Imaginary Homelands Class Questions
Imaginary
Homelands
By: Salman Rushdie
11/20/2019
Thomas DiMarco
Salman Rushdie
·
Born June 19, 1947
·
Critically Acclaimed British-Indian Novelist
o
Responsible for writing Midnight’s Children
in 1981, winner of the Booker Prize
o
Combined elements of magical realism with
historical fiction
o
Deals with the connections and disruptions that
arise from the migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations
·
In 1983 (the publishing year of this essay),
Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and later knighted
by Queen Elizabeth II in June, 2007
·
In 1988, he wrote The Satanic Verses,
which had to deal with Muhammad and the creation of the Quran
o
Sparked major controversy, receiving many death
threats, even having a fatwa declared against him by Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran
o
Fatwa = nonbinding legal opinion on a
point of Islamic law
Imaginary Homelands
1)
To set up his authority in writing about
migrations between Eastern and Western culture, Rushdie argues that his
distance from India grants him a unique perspective in this issue. Further from
this, being so disconnected from the every-day of life in India grants him a
more concrete and accurate perspective. Do you agree with this idea? Is there
a more or less accurate way of looking at these issues of migration and
cross-cultural identity?
2)
What is the purpose of literature according
to Rushdie? To describe things? To counteract against political propaganda?
To mold and centralize public perceptions?
3)
Rushdie states that “literature is self-validating,”
meaning that truth is truth, regardless of who speaks it. How do you determine
“truth” when so many descriptions of reality are incompatible with each other?
Or, at least, how does Rushdie propose to do this?
4)
Do you think that in the death threats and
world-wide response to his later works, Rushdie is made more legitimate in his
authority regarding his opinions on integration and inter-nationality because he
is less separated from who he is writing about? Do you think being so far disconnected
from what he was writing about hurts his viewpoints?
5)
Why is the West described as “post-lapsarian?” What
implications does this have for his opinions on India?
6)
Do you think that Rushdie was correct in saying
that this post-colonial, mixed-heritage writing style will grow and become its
own official genre? Do you think that this has happened? What does this mean
for the current discourse on this very topic?
7)
How does Rushdie differ in his separation from
his original homeland from that of other characters in the stories we read earlier?
8)
Why do you think Rushdie refers to Mumbai as “Bombay?”
Is this telling of his stance on his identity at this current point of time?
9)
Rushdie writes on the essentiality of “double perspective,”
that all people are in some way deeply affected by another’s culture. And this “stereoscopic
vision” should be offered in place of “whole sight.” How does this affect our
understanding of American culture (as expansive and diverse as that might be)? Is
it possible to truly justify “Americanness” when one of its core features is its
diversity and its constantly changing nature? Or, more directly, how would
you describe American culture and how can you justify both that and someone
else’s description?
Part 3
The writings of Salman Rushdie
remind me very much of the novel, 1984, by George Orwell. This is for
its reliance on “double vision,” failed memory, and using literature to change
public opinions of what truth is. Now, Rushdie does not make these points for
the same reasons of malcontented control that a tyrannical superpower does. His
reasoning is to expand our perspectives, so that we have humility and the
ability to see beyond our own experiences.
Yet, this comes as a surprise to me
after coming from a religiously-based background. Truth is truth, it is fixed,
regardless of what I actually think, logically, as my logic is nowhere near the
legitimacy of God’s will. A common saying I always heard from the authorities
when I was just a kid and even going through high school is, “you can’t pick
and choose what you believe.” Back when I heard it, I would always get angry or
turn off and stop listening to whoever spoke. At the same time as this, I was getting
educated at good schools and always told to look more deeply into what I was
reading, because too easily I would be dissuaded and take falsehood for truth.
In my opinion, this kind of background was incompatible. Faith was the only
thing that could not be regarded as untrue. It could be questioned, but only so
I had a deeper understanding of what I believed, not to end up rejecting it
entirely.
This is the way this book was
taught to me, through a religious background, deeply affecting my understanding
of it. Yet that infuriating saying resonates with me in a different way now. As
opposed to looking at that line as a means to control me, I now look at it as a
showing of humility. Regardless of my limited experiences and perspective,
there are things out there that I do not understand. All we can do is piece
together fragments of reality and truths of other people and work together to
create a narrative that is true, and ideally, create something more than just a
narrative, as those have the problem of leaving out fact to create a more
linear story. A quote from C.S. Lewis in the book, Mere Christianity,
states, “For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the
organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is
not the cause of truth, but its condition.” Joseph Campbell argues along this
same vein, that myths, metaphors, stories, and tales lead public discourse.
These things give us meaning. We need to piece together as much prove-able
reality as we can, as if it is concrete. However, even if the world is concreted
over, a crack will form. That crack is our imagination at work, used to fill in
the inconsistencies and unknowns with something that feels real and is largely
accepted as such. To do this for the purpose of unity, in a method that does
not discriminate, is where imagination and literature enter.
I liked this essay because, as much
as I wanted, no straight answer was given, only facts and ideas that may more
may not be. It is up to the reader to figure it out. Yet, unlike so much of
what was read earlier, hope is presented throughout. What Rushdie hoped for 40
years ago has occurred and is occurring currently. Of course setbacks occur,
but public discourse is including more and more diversity in all ideas. Hate and
fear flourish, but so too do their opposites. What it takes, now, is to push past
that fear, as an individual, as follow as correct a course as you can. Through
your example or your actions, small changes towards larger public knowledge can
occur. The individual is flawed, memory is cracked and definitions are not
fully defined. From what Rushdie states, it takes lots of individuals from all
walks of life to create a fair narrative, one that includes as many truths as
it can and one that can smooth over inconsistencies. I know this is vague, but perspectives
will always vary, always be different, and often contradict with another. It
takes reason and imagination to do our best to do away with the negative
consequences. And it takes a whole lot of reason and imagination to do this
very same thing on a cultural scale.
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