All language subtitles for Masterclass Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing - 10.Your Unmistakably Unique Worldview

SALMAN RUSHDIE: When you read
the work of the great writers,

you can immediately see
that there's a worldview out

of which that work comes.

They have a kind
of way of thinking

about people and societies
which is their own.

All of us, if we
really look inside,

have a way we think
about the world.

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All of us create for ourselves
a picture of the world.

Partly, that's created for us by
our parents or by our teachers

or by whatever it might be.

But we all have a
picture of the world.

We think the world is
like this and we live

in that picture of the world.

And in a way, you could say
that that's a kind of sanity.

And in a way, you could say
that that's a kind of sanity.

And if our picture
of the world breaks

because the world
changes so much

and the picture doesn't
seem to fit anymore,

that can be a little
crazy-making, you know,

if we can't frame the world in
a way that seems right to us.

So you have to think about what
your picture of the world is.

Literally try and make a picture
of the world in your mind.

What are the elements that
you would put in that picture?

What would be in the
front of the picture?

What would be in the background?

What would be in the background?

What would be in the
corners of the picture?

For example, one
of the things which

has helped me to uncover
how ordinary people lived

in the past is to
look at great art.

Often, at the center
of the painting,

you'll see the main subject.

That might be a courtly
lady or a wealthy patron

of the arts or a politician.

But if you look to the
corners of the frame,

you'll see the everyday
people, the guy

with the cart selling
loaves of bread

or a store selling vegetables.

Ordinary life is in the
corners of the frame.

Ordinary life is in the
corners of the frame.

And it can be very
helpful to see that.

So when you're making
that picture of the world,

see what's in the middle.

See what's in the background.

See what's in the
corners of the frame.

And gradually that
can become something

like your picture of reality.

And then you write out of that.

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You know, when you
read, let's say,

You know, when you
read, let's say,

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, nobody
else can write that stuff.

You know from one sentence who
the author is because his world

view is so much his own.

That's true also of Hemingway
and Fitzgerald and Toni

Morrison and George Eliot,
any number of great writers.

The thing that
characterizes that genius

is that nobody else can do it.

is that nobody else can do it.

The reason they write
the way they write

is because they are
the people they are.

The writing that doesn't feel
like that, that very often

is because it sounds
like somebody else.

Either it sounds clearly
like somebody else,

i.e. it's overly influenced
by some other writer,

or it feels like 100 people
could have written that.

I mean, the I could do that
reaction is a very bad reaction

I mean, the I could do that
reaction is a very bad reaction

to a piece of writing.

You don't want your readers
to feel, yeah, I mean,

I could do that.

So the more personal
and idiosyncratic it is,

the more it will feel
authentically yours.

I mean, this comes back to the
thing that I really do think,

which is that in order to
be a really good writer,

you have to have an unusual
amount of self-knowledge.

You have to really know who
you are and what makes you tick

You have to really know who
you are and what makes you tick

and why.

The line often is ascribed
to Socrates, where he said,

the unexamined life
is not worth living.

Writers are people who
deeply examine their lives

and ruthlessly.

You can't be easy on
yourself if you're really

going to understand yourself.

You have to go very deep.

I mean, it's like a
personal psychoanalysis

to examine your life until
you really understand

to examine your life until
you really understand

what motivates you
and what drives you

and what hinders
you, what blocks you.

When you know those things, and
you write from that knowledge,

you have a good chance of
writing something that's yours

and nobody else's because it
arises out of self-knowledge.

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Yes, as people say, you
should write what you know.

But sometimes in
order to write well,

But sometimes in
order to write well,

you need to increase
what you know.

You need to find out things so
that you can write about people

whose life experience
or whatever it may be,

gender, race, is not yours.

And that means getting
out of your chair.

It means getting out
of your apartment.

It means going into rooms that
you don't normally go into,

asking questions.

It means listening to
people, rather than

simply deciding for yourself
how those people would be,

simply deciding for yourself
how those people would be,

discovering, in other words.

What I say to students,
and I would say to you

is, be sure that what
you know is interesting

because these are students
who, in many cases,

came from middle class
families in the suburbs.

And there was an enormous amount
of writing about middle class

families in the suburbs.

And my dad doesn't
understand me.

My mother gets angry too much.

My mother gets angry too much.

And this girl doesn't
love me who I care about.

And there's just too much of it.

And it was all kind
of exactly the same.

And that's when actually, I said
to one of the students, I said,

it would be better if a
spaceship landed on the lawn

because then there'd
be something enjoyable.

When I first started
writing, I was

very influenced in those
days by science fiction.

And so the first novel
I wrote, "Grimus,"

And so the first novel
I wrote, "Grimus,"

was about a fantasy world,
you know, an imaginary island

populated by immortals.

And it didn't work very well.

And so I thought, next
time, write what you know.

And that's where I
thought that, OK,

I would like to
write a novel arising

I would like to
write a novel arising

from my childhood in Bombay
just because I know it.

And the thing that
interested me about it

was that my generation in
India was the first generation

for over two centuries
that had grown up

without a colonial power, the
first generation of free people

to be born in India
for over 200 years.

I thought, yes,
it's what I know,

but it's also an
unusual generation

because it also was the
generation of transition

out of colonialism
into the new world.

out of colonialism
into the new world.

I think many of the
writers that I most admire

have this ability to
write about a very

broad spectrum of society.

So they're not
confined to any group.

If you read Charles Dickens,
he can write about everybody

from murderers and
pickpockets to prime ministers

and archbishops and
everything in between,

petty little
shopkeepers, everything.

petty little
shopkeepers, everything.

That's a good thing
to learn how to do.

And in order to do it, you
need to get out into the world.

Dostoevsky used to
obsessively read the crime

pages in the newspapers.

And every book he ever
wrote is a murder story

and very often
arising from something

he found in the newspaper.

He thought, let me
write about that.

He thought, let me
write about that.

You read a story in the
newspaper which says,

student murders moneylender.

Well, from that to "Crime and
Punishment" is a big step,

but that's the germ of
"Crime and Punishment"

from which he made
this great masterpiece.

So I would suggest
that there is always--

you will grow as a
person and as a writer

by broadening your horizons.

by broadening your horizons.

I think one obvious way of
doing that is to travel.

And it doesn't necessarily have
to be international travel.

The journey from
Manhattan to Nebraska

is not like going
to the North Pole.

But get out of the comfort zone.

And the other thing to say
about that kind of travel

is you should go by yourself,
if you take somebody with you,

you bring your world along.

you bring your world along.

If you go by
yourself, then you're

just there exposed to
the world you're in.

And the interaction is stranger
and often more surprising.

If historical
novels attract you,

find a period in
history that you

feel interested in, whatever
that may be, and dive into it.

Research is a kind of
journey all of its own.

And you can find
things out that you

would never in a million
years have dreamed

would never in a million
years have dreamed

of that are better than
anything you could have made up

because one of the great
things about being a writer

is that it's a long job.

You don't have to retire.

Nobody's going to fire you.

If you want to do
it, you can do it.

But if you want a long life
as a writer, keep discovering.

Finding things out as a very
good way of having that life.

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The question of
influence is important

because all writers
have influences.

Writing comes out of--

yes, it comes out of the
writer's own experience

and their own take on the world.

But it also comes
out of their reading.

It comes out of
the books that came

before them and the books of
their contemporaries often.

And influence can be
very, very helpful.

And influence can be
very, very helpful.

It can show you the way.

When influence
becomes unhelpful is

when it leads to imitation
because you will do something

which isn't nearly as
good as the thing you're

trying to imitate.

And what I think happens
in a literary career--

and I think of
influence as being like,

you know, if you have a rocket
ship waiting to take off,

you know, if you have a rocket
ship waiting to take off,

there's a whole gantry around
the rocket ship, holding it up.

And then the rocket
ship takes off.

And the gantry falls away.

And then the rocket
is just going.

I think that's what it is.

Influence is the thing which
helps you get on the launchpad,

holds you in place.

But at a certain point
when you've taken off,

it falls away.

And then you don't think so
much about other writers that

And then you don't think so
much about other writers that

influence you because
you're on your way,

and you know where you're going.

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I'm going to read
from this manuscript.

This is a novel which I
called "The Antagonist," which

I wrote in my mid-20s at a
time when I had never published

anything.

And it was a book that I
wrote a full draft of it.

And it was a book that I
wrote a full draft of it.

I wrote something like
a 300-page draft of it

and almost immediately
felt that it was a failure,

and so much so that I
never showed it to anybody.

I never revised it.

I never offered it
for publication.

I just put it away.

From that day until this,
I've never held it in my hands

again.

And it's a book
that I think anybody

who plows their way
through it would see

who plows their way
through it would see

is heavily influenced by Thomas
Pynchon, and in particular

by "Gravity's
Rainbow," which anyway,

is a very difficult book.

And for me to attempt to
do something like that

was perhaps doomed to failure.

I should have known
better, but I didn't.

But I learned by doing
it not to do it again.

But I learned by doing
it not to do it again.

It will begin with
a roll of drums

and with a staring eye,
that much is certain.

Sound without vision,
an apprehensive fanfare

to the unknown,
modulating to vision

without sound, the
mute, compromised wisdom

of hindsight.

