Wow, that's some heated and entertaining prose from some of the best.
I understand the fatwa on Rushdie still stands but it certainly didn't seem to have hindered his activities much of late !
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Wow, that's some heated and entertaining prose from some of the best.
I understand the fatwa on Rushdie still stands but it certainly didn't seem to have hindered his activities much of late !
By the way Stavros ,I think you might find some of the history uncovered and discussed here re the movement of peoples from about 300 BCE and the 1800's through this region particularly the Greek remnants of Alexander's troops,Armenian traders and "Thuggee" Indian assassins.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
Rushdie and Le Carré buried their dispute some years later. As for the fatwa, in Islamic law it is an opinion, not an instruction. Khomeini knew this when he provoked such anger, and not just among non-Muslims; I think he did it deliberately, and in part to annoy the Saudis. The fatwa was condemned by the Deobandi Dar ul-Uloom in India, and in 1998 President Khatami declared it 'non-applicable'.
https://indianexpress.com/article/ex...who-is-it-for/
The Satanic Verses is a tedious read, if the main story of the two Indians who fall out of the sky and live as illegal immigrants in London does not interest you -It did not interest me. It is a satre of sorts, perhaps the perfect example of post-modernism taking a sensitive subject and disappearing up its own arse, or emerging in the opposite direction, as it were, stained. The multiple 'reviews' that I read which either sought to defend, or explain the 'Muslim pain' were stunning in their ignorance of the book, cherry picked to highlight the satire on 'Mahound', and many by academics who ought to have known better and whose credentials were undermined as a result.
The oddest thing, is that Anglela Carter gave it a glowing review, yet one of the most offensive things about the book is its depiction of women. Those who are not teenage Muslim girls in the East End with permanently stiff nipples, are either alcoholic, or the saintly mystic who leads her villagers out of a hateful India on their ultimate pilgrimage to Mecca -the one story of Muslim piety that the fliterati ignored to focus on the 'naughty bits'. It was a shameful episode all round, and really not worth the aggro.
Reading ,The New Silk Roads" by Peter Frankopan
About China's 'Belt And Road Initiative' which China is claiming to be a project to promote world wide peace and prosperity and some think is at best just another way for China to project influence and power and at worse a "debt trap' for poor countries as far away as Africa and Brazil.
I'm finding it to be a good read following a slow start.Recommended.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ankopan-review
Also recommend Peter Frankopan's previous book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silk_Roads
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Frankopan
but suggest you read it with a good map of Central Asia handy to get your "Stans" right
Attachment 1290978
Iain Dale [ed] The Prime Ministers (Hodder & Stoughton, 2020).
This book, which i purchased at half-price in Waterstones, is an assembly of essays by diverse hands on every Prime Minister since Sir Horace Walpole, though as one contributor notes, the first officially titled Prime Minister was the Liberal who took office in 1905, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, all previous men officially known as 'First Minister'.
The essays vary in length and quality, the last essay by Dale on Boris Johnson is mercifully short, but underplays the extent to which he schemed and plotted against Theresa May before stabbing her in the back in the summer of 2019. The essay on Margaret Thatcher does not explain how this drab woman with a posh voice and no ideas when a Minister in Edward Heath's government in 1970-1974, became the crusading free market warrior by 1979, largely due to the influence of the original 'Mad Monk', Sir Keith Joseph. More than one Prime Minister is credited with being the most influential, the best, the most radical, or implementing the most radical and long-lasting policies, etc etc, but this does not diminish the enjoyment I have found though I have not read all of the entries, as this book is designed to be dipped into now and then.
One hilarious entry records the views of Viscount Palmerston, who first became a Liberal PM in 1855 and was the man Queen Victoria complained addressed her as if he were addressing a public meeting. His quote on the vexed question of Schleswig-Holstein sums up this most peculiar incident of international relations-
"The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third, and I have forgotten all about it". (p208 )
Robertson Davies,"The Deptford Trilogy" .Wonderfully entertaining and literate story telling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_Davies
Mark Halperin,"Freddy and Frederika"
Witty and laugh out loud funny allegory about a most peculiar British Royal Family.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/01...api_taft_p1_i6
British Burma ,the Shan States ,Thailand, Bangkok ,Laos, Cambodia ,Vietnam, and Hong Kong and China between the Wars! It's all here as told by the masters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Days
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/201...erset-maugham/
Thanks for the article on Somerset Maugham, a writer whose easy going prose has often contained difficult issues, done well, The Painted Veil being an example where Cakes and Ale fails. I suspect for some his depiction of the English/British in the Empire lacks an awareness of 'the other', or the 'Natives' are there for colour, corruption and intrigue. Perhaps his short stories about love, desire and violence in Britain's Asian Empire are his most readable, but it was also interesting to see the claim that he pinched so much from other writers, Conrad I think more so than Forster, though he was never going to write prose as complex as the author of Nostromo, one of the finest books of fiction in English.