Salman Rushdie: Finishing My Book When Padma Left Me

The Observer:

Among other things, Salman Rushdie's latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, is a hymn to the creative and destructive power of female beauty. The heroine is a young woman of such transporting physical allure that on seeing her men fall instantly and insanely in love, heedless to the ensuing dangers. Wherever could he have come by the idea?

'Ridiculously beautiful, comically beautiful' was how he once described Padma Lakshmi, the woman who became his fourth wife. But in fact, Rushdie insists, he had the concept of the novel before he met the Indian-American model, actress and cookbook author. Still, that piece of chronology won't prevent many readers from glimpsing the shade of Lakshmi in the 'slender' and ravishing 'banquet for the senses' that is Qara Koz, a woman 'meant for palaces, and kings'.

To be fair to Lakshmi, she seemed more at home at premieres than palaces, but then celebrity is the new royalty. From a distance, or more specifically through the prism of gossip columns, she looked like trouble from the very start, someone who was unlikely ever to provide a happy ending, at least in the conventional narrative sense.

According to Rushdie, the irony is that not only did she not inspire the book, she was very nearly the cause of its demise. 'To put it bluntly,' he says, 'I had to write it in spite of her. Because what happened to me last year when I was writing this book was a colossal calamity.' By this he means the end of his marriage. In January of 2007, Lakshmi asked for a divorce.

'It was like a nuclear bomb dropped in your living room when you're trying to work,' he says. 'I really feared for a time at the beginning of last year that I'd lost the book. I was in such a state of turmoil that I couldn't work. I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk. And I got scared because I thought, if I lose this, I've lost everything. Genuinely, I think it was the biggest act of will that I've ever been asked to make, including after the fatwa, just to pull my head back together.'

Read the whole story: The Observer

Comments

[mamacat]

07:05 AM on 04/09/2008

He is wonderfully intellectual and sensual at the same time. How sad that there is no room for him in today's Muslim world.

[SOOKOOYAH GURL]

12:34 AM on 04/07/2008

i AM ALWAYS AMAZED AT HOW AMERICAN'S JUDGE BEAUTY.

Padma Lakshmi is so plain and airhead looking. Yet people are always talking about how hot she is.. Please!
She a golddigger and he was dumb for thinking that marriage would last!

And since when she is a chef? Oh, I forgot about nepatism..

[trish74]

11:04 AM on 04/07/2008

She was a chef before she met him.

Who wouldn't want to be the muse of a famous author's book. Who wouldn't be intrigued by an author with the skill of Rushdie.

[MM5]

06:57 PM on 04/07/2008

Is she the one on that Chef show on Bravo? She is most unconvincing given that she looks like an anorexic.

[PepeLePu]

01:30 AM on 04/09/2008

Hmmm. not too anorexic here:

http://amuse-biatch.blogspot.com/2007/09/amuse-biatch-heterosexual-monday-padma.html

or here:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/133/360438417_9e2d9d5514.jpg

[CountryBeforeParty]

12:33 AM on 04/07/2008

Sal,

I'm sorry I stole Padma away form you. But hey, can you blame me??? =)

[alinaamonna007]

10:27 PM on 04/06/2008

They are making an adorable couple though the guy ever joined the rich men seeking affairs club sugardaddylove.c om a few weeks ago..but all are past and they will stay together forever!

[TakLoufer]

10:11 PM on 04/06/2008

One of the worst writers I've ever read. He did a piece on The Wizard of Oz for The New Yorker a few years back that just went on and on and on. Of course this may have been when Tina Brown was the "editor", or so she thought of herself. The only time he's been interesting is as a guest on Maher's show, but again: if this cat hadn't received a famous death threat he most likely would have just died in obscurity, little known outside of Britain and highly unlikely to have ever landed a luscious young babe for his wife.

[avicenna]

07:13 PM on 04/06/2008

Salman Rushdie is one of the better examples of "don't judge a book by its cover". I had taken little interest in him or his writing at the height of all the sensationalism following the fatwa (granted, I wasn't even a teen when that occured) - but I happened to have caught a relatively recent interview of him and he was entirely different then what I'd expected. He came across as a witty intellectual with a keen awareness of the nuances of the world around him. Ironically, he actually represents more closely the ideals and mindset of academics who reigned during the height of the Islam's Golden Age who were the founders of many of the modern scientific and philosophical disciplines. I can see why Padma and seen something intriguing about him (and why she still claims to be drawn to Rushdie despite their inability to make their marriage work). Midnight's Children was fantastic.

[SlithyTove]

05:10 PM on 04/06/2008

Is suffering rarely salutary, as Somerset Maugham believed? Or does adversity actually goose your Muse? Haven't read his new book yet, but it appears from reviews that Rushdie has not lost his talent.

I was surprised at the marriage, and surprised again that it lasted as long as it did. This was as mixed as a marriage could get: from what I know, a Hindu Brahmin woman marrying a Muslim man is arguably the rarest of intermarriages.

[avicenna]

10:38 PM on 04/06/2008

Actually, in India - it is not all that uncommon at all (i.e. marriage of a Brahmin - or any caste- to a Muslim). The wide appeal of Islam in India was its egalitarian structure - all are considered equal and caste systems were put aside (usually upon conversion, of course). In India, it is mostly in "muslim territories" that physical and social fences and barricades between between people are removed and people are free to intermingle with whom they please. Don't ask me what happened in Pakistan - something got lost in translation....

[lisakaz]

03:15 PM on 04/06/2008

Dude, you were married four times!? Sure it's her fault, huh?

[andyg]

02:35 PM on 04/06/2008

she dumped him for a far richer older man.

[MajorKong]

02:22 PM on 04/06/2008

I hear he's working on another book titled "Buddha You Fat Slob!"

[CountryBeforeParty]

12:33 AM on 04/07/2008

An oldie but a goodie. ;)

[gakabani]

12:31 PM on 04/06/2008

So now Salman realizes that that death threats were simply a mere challenge to his existence whereas the lost of a woman's love can make you live incredibly miserable, finding oneself living a death life with no purpose. Be careful, the scorn of a woman can be like a thousand bee stings and poison to your soul.

[kellygrrrl]

12:05 PM on 04/06/2008

I imagine it doesn't feel too good when you have to admit to yourself that you were nothing but a "rung on the ladder" for someone who professed to love you ... BUT ... this failed relationship surely could not have been the worst thing to ever happen to the author. I mean, the death threats from his government must have been a little worse.

[HatingTheGame]

03:32 PM on 04/06/2008

Correction, it wasn't death threats from his government. He's actually a British subject, of Indian origin. Neither of them wanted to kill him (although I am sure they would have liked to wring his neck).

The fatwa was from The Islamic Republic of Iran during the reign of Ayatolla Komenhi.

Rest of the comment is true.