Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020

by Salman Rushdie

Newly collected, revised, and expanded nonfiction--including many texts never previously in print--from the first two decades of the twenty-first century by the Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author

Salman Rushdie is celebrated as a storyteller of the highest order, illuminating truths about our society and culture through his gorgeous, often searing prose. Now, in his latest collection of nonfiction, he brings together insightful and inspiring essays, criticism, and speeches that focus on his relationship with the written word and solidify his place as one of the most original thinkers of our time.

Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, Languages of Truth chronicles Rushdie's intellectual engagement with a period of momentous cultural shifts. Immersing the reader in a wide variety of subjects, he delves into the nature of storytelling as a human need, and what emerges is, in myriad ways, a love letter to literature itself. Rushdie explores what the work of authors from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty, and Toni Morrison mean to him, whether on the page or in person. He delves deep into the nature of "truth," revels in the vibrant malleability of language and the creative lines that can join art and life, and looks anew at migration, multiculturalism, and censorship.

Enlivened on every page by Rushdie's signature wit and dazzling voice, Languages of Truth offers the author's most piercingly analytical views yet on the evolution of literature and culture even as he takes us on an exhilarating tour of his own exuberant and fearless imagination.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Writing, Short Stories, Books About Books, Literature, Literary Criticism

368 pages, Hardcover

First published May 25, 2021

About the author

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.
After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. In total, 20 countries banned the book. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. In 2022, Rushdie survived a stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in April 2023.
Rushdie's personal life, including his five marriages and four divorces, has attracted notable media attention and controversies, particularly during his marriage to actress Padma Lakshmi.

Reviews

[leynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Languages of Truth by Salman Rushdie is one of my favorite books of the year, heck, one of my favorite books of all time. It is my first Rushdie, and reading this essay collection made me fall utterly in love with this man. Afterwards, I watched so many of his lectures, speeches, and documentaries. I knew that he was a fascinating figure, and still relevant today, but reading his essays made me see the loving man behind the word, the literature enthusiast, the book nerd, the smartypants, the comedian. I kid you not: I love this guy! He is hilarious, he is oh so very smart, and yet is able to convey his clever thoughts in precise and clear language that most will understand. Reading his book reviews, his musings on literature, film and art, made me utterly obsessed with the works he was discussing. Rushdie has that magic. He's a true artist, and a true critic. Oscar Wilde would be jealous.

In Languages of Truth, he dissects various forms of art: the novels of Tolstoy, Roth, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Vonnegut. But there are also some essays on painters like Amrita Sher-Gil and Bhupen Khakhar, as well as some mentions of directors like Federico Fellini and Danny Boyle. He muses on his friendships with Harold Pinter, Christopher Hitchens and Carrie Fisher. But he also engages with the broader subjects of storytelling and literature in general, of culture, myths, migration, language and censorships. The plethora of subjects that he opens up is wonderful. You will leave the book feeling smarter.

I cannot stress enough how pleasurable this reading experience was. I devoured it. Rushdie's words invigorated me. And even though I have accepted that I'm probably more at home on the reviewing end of the spectrum, Rushdie made me want to go out there and create, tell my own stories.

Rushdie begins the collection with a sentence, "Before there were books, there were stories", and reflects on the art of storytelling and on his individual search for a narrative. A journey that took him beyond the realm of realism in order to create magical universes of alternative realities. I found his approach to storytelling refreshing, in the first essay, "Wonder Tales", he writes: "Write what you don't know. Either leave home and go find a good story somewhere else, or remember that diction is fictional and try to make things up. We are all dreaming creatures."

For Rushdie, it is essential that we use our imagination, and that we realise that fiction is made up. And that that's a good thing. In "Proteus", he elaborates on these thoughts: "The act of reading or viewing is also a creative act, a participation in fiction, clap hands if you believe in fairies, and without it the magic doesn't work, and Tinker Bell dies." Later he says: "I understand the contract of fiction, so I can agree to suspend disbelief in what I know is not to be believed in the hope of finding, by doing so, some truth on which I can rely, in which I can have faith." And I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. As a reader, it is so important to uphold that contract. Without us, there would be no stories. The magic wouldn't work. But it is in that magic that is fiction that we can learn, find the truths about ourselves and our lives. That's at least how I feel about fictional stories. These are the stories that teach me the most, that make feel seen and unseen, that make me reflect.

In "Another Writer's Beginnings", he talks of his upbringing and the importance of stories for him as a child. His father told him various stories and thereby taught him his two most important life lessons: "First, that stories were not true, but by being untrue they could make him feel and know truths that the truth could not tell him, and second, that they all belonged to him." How powerful is that! Let these messages sink in, appropriate them for your own lives and reading journeys. They are the key to understanding literature.

Rushdie is also very firm in his believe that the art should be separated from its artist. "Nowadays," he claims, "there is a prevalent assumption that all novels are really autobiographies in disguise." He partly blames Dickens for this, because it was Dickens who popularised the "cult of the writer" and made people interested in the person behind the words. Rushdie argues that "a life lived in language is quite other than a life spent breathing air", and thus "The magic of the character lies not in its point of origin but in the precise language in which it is captured." And I have to say I agree with him: I think art can be seen and enjoyed seperate from its artist. I think nowadays the conversation is less about the art itself (whether it's good or bad) but more about if you want to support a person (an artist) with whose morals you align. It has nothing to do with literary critic, it's more about not wanting to put money into the pockets of people you deem offensive/problematic/hurtful.

And whilst I loved Rushdie's more broader/general essays, I also marvelled at the ones in which he dissected one artist's work. I was pleasantly surprised that I was familiar with some of the artists' works that Rushdie was discussing. One of my absolute favorite essays, "Gabo and I", engages with the work of Gabriel García Márquez. And where I always have trouble explaining Gabo's magic to people, especially those who read his books and didn't enjoy them, Rushdie finds the right words: "And the singularity of García Márquez lies, I believe, in the precise note he strikes, a note somewhere on the scale between sweetness and bitterness, between gentle acceptance of one's fate and an anger about it; "the wrath of his imagination" from which note proceeds the music of solitude, of human beings locked, alone, in destinies they cannot escape, moving toward deaths foretold." He also explains the difference between fantasy and magical realism exceptionally well: "In Macondo, imagination is used to enrich reality, not to escape from it; the wonderful has deep roots in the real and for that reason is able to use the surreal to create metaphors and images of the real that come to feel more real than reality, more truthful than the truth." The important part of "magical realism" is not the first word, but the second: "realism". Writers of that literary tradition are revealing truths.

There were also many moments in which I literally yelled "RUSHDIE GETS IT. In "Adaptation", he writes: "The Harry Potter films, determined to remain utterly faithful to the books, suffer cinematically from that loyalty, apart, perhaps, from Alfonso Cuarón's Prisoner of Azkaban." Yes, yes, yes. The movies, especially 5-8, are almost unwatchable, Cuarón is the only one who created a worthwhile film. In "Hans Christian Andersen", he gives Hector the flowers he deserves: "Heroes are flawed, and their adversaries not necessarily villainous but possessed of heroic virtues as well. Homer knew this too. Hector, the Trojan who falls in single combat to the Greek Achilles, is the lesser warrior but in many ways the better man." I would go so far as to say that he is the BEST MAN. But then again, I'm a Hector stan. ;)

In the second half of the collection, Rushdie steers away from the more open discussions on literature and art, and connects them more to politics and what's happening in the world. These essays were powerful, and Rushdie, more often than not, hit the nail in the head. In "Courage", he writes: "Liberty is the air we breathe, and we live in a part of the world where, imperfect as the supply is, it is, nevertheless, freely available, at least to those of us who aren’t black youngsters wearing hoodies in Miami, and broadly breathable, unless, of course, we’re women in red states trying to make free choices about our own bodies. Imperfectly free, imperfectly breathable, but when it is breathable and free we don’t need to make a song and dance about it. We take it for granted and get on with our day. And at night, as we fall asleep, we assume we will be free tomorrow, because we were free today." Yes, yes, yes!

There are a thousand more quotes I could share with you, but I think I'll leave you with the last quote of the book, from the essay in which he answers Vanity Fair's "Prout Questionnaire": "How would you prefer to die? I would prefer not to. " Amen to that. May we be blessed with many more Rushdie years, many more of his insights, and much more of his brilliance.

I got away from Languages of Truth as a smarter, much happier girl. And maybe a better person than I was before. I now also have a list of 20 authors/books/art works that I desperately need to check out (because Rushdie told me to, and so, of course, I will oblige), so I will be busy for the next couple of years. Naturally, I also ordered his two former essay collections, Imaginary Homelands and Step Across This Line. Can't wait to be further illuminated by big daddy Rushdie!

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be my favorite book this year.

So much to address here, so much richness on full display on a number of subjects and of course, literature being the most prominent as that is the what most people think of when they think of Sir Rushdie. Along with the publication of George Saunders's A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, several of the entries included in this anthology present a master class in the understanding and exploration of the finer points of literature, as Rushdie has included lectures from his teachings at Emory University. But it is his lifelong love of beauty and appreciation of art and artists that add additional shades to this collection. Then again, there are musings on authors who have meant so much to him, presented with wit and humanity. The fact that he has counted many friends among his subjects gives these an immediacy. There are pieces he wrote as introductions to exhibition catalogues, addresses presented to the PEN Gala, and pieces honoring great dear friends as only he can. Given the two novels he has published during years when America threatened to devolve into tRumpistan, I was not surprised at the NY Times article Truth in which he succinctly and eloquently provides the strongest argument against the perceived danger to art and artists presented by the "cabinet of billionaires."

Altogether, this collection form a portrait of a man of exceedingly acute perception and humanity.

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible gift! This is most likely my favorite book that I have read in 2022! Salmon Rushdie narrates his audiobook, Languages of Truth. The book comprises almost three decades (2003 - 2020) of nonfiction essays, speeches and criticisms.

His knowledge and appreciation of global literature and the use of language shines like a beacon as he describes his childhood and growing into his writing career. He says his parents have insisted that he said he was going to be a writer when he was six years old, and if his parents said it, it must be true.!?

He discusses character development and how characters have to remain true to themselves. He shares the example of Charlie Brown and how readers begged Charles Schultz to have Charlie Brown kick the football. But Schultz knew that if Charlie Brown kicked the football, he would no longer be Charlie Brown.

One favorite story occurred when he was in grade school and they learned about limericks. The teacher asked the class to write as many limericks as possible in twenty minutes. Rushdie wrote twelve limericks and he recalls his favorite one. The teacher insisted he must have cheated because it wasn't possible to write twelve limericks in twenty minutes. He still rages at the injustice of it.

I can relate to Rushdie's story about teacher injustice. During the summer before third grade, my youngest sister, Liesl, was born. It is a German name and the name of the oldest daughter in the movie The Sound of Music. When school started in the fall, my teacher asked us to write an essay on what we did over the summer. I wrote about my new baby sister, Liesl. I received an F on the paper and Liesl was circled in red throughout my essay by the teacher. She wrote on the paper that I misspelled my sister's name and she wrote that it was Leslie. I am still rankled at the injustice of bad assumptions.

Rushdie shares very personal and introspective perspectives about family members and how he then wrote about some of these subjects in his books. He also touches on controversial writers who pull up their roots and leave their home country---as well as some who return to their home country and experience violence.

This is a book that I will return to often because it is filled with fabulous language and phrases, such as a hinge moment in history and character is destiny. I am going to do what several Goodreads friends do---immersive reading----listening to the audiobook while also reading along with the written book.

This book is a literary treasure. Highly, highly recommend!

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Only write what you know if what you know is interesting. If you live in a neighborhood like Harper Lee’s or William Faulkner’s, by all means feel free to tell heated tales of your own personal Yoknapatawpha, and you’ll probably find you never need to leave home at all. But unless what you know is really interesting, don’t write about it. Write what you don’t know.” (From Wonder Tales)

This is a collection of essays by the author. Some were previously published but have been reworked. Included are college lectures, commencement speeches, magazine articles and introductions to books and exhibit catalogs. Among the themes touched upon are artistic expression, censorship, politics, religion, art, literature and the pandemic.

I especially enjoyed:

Wonder Tales, about writing.

Proteus, also about writing. “I say this as a person who believes in neither God nor the devil, I believe only in Virgil, but I understand the nature of the contract of fiction, so I can agree to suspend disbelief in what I know is not to be believed in the hope of finding, by doing so, some truth on which I can rely, in which I can have faith.”

Gabo and I. It includes an explanation and assessment of magical realism, but I still don’t want to read any more of that.

Autobiography and the Novel. When asked whether your novel is autobiographical, the author suggests that you just say yes, it’s completely autobiographical and then you can move on to more interesting topics.