But how to evaluate the scenes
in between, the middle ground,

the development?

How should he judge the
rightness of its resonances?

How should he judge the
rightness of its resonances?

The sky is nude today,
encasing his documentary

in a very un-February
blue, a blank canvas,

lacking character or definition,
devoid before genesis.

He imagines a signature in
the corner, scrawled perhaps

in factory sacks
near the horizon.

Blank Sky Number
63, Andy Warhol.

And smiles bitterly some.

People get rich and
famous and respected

by cracking bad jokes.

by cracking bad jokes.

You see, I don't even
know what that's about.

And I think I'm just grateful
that I had the brains to put

that away in a drawer.

And that is the first
and last time in my life

that I've ever read from it.

I could see that what I'd
done was to be over-influenced

and to fall into the
trap of imitation.

The only way of
thinking about the book

The only way of
thinking about the book

was that it was a poor imitation
of the work of another writer.

At least my shit
detector was working.

It told me, don't do
any more with this.

And I put it aside.

And from that day to this,
I've never looked at it again.

But here we are.

I've now read a
paragraph of it loud.

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What happens with most
writers is that you start off

with a world you know.

with a world you know.

And you can write about that.

At a certain point,
you may find or you

may begin to feel
that you've exhausted

that material, that you don't
have anything new to say.

And that's where I think
it helps to, in a way,

take on some of the
skills of the journalist

and to just set yourself to the
business of learning the world.

To give just one example
from my own experience,

To give just one example
from my own experience,

in my novel, "The Golden
House," which is set primarily

in New York City, one of
the things I wanted to do

was to write a character who
was thinking about a gender

transition, thinking about
transitioning, and very

conflicted about it, not at
all sure what they wanted to do

or indeed who they
were or wanted to be.

And this is not my personal
life experience, you know?

And this is not my personal
life experience, you know?

I needed to know much more about
it than just a couple of people

that I happened to anecdotally
know in my own life.

So that meant going to find out.

It meant going to talk to
people and learn things.

And so yes, everybody can
write about everything.

But that doesn't mean
that you can get away

with doing it sloppily.

And if you do do
it sloppily, you

will be called out when you
deserve to be called out.

One of the things that
helped me actually,

One of the things that
helped me actually,

several years ago, I was asked,
actually by people working

with the Gates Foundation to
help to put together a book

project to write about the
HIV/AIDS problem in India.

I asked to stay in what is
now Mumbai, my old hometown,

to talk with the
transgender community,

in India, the hejira
community, which

I knew about from my
childhood, seen them around.

But I'd never, as a word,
got inside the community.

But I'd never, as a word,
got inside the community.

I spent a lot of time with
them in order to write a piece.

And the thing that interested
me is that they varied a lot.

Some of them were very hurt
and wounded and defensive.

And others were very
confident and kind of

activist and interested
in political activity

to improve their lot, to improve
the condition of the community.

Anyway, so there's a
spectrum of character types.

But the one thing
they all agreed on

But the one thing
they all agreed on

was that they wanted to
characterize themselves

as a third gender, that
they didn't see themselves

as men who had become women.

They saw themselves
as a third gender.

And they wanted to be
recognized as a third gender.

So that, I thought, gave
me a bit of a handle on it.

I thought, OK, well that's
how it works in that culture.

Let's see how it
works over here.

So what I'm saying
is the only answer

to how to get outside your
own skin is to go find out.

to how to get outside your
own skin is to go find out.

Go find out.

There are writers,
great writers,

for whom their immediate
world is enough.

And they can spend a
lifetime creating a body

of work of the highest quality.

One of the great examples
of this is William Faulkner.

There he is in
Oxford, Mississippi,

which is a small place.

which is a small place.

And yet, he makes a lifetime's
body of work, of great art,

from this tiny
patch of the earth.

But even there,
Faulkner, for example,

wrote very well
about the race issue

and was actually in
his time quite disliked

by quite a lot of white
people in Oxford because

of his sympathy towards
black people in Oxford

and how they were treated.

and how they were treated.

So even there, he
was able to perform

the act of empathetic
migration from his own skin

into the skin of another.

I think really, in the
end, the only thing one

can say is to, in Shakespeare's
words, to thine own self

be true.

If you feel that
what you have written

is as truthful and honest
as you can make it,

you're the best judge
of that, actually.

you're the best judge
of that, actually.

Again, of course you
can show it to people.

And I think if you're
at all worried about it,

then you should
show it to people.

And if they say that they
feel you've got things wrong,

then you should try
to correct them.

But in the end, the great
gamble of literature

is that you do it by yourself.

You do it by yourself.

And then you offer
it to the world.

And then you offer
it to the world.

And you hope that the
world will like it.

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