Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

20 reviews

madhu_n's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

oz2021's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

3.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

m_lena's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

This book is remarkable. As someone who is around PTSD day in and out- I found this book honest, haunting and incredibly hopeful. Rushdie is again the master he always has been.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

camilleberedjick's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.75

Would have been 5 stars, but I wish there was any discussion of what an abolitionist approach to dealing with religious radicalization could be. Nonetheless, excellent. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

gregory_glover's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

A beautiful example of coming to terms with injury and loss, overcoming with love.  A mix of fast-paced and sometimes gruesome medical rehab, woven together with quieter stretches of deeply philosophical reflection.  It is personal memoir (of a specific, very limited period of time), examination of work, art, and intention,; it’s a love story of the highest order and a love letter to life.  Very much worth your time, whether you’ve read anything else of the author’s oeuvre or not.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

fanchera's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

2.25

I struggled to get through this book. While I am very sympathetic to what the author experienced, no one should ever have to face a brutal attack, have to fight for their life and be left permanently disfigured. It’s very sad that he became a victim of a horrendous attack. My issue with this book was the author’s attitude. It’s quite evident that he grew up affluent and privileged. That is neither here nor there. It was his narcissistic attitude about life in general and also how it all relates to the care he received. His expectations were quite over the top. I did not enjoy his pretentious writing and it’s obvious that he put many middle class citizens far below where he sees himself. It’s his story to tell. I just didn’t enjoy the attitude in which he spoke or how he put others so far beneath himself.

An example of something that rubbed me the wrong way. When his assailant is arrested and they are preparing for trial, he decides that he’s fine with his assailant taking a plea deal and getting out of prison after serving 30 years because, since he would be 116 years old, he would never have to worry about his assailant hunting him down again in his lifetime. But his assailant would be 54 when he would come up for parole. Which, to me, is still young enough to commit another crime, to attack another innocent civilian whose beliefs don’t align with his. To me, that’s a very selfish attitude to have, let alone admit to openly.

I am a pretty sympathetic person but as his story goes on I felt less and less toward him because he comes across as such an unlikable person. By the end I was void of much emotion at all. And for me that is very difficult to digest. How can I feel that way about someone who has been stabbed by a complete stranger 15 times?! I was more sympathetic to him as a complete stranger and less sympathetic now that I’ve had a glimpse of his thoughts and how he would see him as a lowly nurse.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

veldadraws's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lifeinsherds's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Without a doubt, a 5 star rating. Even more so as the audiobook, narrated by Salman Rushdie. A miraculous story of survival with absolutely poetic language about family, love, violence and fear. I cannot recommend this more to literally anyone. I think this will be a book I wish I could read again for the first time.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kjboldon's review against another edition

Go to review page

reflective slow-paced

2.0

I am happy for Salman that he survived and sounds happy in his life and marriage, and happy for those who love him that he's alive. 

I wish I found this a better book. I found it riddled with tired cliches, especially about his wife. In one sentence he says she and he bopped at a rock concert. I felt like he was writing as if magnanimous about her writing and her art, but felt an undercurrent of condescension and sexism running through it. And that condescension was greatly magnified when he tried to imagine a dialogue between himself and his would-be assassin. 

Reading that section I sometimes had to stop, and I sometimes flinched from the page, at the arrogance and ego of Rushdie, even while I could tell he was doing his best to be empathic, and thought he was being magnanimous. 

Terrorism is wrong, death threats are wrong and what happened to Rushdie was a tragedy. But this book didn't strike me as insightful or empathic, a complaint I've had with his other writing. It affirmed for me that he is not an artist whose work moves me. 

Go in peace and love, Salman and your family. I'm sorry for what happened to you. 



Expand filter menu Content Warnings