The book details his treatment and recovery. Nobody thought he would live to tell this story. He had multiple, serious wounds. He lost an eye but did survive. The book is a love story as well. Rushdie lovingly talks about his fifth wife, Rachael Griffith, who was by his side through the entire ordeal and was a true partner in his road to healing.
The book is also a meditation on life. At first Rushdie appears to have been changed to a humble and modest person, but by the end of the book he is his erudite, arrogant, egotistical self. In this context, however, I believe it is a good thing. Rushdie discusses James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Milan Kundera, Naguib Mahfouz, Gunter Grass, Saul Bellow and many other giants of literature and then he quotes Jodi Picoult, which made me laugh out loud because many of my book-loving high school friends who are now scattered all over the world passionately dislike Jodi Picoult. I read The Satanic Verses eons ago after the Khomeini fatwa. At that time, I found the book totally unreadable. I loved Midnight's Children. I also enjoyed The Moor's Last Sigh, which inspired me to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi to see the impressive Amrita Sher-Gil collection. Even though I found one book unreadable, I have mostly enjoyed Rushdie’s writing. The Coffman library has Knife, The Satanic Verses and The Moor's Last Sigh.
Then there’s Cookwise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking by Shirley O. Corriher, which explains to new cooks what is a double boiler, or how to tell if an egg is fresh, and for experienced cooks, over fifty pages on the intricacies of sauces, beginning with classic spaghetti sauce. Recipes illustrate the author’s “lessons.”
Famous restaurants? The Café Brenda Cookbook or Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites. Famous cooks? Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s The Splendid Table for northern Italian recipes and Wolfgang Puck Makes It Easy or Soile Anderson’s (of Finnish Bistro fame) Celebrations to Remember. Aside from the recipe for Mushroom-Cherry Tomato Sauté, which includes two tablespoons of frozen lemonade!—I have found much to try in More Cooking in Minnesota. For Jean Alexander’s Broccoli Salad and Mary Waibel’s Spaghetti a la Putanesca recipes, see What’s Cooking at 1666 Coffman? Great food photos grace the Centennial Cookbook of the University’s Campus Club (1911-2011), with recipes from Chef Beth Jones and others. A pastime not to be laughed at: browsing the “Food and Cooking” shelf in our Library. |
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