The Liberty Instinct. About religion. “If I had stood before you a decade ago, I might have argued here that religious extremism was the greatest threat to liberty we faced. I did not foresee what seems to me to be a secularization of that fanaticism. The Trump phenomenon has all the qualities of a religious cult, in which truth becomes what the leader says it is, and only what he says it is, and in which evil becomes everything that is outside the cult.”

Carrie Fisher. The author and actor were close friends.

Pandemic. The author’s personal experience with COVID-19.

I wasn’t particularly interested in the essays about photographers and painters, although they were well-written. The essays were interesting, perceptive and witty, but I prefer his fiction. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Harun Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

রুশদির প্রবন্ধ পড়া হয়নি এর আগে। এটা পড়তে যেয়ে এতো অবাক! কারণ ভাষা সরল, অতিশয় বোধগম্য ও জাদুকরি । কেমন লিখেছেন পরখ করতে যেয়ে পুরোটাই পড়ে ফেলেছি বছরের প্রথমার্ধে; ধীরে ধীরে, প্রায় চারমাস সময় লাগিয়ে। বইয়ের প্রথম অংশটাই সবচেয়ে আকর্ষণীয়। রুশদি,প্রধানত ঔপন্যাসিক, কল্পকাহিনি কেন দরকার, কোথায় এর মাহাত্ম্য লুকিয়ে আছে তা নিয়ে স্বাদু গদ্যে আমাদের স্মরণ করিয়ে দিয়েছেন কল্পনার শক্তি।শেক্সপিয়রের নাটক থেকে উদাহরণ টেনে দেখিয়েছেন জাদুবাস্তবতাকে আধুনিককালের সৃষ্টিছাড়া সৃষ্টি বলার যৌক্তিকতা নেই। গল্পে বহু আগে থেকেই ডাইনি, ভূতপ্রেত, অলীক ঘটনা লেখকরা যুক্ত করেছেন, তবে বাস্তবতা থেকে পালাতে নয় বরং বাস্তবতাকে আরো প্রকটভাবে তুলে ধরতে।

... magic is pointless except when in the service of realism. Narayan's Malgudi, and, yes, the Macondo of Gabriel García Márquez, imagination is used to enrich reality, not to escape from it; the wonderful has deep roots in the real and for that reason is able to use the surreal to create metaphors and images of the real that come to feel more real than reality, more truthful than the truth.

আধুনিক উপন্যাসের দুর্বোধ্যতা নিয়েও ব্যাখ্যা দিয়েছেন তিনি। বর্তমান জগৎ, এর নানাবিধ জট, বহুমুখিতা, আস্থাহীনতা লেখকদের অনেকটা বাধ্য করে জটিল হতে। বিশেষত প্রযুক্তির উৎকর্ষের ফলে আমাদের ব্যক্তিগত জীবন এতোটাই দিনের আলোয় প্রকাশ্য হয়েছে যে নিজেদের আড়ালে রাখার উপায় নেই। চাইলেও জেন আয়ার বা মাদাম বোভারির মতো বিশুদ্ধ ব্যক্তিকেন্দ্রিক উপন্যাস লেখা এখন আর সম্ভব হবে না। নিজে ভুক্তভোগী, তাই রুশদি আজীবন সেন্সরশিপের বিরুদ্ধে সোচ্চার থেকেছেন, বলেছেন -

You will even find people who will give you the argument that censorship is good for artists because it challenges their imagination. This is like arguing that if you cut a man's arms off you can praise him for learning to write with a pen held between his teeth.

বইটা যেহেতু দীর্ঘ ১৮ বছরের কালিক বলয়ে রচিত লেখকের সমস্ত মননশীল লেখার সংকলন, তাই কিছু দায়সারা গোছের লেখাও ঢুকে পড়েছে এতে। languages of truth আরেকবার মনে করিয়ে দিয়েছে, আমি নিজে সাহিত্য কেন এতো ভালোবাসি। সম্ভবত বই থেকে এটাই সবচেয়ে বড় প্রাপ্তি।

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reality isn’t realistic

Salman Rushdie is perhaps our greatest living storyteller. So of course I devoured his essays on story and writing, Wonder Tales, and Proteus, my favorites in this collection. Of course, seeing a great storyteller’s take on others of his craft — Shakespeare, Cervantes, Vonnegut, etc. — felt just as valuable. Rushdie’s writing about writers and writing is the heart of this collection.

