texans aren’t eager for their state to be like California – or to be the green policy laboratory for what have proven to be very costly taxes, regulations and freedom-limiting policies.

Most experts believe that the United States can’t do anything that would make a noticeable difference to global average temperatures because of rapidly growing emissions in the developing world. If the whole country can’t make a difference, individual state policies create a lot of economic pain for truly zero environmental gain.

Despite this obvious flaw, environmentalists have been successful at encouraging some states to do what they have been unable to get the national or international community to fully embrace. Implementing climate change schemes incrementally may be part of the radical environmentalists’ game plan for taking control of our lives; but if so, Texas isn’t suiting up.

Texas has some unique challenges. We provide 60 percent of the nation’s petrochemicals and about 30 percent of its gasoline and diesel fuel.

We have our own power grid, and produce 10 percent of the electricity generated in the country.

Around 70 percent of our electric capacity comes from natural gas-fired generation, and although natural gas prices have gone up 252 percent since the end of 2001, electricity prices have risen about 27 percent.

The Governor’s Competitiveness Council recently reported that Texas’ deregulated power market has helped shield consumers from some volatility in natural gas prices. But our growing population and economy require more energy, which means more coal, nuclear generation, natural gas, and wind power.

Gov. Rick Perry has flung down the gauntlet. Texas will lead the nation in becoming more energy independent. But we will solve this problem the Texas way, which precludes spending money on global warming schemes and dictating citizens’ behavior.

Railroad Commission Chairman Michael Williams contends that Texans will not settle for the proposition that a healthy environment has to come at the expense of a healthy economy. He, too, has worked to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit to address both challenges.

Texans believe in incentives, not penalties, to fuel efficiency. But Texans need more information.

Americans for Prosperity launched a hot air education tour, and has traveled to 20 states and 32 cities across the country including Houston and Dallas. The 70-foot tall hot air balloon reading “Global Warming Alarmism: Lost Jobs, Higher Taxes, Less Freedom.”

According to Phil Kerpen, AFP policy director, the numerous energy taxes and regulatory schemes being proposed internationally, federally, and locally in the name of fighting global warming are the most immediate threat to freedom and prosperity. The costs associated with some of these proposals — both in dollars and lost liberty — are staggering.

The Lieberman-Warner federal legislation proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would directly hit Texans’ pocketbooks. Approximately 100,000 jobs would be lost by 2020, disposable household income would drop as much as $3,384; and gasoline prices would increase between 76 percent to 147 percent, with electricity and natural gas prices increasing as much as 145 percent, according to a study by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation. Low- income families would be hit hardest.

And while climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured some states into environmental political correctness, Texas has just said “no”.

Spending money on global warming schemes and dictating citizens’ behavior is not the Texas way.




Outside Wilcannia, far western NSW, Australia.