Timothy Brennan’s book primarily revolves around a detailed
exploration of Rushdie's four novels: Grimus, Midnight's Children, Shame, and
The Satanic Verses. This examination is guided by the initial two chapters,
which establish crucial contexts for understanding Rushdie's work. These
contexts include the role of fiction in contemporary nationalism, and
conversely, how nationalism influences fiction. Additionally, the relationship
between Third-World literary cosmopolitanism and anti-colonial liberalism is
explored. This approach allows the book to simultaneously position Rushdie as
both a unique individual and a representative figure. It enables the book to
establish and question the role of internationally renowned Third-World writers
in shaping post-colonial discourse.
While some categorization strategies may lean towards being
overly prescriptive, such as the provision of a two-columned checklist of
differences between "postmodernists" and "Third-World
cosmopolitans," overall, this analysis presents an original and engaging
exploration of a complex subject.
Throughout his argument, Brennan indirectly suggests why the
Rushdie affair captured the attention of both liberal and less liberal Western
minds. The "Third-World cosmopolitan" writers, with whom Brennan
associates Rushdie, are characterized by their constant evasion of fixed
national and ideological identities, which has become a defining characteristic
of humane cosmopolitan writers from the Third World. One obvious result of this
evasion is the translation of "authorial ambiguity" into a dualistic
moral framework where every group is assigned both a positive and negative
expression. Brennan identifies this radical relativity as a governing principle
of duality in much of Rushdie's work.
This mode of translation inevitably leads to an ambiguous
relationship with authority and tradition, and only a slightly more stable
connection with an immigrant culture that lacks the former and strives to
establish the latter. Twentieth-century English liberalism has often appeared,
at one extreme, as nothing more than the refined high-mindedness portrayed by
Forster (material that Rushdie criticizes as ripe for cinematic "Raj
revisionism"), or at the other extreme, a form of Orwellian slumming. Brennan's
portrayal of Rushdie, despite his outrage in the face of Thatcher's England or
the Ayatollah's Iran, suggests that he cannot entirely avoid the pitfalls faced
by well-intentioned political efforts due to his gender and class.
If there is a concern about "the way Rushdie often
depicts women" (126), Brennan seems to find this issue ultimately less
troublesome than the disconnect between Rushdie's refined upbringing, shaped by
public school and Cambridge, and the experiences of "the people," particularly
those striving to find their voice within Britain's diverse black cultures. The
former cultivates detachment, while the latter demands engagement. This issue
is most directly addressed in the discussion of The Satanic Verses. Despite the
distortions in media coverage, Brennan argues that the novel primarily centers
on a very secular England (147). The offense taken by "ordinary
lower-class Muslims in India and Pakistan—along with those in the English
cities of Bradford, Birmingham, and London" indicates, for Brennan,
"the class resentments simmering beneath the surface of an affair that has
often been viewed solely through religious lenses" (145).
Brennan's own allegiances, as outlined in his earlier
analysis of decolonization, which positions Third-World cosmopolitanism in
contrast to the work of pragmatic theorists like Antonio Gramsci, José Carlos
Mariátegui, Amílcar Cabrai, and Frantz Fanon, become more apparent towards the
end of the final chapter. Here, Brennan adopts a Fielding-to-Rushdie dynamic,
critiquing the detached and insensitive nature of cosmopolitan 'universality.'
While Rushdie contends that "bigotry is not only a function of
power," Brennan suggests that in the specific immigration and
acculturation complexities of contemporary Britain, the central issue may not
be solely one of 'human evil'. The means of perpetuating this evil are
evidently highly unequal, and the violence stemming from defending one's
identity or livelihood as opposed to one's privileges is not equivalent (165).
If this is indeed a truth, it's a perspective Salman Rushdie
has likely been in a uniquely uncomfortable position to acknowledge, at least
since February 14, 1989, compared to Timothy Brennan. Behind the occasional
surface-level identification with the oppressed lies a serious and nuanced
examination not only of Rushdie himself, but also of the paradoxes experienced
by Third-World intellectuals. These intellectuals may not be the most equipped
agents to address the problem of our collective struggle to recognize the colonial
perspective as one that truly matters (166).
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