But you get more. A lot more. He writes about the scourge of censorship and combating it. He writes touching tributes to his lost friends, Christopher Hitchens and Carrie Fisher. He tells us about his personal engagement with Covid-19, and muses on its cultural impact. One essay is devoted to Adaptations of all sorts. All are brilliantly written, and fascinating. He even fully engaged my attention in pieces about artist whom I did not know. I suspect Rushdie could make his grocery list fascinating.

[Gabriela Pistol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literatura e un mod de a căuta adevărul inventând povești.
Arta mare nu e niciodată divertisment, ci revoluție.
Libertatea nu mai are sens și lumea noastră devine din ce în ce mai mică de fiecare dată când ne lăsăm băgați în cutiuțe (ale naționalității, etniei, religiei, oricărei forme de tribalism. Deși cu tribul sportiv nu sunt de acord că e reductiv :D ).
Cam astea sunt ideile de bază, care m-au facut să mă simt un fel de soră ideologică a lui Rushdie (o afinitate pe care n-am simțit-o deloc citind Versetele Satanice).

Ca orice gânditor cu șarm retoric, poate să te facă să îți chestionezi convingerile. Pe mine m-a făcut să mă întreb dacă înverșunarea cu care susțin drepturile celor vulnerabili, ale minorităților, nu mă face uneori oarbă la excesele corectitudinii politice. N-am un răspuns, deocamdata sunt femeia suspendată inconfortabil între protejare și libertate.

Pe lângă farmecul pe care îl are pentru cititorii împătimiți, cred ca e o carte necesară pentru scriitori: Rushdie zice că defectul lui cel mai mare e limbuția, dar asta îl face foarte generos cu detaliile despre procesul creativ.

4.5 și o să mă întorc la el și ca romancier, după ce Versetele mi l-au exilat în fundul bibliotecii.

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5* Review to come]

[Shuhan Rizwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

ইমাজিনারি হোমল্যান্ড- এর চাইতে এই সংকলনের লেখাগুলো আলাদা। নানা বিষয়ে লিখেছেন সালমান। বোম্বের হিজড়া সম্প্রদায় থেকে শুরু করে হলিউডি সিনেমা, কোভিড আক্রান্ত হবার অভিজ্ঞতা থেকে রাষ্ট্রীয়ভাবে লেখক নিপীড়ন- কিছুই বাদ যায়নি।

তবে, অনুমিত ভাবেই, সেই লেখাগুলোই সবচেয়ে মনোরম- যখন সালমান কথা বলেছেন লেখা নিয়ে, লেখকদের নিয়ে৷

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Rushdie’s brand of cosmopolitan intellectualism didn’t exist, we would have to invent it. Over the past few decades, we in America have needed Rushdie for a dozen reasons. We’ve needed his literary criticism of the literary canon and emerging literary trends. We’ve needed his understanding of Islam and Hinduism. We’ve needed his views on India. We’ve needed his advocacy of minority rights and religious freedom and atheism and freedom of the press. The essays on both politics and literature are great.

[Parvathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The erudition is impressive. From Proteus to Marquez, Roth to Cervantes, Pinter to Hans Christian Anderson; Osama to Ai Weiwei to hijras in India; Amrita Sher-Gil and Bhupen Khakhar to Taryn Simon and Kara Walker. Rushdie knows much, has opinions and is not shy about holding forth. Thankfully it’s Rushdie - his writing is fabulous and you can rest assured that even when he is talking of the novels of Samuel Becket or artists you have never heard of, you will not be bored. I particularly loved ‘Wonder Tales’, the first essay in the book where he explores the role of stories in our shared humanity. It’s a theme he keeps coming back to, along with that of freedom of expression and the need to safeguard it in a less than free world. Truly enjoyed this one.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

O ano ainda mal passou de meio, mas arrisco dizer que esta vai ser uma das minhas melhores leituras de 2024.

O livro está organizado em quatro partes, cada uma delas reunindo textos sobre grandes temas: a arte de contar histórias ao longo dos tempos e o ofício de escritor, a censura e a liberdade de expressão, textos acerca de escritores específicos (Roth, Vonnegut, Beckett, entre outros) e a última parte reúne textos sobre artes plásticas (pintura e fotografia).

