Elvis never finished it...

Back in 1988, author Salman Rushdie published his book The Satanic Verses. It caused quite an uproar in the radical Islamic world, and Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s assassination. I think, if I remember correctly, there was a million dollar bounty on his head. Needless to say, he was forced to go into hiding. I was in high school at the time, and I’d never heard of Salman Rushdie, and I didn’t know a thing about his book – but the news of this writer’s retreat to a secret location was big conversation. One afternoon, Eric came home from school and said they’d been discussing Rushdie in class that day, and when his mysterious hidden location was mentioned, someone said, “oh, you know that somewhere out there Rushdie, Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa and Hitler are all sitting around playing cards.”

Well, I thought that was rather amusing. It WOULD be funny if those four guys were all hanging out together somewhere, I thought. So one day when I was particularly bored, and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” was the only movie on TV, I sat down and wrote a story. It was the story of how Salman Rushdie hesitantly trudged through feet of snow to make his way to the Cabin in the Middle of Nowhere, in search of sanctuary. (I used that word in the story because I’d just heard it emanating from my television set – “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” said the hunchback…) When he reaches the cabin, Rushdie is met by Elvis (a dim-witted optimist who wants to be everyone’s friend), Jimmy Hoffa (a paranoid sissy who likes to huddle near the fireplace), and Hitler (the insult-spewing pessimist of the group, of course). He passes out copies of his book and tells everyone to enjoy it – Elvis doesn’t understand a word of it, Jimmy Hoffa throws his copy on the fire, and Hitler tosses the book across the room, after accusing Rushdie of not being a member of the master race (but Rushdie insists that he’s “really a blond at heart”). And then Rushdie settles into an armchair and begins writing his next masterpiece…

My silly little story was so well-received by my family (my mom used to carry around a copy with her… maybe she still does, who knows…) that I started writing “cabin” stories every so often, to keep up with the progression of whatever was happening in my fictional hideout. I wrote a story where Noriega hid out with the group for a short time, and another during the Gulf War where Saddam Hussein tried to gain admittance – Hitler threw him out, because he said there was only room for one dictator in the cabin. I wrote a story to explain all the “Elvis sightings” in the tabloids (he does all the grocery shopping, so he’s the only one who ever leaves…), and a story where Bill Clinton dropped by because “Hilary kicked me out again…” Eventually, I decided that no one would actually WANT to be holed up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with Hitler, so I brought in Amelia Earhart, and Hitler was so incensed over the fact that a woman was allowed to stay that he walked out and disappeared forever into the snow drifts.

And eventually, after years of writing these stories, the death threats against Rushdie stopped, and he began appearing in public again. So the original inspiration for my stories had to be written out, leaving a distraught Elvis and Amelia Earhart – and a less distraught and more indifferent Jimmy Hoffa – behind. But even after all these stories, I had still never read one page of The Satanic Verses. I’d never looked into what all the fuss was about, or why Rushdie was forced to write subsequent books under the watchful eyes of fellow hermits. I never knew if it was a book that Elvis would really understand, or if, as I suspected, the whole thing might’ve been too complicated for him. I didn’t even know the general outline of the story. And so, my curiosity finally getting the better of me, I decided I should just BUY the book and read it for myself. So that's what I did... I started reading a couple days ago...

I’m only on page 87, but what surprises me about this book so far is how FUNNY it is. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting so much humor in a book that caused such an uproar. In fact, I’d have to say that so far, I’m quite enjoying it. Rushdie is an amazing writer – he’s reminding me a bit of James Joyce, who writes in such a way that the reader is carried along by the words… almost like reading the book is an actual journey in itself – a rollercoaster ride, or a bullet train, or a drive in a sports car. The only thing slowing me down with The Satanic Verses is Rushdie’s habit of peppering his prose with Hindi and Urdu and Arabic words, tossed in as if I’m just supposed to automatically understand them. It wasn’t bothering me too much at first, and I sort of tried to just skim over “ayah” and “bhai” and “yaar” and hoped they weren’t too terribly important. But as soon as I got to “ekdumjaldi,” I was like, “that’s IT – I have to figure out what this stuff means.” Fortunately, I found an interesting website that goes through the book page by page and not only translates any unfamiliar words, but also explains some of the imagery and metaphors.

So far I haven’t read anything that would seem to justify an assassination attempt on the author, but like I said, I’m only 87 pages into the story. I have a feeling, though, that no matter what is written in the rest of the book, it’s not going to be anything that should warrant homicidal thoughts in Rushdie’s direction. But who knows – without Salman Rushdie, there may have never been a Cabin in the Middle of Nowhere…