What Happened to Salman Rushdie?
In 1980, Salman Rushdie published Midnight's Children, as brilliantly playful a book as a novelist could hope to write. Then in 1989, he became renowned by being condemned for the publication of The Satanic Verses, which was as playful as Midnight's Children, though not nearly as brilliant. He rallied again with The Moor's Last Sigh, my favorite novel of his, in 1995. There was also Imaginary Homelands in 1991, a collection of non-fiction in which he illuminated any number of topics with his seemingly boundless imagination.
But after The Moor's Last Sigh, things seemed to go downhill. There was The Ground Beneath Her Feet, as flat a note as has ever been written about rock 'n' roll. It's one of the very few books I've ever given up on. That was followed by Fury, the reviews of which did not encourage me to take it up. And now we have Step Across This Line, Rushdie's latest collection of non-fiction, which doesn't sound so good either. Where did the formidable voice that leapt off the page of his best work go?
9:33:15 PM 
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