A cultura, ecletismo e humor de Rushdie são um deleite e dei comigo a espaçar os capítulos, para que o livro durasse mais tempo.

[Pilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eclecticismo espiritual, artístico y vital. Eso es lo que preconiza Salman Rushdie en sus reflexiones a lo largo de veinte años contenidas en esta recopilación.

Tras unos primeros textos en defensa del escritor migrante y de la literatura fantástica y proteica, se centra en varios análisis un tanto livianos de ciertos autores, como Roth, Vonnegut, Beckett, Gabo...para llegar a los ensayos que más me gustan, agudos y optimistas, sobre la pereza, la contradicción y el arte de la adaptación. Es en la tercera parte del libro donde se pone realmente reivindicativo: hace un repaso por los adalides de la verdad y del coraje que desafían la ortodoxia política y religiosa de su tiempo (Hitchens, Ai Weiwei) preguntándose cuál podría ser la función del arte. En la última parte, luego de varias conferencias en el PEN Club, encomia a ciertos artistas contemporáneos indios e italianos –los indios de Europa– y termina cargando contra los ingenuos utopistas que profetizaron una sociedad mejor luego de la pandemia.

Leyendo ensayos como "El instinto de libertad" una se da cuenta del peligro que corren las mentes seculares en el planeta y el laicismo indio en particular. Y es que "Los versos satánicos" ni siquiera era una novela sobre la religión. Era sobre la migración, el gran tema central de toda su obra.

[Cris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this more than my daughter did, that’s for sure!! 😅
I come to Rushdie, not only having read Midnight’s Children which I loved, but also having followed the story of the Fatwa against him. Rushdie was condemned to death by the Ayatollah after writing “The Satanic Verses” All of this is to say, I like the guy. I really liked (and agreed with) his defense of fiction as a way to understand “reality” and share his deep worry about prevailing censorship. I enjoyed his essays.

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

An erudite book which rockets you in several directions, discovering new authors, artists and deliciously plumbing new depths of stupidity in politics. As records of speeches it brings Rushdie into your reading room in a direct vivid manner, something lockdown has lacked and connects writer to reader immediately.

[Mihaela Juganaru · Rating 5 out of 5]

O carte grozavă!

[Valéria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an extremely methodical person. Every time a certain area of study is capable of catching my wandering eye my first and foremost instinct is to grab the nearest pen and paper and begin my quest to find, categorize and catalog the best books in regards to my surging obsession.

I think that, maybe, it is a side effect of so many years of volunteering for my school's library, or my previous intentions of pursuing archival studies, or perhaps it is something much more primal, something buried deep enough within myself so that I find my own being unable to differentiate its beginning from its end, to recognize its core and say ‘I understand you and therefore I have become one with you, my fear for your existence is no longer justifiable, for you are me and I am you’.

All of this simply to delineate the brutality with which this book threw me off track, it stood there, affirming and yet easily lost within the bookshelves of titanic proportions that surrounded its being, as if fulfilling the role of a concrete barrier standing menacingly between the 14 euro paperback edition and the stranger taking it home.

I read some essays while still on the bookstore, I choose one whose title compelled me to go slightly further and actually sit down in the nearest flat surface in order to gather my thoughts concisely, ‘The half-woman god’ it wrote, it began with a brief introduction to the concept of gender in divinity and myth, how different cultures, especially the Greek and the Hindu, addressed engendred aspects within some of their mythical narratives. The essay strays from this initial development and connects it with the Hijra community in India, one which I only knew of at a surface level, ‘they are a group of eunuchs that dress in an extremely feminine manner aren’t they?’, ‘I heard they had an interestingly well defined hierarchy and kinship system which I thought of studying further some years ago…’, such thoughts invaded my mind but they were quickly shooed away for I was utterly engrossed by Salman’s writing, it possessed a certain power of transporting you beyond the real and suddenly planting you within the narrative at hand, a power only parallel to that possessed by childhood books you devotedly keep within your now much more mature bookshelf as if they are quintessential elements of a sacred shrine that is your built identity.

Rushdie doesn’t tell you what it’s like for the Hijra community in 5 clean paragraphs addressing each problem with a quick and direct solution, nor does he leave it all up to nuance and the blatant ‘perhaps it is too complex for us to wrap our individual minds about, it has layers, ah yes, many many layers’, as if these layers were not built and layered one on top of another with the intent of being known as a whole and individually in the first place.

