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Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
3 reviews
coffeenquotations's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
I will always appreciate Salman Rushdie’s works. Fiction or non-fiction, they hold many well written & universal truths without being pompous or condescending. Rushdie has done this again with Knife. A near death experience is, of course, harrowing to say the least. But a near death experience that has been hanging over one’s head & at the hand’s of someone who has chosen to hate you based on merely their idea of you is another matter. While it’s unlikely most if not almost all of us will experience something like this, I think Knife is an important read— to know what happened from Rushdie’s perspective, sure, but also for the wisdom & humanity that is within his word. These lessons could be carried into all of our lives.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Violence, Medical content, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic
kaydee_reads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Rushdie doesn’t shy away from the hard parts of his experience, but he also highlights a lot of hope. His voice is conversational, confessional, and draws you in. Much of the story is meditative, and dwells on the inevitability of death, but also the joy of still being alive. It’s the kind of book that makes you sit down and think about how lucky you are to still live right now, despite the many terrible things in the world.
Very occasionally I found myself lost - he references a lot of names that I assume are other authors or literary agents or other people in his industry, who I assume may be somewhat well known, as if he expects the reader to know them too. But it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day - they’re people in his life and it’s easy enough to just classify the name dropping as “the author’s friends” and leave it at that.
The strongest relationship was Eliza, and his book has inspired me to look for her poetry, as the little bits of her writing he referenced was beautiful. Ultimately, this book is more about love than anything else, and I loved that about it.
Very occasionally I found myself lost - he references a lot of names that I assume are other authors or literary agents or other people in his industry, who I assume may be somewhat well known, as if he expects the reader to know them too. But it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day - they’re people in his life and it’s easy enough to just classify the name dropping as “the author’s friends” and leave it at that.
The strongest relationship was Eliza, and his book has inspired me to look for her poetry, as the little bits of her writing he referenced was beautiful. Ultimately, this book is more about love than anything else, and I loved that about it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic
himpersonal's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I’ve read most of his books, and I’m always struck by the vastness of his imagination. Satanic Verses was the first time I’d encountered magical realism, and I remember being grateful to be at a liberal arts college (Mount Holyoke) that was teaching it as part of an Islam class. My second book was Midnight’s Children, and that was the first time I’d learned about the Indian-Pakistani partition (also taught at Mount Holyoke as part of an Indian literature class). Since then, I’ve read almost every one of his books, and I’ve gained so much from all of them. So I was filled with sadness to find out that the reason he now wears eyeglasses with one side blacked out was due to a stabbing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Confinement, Drug use, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic