Salman Rushdie has been publishing novels for 40+ years and now and in addition to that has published two collections of essays and nonfiction. This is one that cover ground from 1992-2002.

There’s a few different kinds of writings in this piece. There’s analysis of writing and politics, and I think this is Rushdie at his very best. He’s a good reader, and he’s good at making his reading clear and focused. So when he analyzes both what is true and interpretive about a novel, but also what is fascinating and interesting about a novel, he’s good at it. He’s also good at doing this with politics. I am at an extreme disadvantage with his piece because I do not have a command of almost any of the Indian facts of these politics. So I have to trust him, and he’s at least apparently trustworthy. When it comes to the literary engagement, I also think he’s trustworthy, but I am more in my wheelhouse here.

The essays are less good when he falls into sentimentality, something that would add charm to his discussion of The Wizard of Oz, but there’s a paltry kind of analysis going on in this first essay that the balance is out of whack, or nonexistent.

The best essay in the whole collection, by far, is the title essay, which is about boundaries and borders (and walls) in an especially otherwise boundaryless state of the world. He’s right to understand that something significant has changed with Sept 11 and reads this significance through the literature of borders. And it’s really fascinating and I think mostly right thinking.

A wonderful collection of essays. Of course I have not finished everything, but this is not a kind of book to finish in one reading anyway.

I really enjoyed this, because Rushdie's writing is so fluid and witty and easy to read, and because he touches on so many different subjects in this book. This is all essays and columns and stuff, and he really runs the gamut, there's a great piece that's his analysis of "The Wizard of Oz", from an adult standpoint but fully admitting that it was the first movie to ever really make a big impression on him so he's a big fan. It's intellectual and not, which makes it fun; he gets into the geometric shapes in the Kansas scenes, a discussion of how the rule of the witch of the east couldn't be all bad as the munchkins seem to be doing pretty well, much better than, say, the flying monkeys, and he also talks about how much he hates Toto. And other essays in the book deal with his picks for the best british writers of the early 90s (gives some good ideas for other authors to read), his return to India after many years of exile when there was a bounty on his head, his love of the Tottenham Spurs soccer team and their history over the last couple decades, being a kinda nerdy guy in 1968 swinging London, and many letters to the editor defending himself during those 'bounty on the head years'. This book is never boring.
I wish the cover didn't make it look so boring. I understand why they picked the picture they did, and the title, because they come from the last essay in the book, which is about the blurring of borders and how we are a world of migrants and we need to fight the terrorists with our freedoms and modernity and whatnot. But I feel like a lot more people would buy this book if they spiced up the cover a little. The photo is grainy and black and white and looks like some anonymous war zone, the title is war zone like too. And the quote on the front is awful "This book is full of so much that is 'relevant' that the very word seems inadequate" - Los Angeles Times. Well, the newspaper is also filled with 'relevant' things. So is Time magazine. Who cares? It makes it sound like the whole book is politics, politics, politics, and it really isn't. They really should have marketed this book in some other way.

I find his non fiction more accessible. Planning to try again with his fiction soon. Provocative and engaging essays.

This is a book to take time over. The many, many essays each deserve attention: so it is foolish to swish through them. Rushdie gives you so much to think about in each essay, that you need to read it, put the book down and then think a bit. SO it's best read one essay at a time, one day at a time.

That's how they were published initially, so that makes sense for the reader too. Unlike a compilation of short stories, Rushdie talks here directly to the reader about political and social issues that are deeply relevant to the 21st century (with the exception of the essay on Oz, which makes a welcome side track). So you must also approach the book with a political / social mind ~ you need to be prepared to take time to work through his arguments in your head.

If you do, you will be richly rewarded, whether you agree with him or not. And mostly, you will find if you do not, that your tenets have been strongly challenged.

The greatest book to give a new graduate.

I'm an absolute fan of Salman Rushdie, and my intention to (eventually) make my way through everything he's written. That was the motivation behind picking up 'Step Across This Line'.

Even though this isn't fiction, you recognize Rushdie's ideas, his comfort with being opinionated and even his imagination fairly quickly. Much like in Joseph Antoine, I often found myself interested in how colourfully he seemed to view an event, for instance, that I saw mostly in greys. That process I enjoyed thoroughly and repeatedly.

What you will not find, however, is continuity. This may be an unfair ask, given the book is a compilation of essays, articles and columns that he wrote for different occasions over a period of time. But as a reader, it annoyed me to suddenly have to shift from a very long, in depth look at a movie, for instance, into a rather fleeting passing remark about his brush with U2.

I would therefore recommend dipping into this book every so often, as you fancy, rather than trying to sit down and get through it in one read. But that said, it's an intelligent, occasionally provocative and you come out liking it, much like its author himself.

An amazing mind.

O livro de ensaios do aclamado autor de Versos Satânicos é uma preciosa coleção de textos que lançam luzes sobre a genialidade de um autor e sua obra.

Os assuntos variam muito entre si e se revelam atuais, quase atemporais, apesar do fato de que alguns dos textos foram escritos muitos anos atrás. Ali se encontram ensaios sobre outros escritores, sobre filmes, livros, enfim: impressões argutas e bem-humoradas do autor sobre diversos temas. Destaque especial é dado para uma seção com textos sobre a sentença de morte que recebeu e suas conseqüências na vida de Rushdie.


Como não poderia deixar de ser, o repertório de idéias do autor – com destaque para o tema da dualidade entre ocidente x oriente, bem x mal – está presente em todos os temas escolhidos e nas opiniões expressadas, criando um conjunto rico e uma amostra da sociedade global e urbana, onde esses opostos se misturam constantemente como em um grande caldeirão.

Chamam atenção, em seu diário de viagem à Índia, as semelhanças com o Brasil. Ambos os países são o lar das desigualdades sociais, campos de maravilhas e horrores.

Fabulous. Best thing I'd read then in a while.

Dla mnie był to wymagający przeciwnik, ale jakoś poszło i satysfakcja jest ;)

His review of Wizard of Oz is brilliant. The rest of this is excellent, too.