Salman grabs your hand firmly and makes you sit alongside him at an alley cafe or a pub in the red light district, he transforms what you once thought of as a concept into flesh, he metamorphoses these abstractions within your mind into humans and gives you time to digest this new found reality.

There is much more addressed in the book, ‘What is freedom?’, ‘Is liberty as a whole, liberty from or liberty for?’, ‘How is anti-war literature eventually robbed of its initial meaning and intent with the ever growing gap between generations that lived through war and those that didn’t?’, ‘What is truth and how have we allowed politicians and religious institutions to define it for us?’.

This collection of essays is captivating and compelling, it holds you down by your shoulders and instead of telling you that you are about to undergo an info-dump of happenings that occurred when you weren't even born to witness anything of true value, it pushes gently towards you and begins a conversation, as if reuniting with an old friend whose acquaintance you always valued but just haven't been lucky enough to collide with in the middle of a busy street.

[Angie Boyter · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are 38 essays in this collection, so it should come as no surprise that the subjects are wide-ranging. The emphasis is on the arts, ALL of the arts, including literature, films, stage, painting, and photography. Given Rushdie’s background it is also not surprising that the scope is worldwide, including persons most Americans have probably never heard of. There are also perspectives on society around the world, with some special emphasis on Rushdie’s native India. Some get personal, including beautiful homages to deceased friends like Carrie Fisher, Harold Pinter, and Christopher Hitchens and an account of Rushdie’s own “personal engagement with the coronavirus”.
These essays are beautifully written, but what made them stand out to me was the sheer breadth of the author’s knowledge about these subjects, as well as his personal acquaintance with just about every prominent person in the arts of the past 50 years. How many authors are likely to cite both Heraclitus and Popeye the Sailor on the same page? These are not just recitations of what Rushdie knows. There are thoughtful analyses of his subjects.
The scope may also, however, present some problems for readers. I do not think anyone except Rushdie is likely to be familiar with everyone he cites in the essays. Sometimes he explains enough for the reader to grasp his point even when the work or person is unfamiliar, but sometimes he does not. I found myself resorting to Google on numerous occasions. Also, some essays are very specific, e.g., “Samuel Beckett’s Novels”, and readers like me who are not Beckett fans may just not be interested. Others may not want to see his political views creep into essays on other subjects. Since these are separate essays, if you do not find an essay of interest, you can skip to the next with no loss of context. On the other hand, an essay on a topic new to you can be fascinating.
Even if you eliminate some essays, though, there is a lot to like and learn and admire in this book. The first essay alone, Wonder Tales, on the importance of stories, makes the book worthwhile. And the concluding essay, The Proust Questionnaire, will give you a picture of Salmon Rushdie that you are not likely to find anywhere else.

[William Schram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Salman Rushdie proves himself to be a master of the English language throughout forty-three essays on varying topics. I am familiar with Rushdie, but I have not read his works. I only know about him from the fatwa placed on him from The Satanic Verses. It is hard to believe that happened back in 1988. However, I digress.

As I mentioned, Rushdie covers a large variety of topics. He opens with a piece that discusses the capacity of stories to inspire. Censorship is a favorite topic since it is anathema to me, and the same applies to Rushdie. I feel that people who value their feelings over the truth are terrible.

Another topic that Rushdie covers is the adaptation of one form of media to another. For example, the Lord of the Rings becomes a trilogy of movies from a trilogy of books. Maybe Hollywood takes a great movie and remakes it with some other star as the lead. Of course, they never set out to make a terrible film, or so they say. So we get Mr. Deeds in place of Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. Adam Sandler is your discount Gary Cooper, I suppose. Rushdie's examples use The Hulk movies, but I didn't see those. I only watched the first Avengers movie.

The final essay discusses Rushdie's bout with COVID. Rushdie is approximately as old as my father, and I know how terrible COVID can be for that demographic.

Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Sarah Holz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can never decide if I like Rushdie’s nonfiction more when we agree (i.e., Shakespeare) or disagree (i.e., Ulysses), but I always enjoy picking his brain for what art — written and visual — is energizing him at any given moment. As a writer still straddling the East/West divide so many years later, that usually provides a delicious and culturally holistic array that leaves me with questions, arguments, and an ever-lengthening to-read shelf.

