Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:32:40 -0400 From: jjsamuel-AT-aei.ca (julian samuel) Subject: Re: Salman Rushdie in the Age of Reason (fwd) Dear Radhika: Thanks responding. What does Spivak say? Can you understand what she says? If the answer is YES -- then are you sure? I did interview her for the second part of my documentary, Into the European Mirror (1994) -- I had difficulty with what the ACTUAL content of what she was saying. I am not sure there was any content: maybe just form? Air? Literary Quantum Mechanics? I could find you some choice passages in her work in which she says NOTHING yet there is ink on the page. I HEARD (excactly that -- heard) a lecture she did at McGill -- a total fog job -- cf. Lukas who writes cloudly but HAS a substantive point to make-- and ofcourse he influenced the KGB etc. I very much like Screwy Louis Althusser also. Sorry he killed his wife.Your thinking that I am a Stalinst? I am not. However, I find SPIVAK totally helpful and generous in many other ways. I think Aijaz Ahmed is first rate. He goes against the grain -- listen to all the squeeky pathetic anti-intellectuals on may of these postcolonial lists. Of course at times he writes rather uglily -- but he does say very nice contestory things. Things that the bores don't know how to say. Also, he is somewhat less preliterate than most postcolonials. He over-writes because he has to compensate for being South Asian? Just a thought. Rushdie is empire trash. Julian > >On Wed, 19 Jun 1996, Radhika Gajjala wrote: > >> >> >> >> Dear Timothy: >> >> I greatly appreciate your review of my Rushdie in the Age of Reason. Thank you. >> >> However, I worry that you have not understood it geopolitically -- I mean >> in the deepest way possible ... >> this out)...this makes it easy for you to be ever-so-slightly harsh with me >> -- I understand this to be not really your fault. Rushdie is very very sleazy. >This is where I get really interested... 'cos your review of Rushdie had >something of the tone of Aijaz Ahmad's In Theory.... a book which despite >its many well-discussed shaortcomings (not least why is Spivak >necessarily spared from his argument??? ie. b/c she demolishes it..) I >have a great deal of sympathy with.. >Yes there is something really repugnant and disturbing about the neatness >with which Rushdie and his personal defences have lined up tightly with >ruling white hegemonies (if you'll all pardon this absurdly reductionist >shorthand of mine)..... against, not least, the "irrational, pre-liberal, >less-than elite 'Muslims' of Bradford.. not to mention Tehran!"... >And class and elite identifications DO have something to do with it... >despite all this I admire Rushdie's work... and see so many limitations... >So Radhika mere pas ek saval hai:.. "where" is your critique launchng >from geo/socio/culturo/politically.... I'm assuming a Delhi Marxist rave >(this is not an epithet)... and does this posture necessitate vehemence.. >a passion lost on many of us white boyz... esp. in the cosy bosom of >mother America...... >> I said I did not hold his class-background against him: it is something that >> ought to be considered. >> >> You may want to review the works of Amin Maalouf: >> >> Les croisades vues par les arabes >This one at least is available in English as (surprise!) The Crusades >Through Arab Eyes >> Samarcande >> Leon L'Africain >> and Tahar Ben Jelloun's Les amandiers sont morts de leur blessures >> > > > --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > Julian J. Samuel 360 Terrasse Saint Denis Montreal H2X 1E8 Canada Phone: 514 284 0431 email: jjsamuel-AT-aei.ca --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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