[Mary Tharp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and informative

[Artemis]

In his first essay, Rushdie asserts that the best way of uncovering the realities of life is through the unreality of fiction. Later, he says that he only found ‘his’ voice as a writer when he dropped his narratorial voice and adopted the first-person voice of the protagonist of Midnight’s Children. I’ll take this at face value - it seems he’s better suited to fiction than to non-fiction. I have been greatly looking forward to reading Midnight’s Children for quite some time now, and, knowing that there is quite a difference between nonfiction essays and fiction novels, won’t let the underwhelming-ness of this anthology diminish my anticipation of his novel. This reading experience has confirmed Wilde’s assertion that criticism is itself an art — it is just not Rushdie’s.

[Valentina Vekovishcheva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rushdie = Genuine Greatness

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In addition to publications, many of the essays compiled here come from lectures or presentations given by Rushdie over the years, providing the reader the opportunity to sit in the classroom or the audience and learn from a master. Whether it is the craft of writing or political events, each topic is approached with confidence and laser focus. At times, perhaps, the confidence crosses the line into arrogance, but with the many years of success as well as the dues he has paid, Rushdie can probably be forgiven for flexing his rhetorical muscles a bit. This is a collection that can be returned to over time, in much the same way as it came about. It is a legacy preserved for sure.

Thank you to Salman Rushdie, Random House, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salman Rushdie's new collection of essays, "Languages of Truth," manages to be a great collection with pieces ranging from literary topics to world-changing ones. Rushdie, a prolific novelist, is at his best in talking about literary issues, but he's no slouch when it comes to covering events in the wider world (such as the rise of Trump, the very Trump-like government of India, and so on). Including reminisces of Philip Roth, Christopher Hitchens, Harold Pinter, and Carrie Fisher, as well as in-depth discussions about the "hijra" of India, artists that he admires, and how he came to grow up as an atheist in a very religious country, Rushdie's essays are delights in themselves, and the book as a whole rarely falters in maintaining interest.

[Pranav · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays is as good as the best essay in it(unless there is too much crap padded on), and while i could have done without some of the essays, I couldn't without these lines:

"The truth is not arrived at by purely mimetic means. An image can be captured by a camera or a paintbrush. A painting of a starry night is no less truthful than a photograph of one; arguably, if the painter is Van Gogh, it's far more truthful, even though far less 'realistic'. "

"Sometimes your character isn't your destiny. Sometimes it is the plane flying through your office window is your destiny."

[ariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

hes so good !

[Deedi Brown (DeediReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

First, thank you to Random House for the gifted copy of this book! It is a beautiful addition to my shelves, and I really enjoyed it.

Languages of Truth is a collection of essays and speeches that Salman Rushdie has written or delivered over the years. Most of these are relatively short, which makes it digestible and easy to pick away at over time. Topics range from literature and writing to world events and dedications. My favorite ones were actually the first three in the book (the ones on storytelling), which were also read by Rushdie himself in the audiobook.

I did read (or listen to) all of this one, but there were definitely some essays that I didn’t follow or understand as well as others, just because he was talking about an author or an event that I wasn’t familiar with. So I’d encourage you not to be afraid to skip around and over anything that doesn’t seem like it’s for you; the book will still be worth your time.

All in all, I’m always glad to have more of Rushdie’s brain in my brain!

[Dev Pradhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For innovation, for newness we must turn to irrealism and find new ways of approaching the truth through lies."

Languages of Truth is a collection of essays and speeches on writing, language, criticism, storytelling and fiction by Salman Rushdie from the last two decades. The book gripped me from the first essay, 'Wonder Tales' which is about importance of stories. However, there were essays which I found uninteresting because I had no background on them.

The first essay was my favourite in this book. I liked the way how Rushdie exlplained the significance of fiction in that essay. In the last eassy he shared his personal engagement with coronavirus and about the pandemic in the world.

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some chapters were really very interesting, some very good like the one on Philip Roth or Carrie Fisher or the one on the pandemic. As usual, it's not that I have to tell you that Rushdie is a great writer, but it's always good to keep that in mind.

Alcuni capitoli sono stati veramente molto interessanti, altri molto belli come quello su Philip Roth o su Carrie Fisher o quello sulla pandemia. Come al solito non é che ve lo devo dire io che Rushdie é un grande scrittore, ma é bene sempre tenerlo presente.