All language subtitles for Masterclass Salman Rushdie Teaches Storytelling and Writing - 13.Building a Surrealist Story

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SALMAN RUSHDIE:
"Lurching back until he

knelt with his head
once more upright,

he found that the tears
which had sprung to his eyes

had solidified, too.

And at that moment, as he
brushed diamonds contemptuously

from his lashes, he
resolved never again

to kiss earth for
any God or man.

The decision, however,
made a hole in him.

A vacancy in a
vital inner chamber,

leaving him vulnerable
to women and history."

leaving him vulnerable
to women and history."

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There are many ways
of telling the truth.

You can tell the
truth by fantasy,

or you can tell the
truth by social realism--

my kitchen sink realism.

The truth I'm talking about is
the truth about human beings.

The truth I'm talking about is
the truth about human beings.

About how we act towards each
other, what kind of worlds

we build, what crimes do we
commit against each other.

How do we mistreat each other,
and how do we love each other.

That's what the novel
is trying to do.

What we now think of
as the realist novel

I think was based--

it emerged in a
period of time when

there wasn't so
much of an argument

about the nature of reality.

In the 18th and 19th
centuries, writers

In the 18th and 19th
centuries, writers

writing in England,
and America, and France

could broadly speaking assume
that their vision of the world

was shared by their readers.

That the idea of what
the real world was

was something about which
there wasn't an argument.

There was a kind of
consensus about that.

Having said that,
that realist novel--

that consensus we
now can see was based

that consensus we
now can see was based

on avoiding certain things.

It very often avoided
questions like race,

it very often diminished the
world view of poorer people,

or within it--

there were all kinds of things
omitted from that consensus.

But it was solid,
and it allowed people

to build these great
edifices of realism on it.

to build these great
edifices of realism on it.

Now we live in a
world in which reality

is very, very contested.

You know, one man's ceiling
is another man's floor.

One man's truth is
another man's fake news.

And there's an argument
about reality--

about what is true,
what is untrue,

what is right, what is wrong.

Surrealism is a thing which
begins with the premise

Surrealism is a thing which
begins with the premise

that we know that this
is all make believe.

We know that these
people don't exist,

and these things never happened.

And, therefore,
there's no reason

to confine ourselves to things
that would happen in real life.

You know, because we're
in the world of dreams.

We're in the world
of imagination.

As I say, the thing
about surrealism

is that it is not an
escape from the real.

is that it is not an
escape from the real.

It's another way of
describing the real

and sometimes can
have the effect

of being more powerful than
that a naturalistic description

of the real.

It has had more emotional
force, if you do it right.

Put it like this, if
the carpet needs to fly,

then let the carpet fly.

Maybe that the flying carpet
is the best way of getting

where you need to go.

Magic realism is a
form of literature

that draws from both the
real and the surreal.

The reason I slightly object
to the term "magic realism,"

The reason I slightly object
to the term "magic realism,"

I think it belongs
to a certain group

of Latin American writers
working from the late '50s

to the '70s.

And they had a sort of project.

And they had things in common
that they were trying to do.

And I think the term
is best left to them.

You could say that Kafka
is a magic realist.

You know, people turn into bugs.

In Russian literature,
you have Mikhail Bulgakov.

In Russian literature,
you have Mikhail Bulgakov.

You know, "The
Master and Margarita"

is a novel about the
devil coming to Moscow

and wreaking havoc.

French surrealism, Latin
American magic realism,

North American fabulism--

they're really
all the same thing

with coming out of different
cultural backgrounds.

This idea that you don't have
to have imitative naturalism

This idea that you don't have
to have imitative naturalism

as a way of telling a story.

What I think happens when people
use the term "magic realism,"

is that they only
hear the word "magic."

They don't hear
the word "realism."

And so they think it's some
kind of a fantasy novel.

But the way in which
it works at its best

is when it has deep
roots in reality.

When the author
really understands

the truth of the world
he's writing about

and then uses these techniques
to heighten that truth

and then uses these techniques
to heighten that truth

and intensify it.

And so sometimes it feels
more truthful than realism,

because of that
intensification that

can be achieved through the
use of these surrealistic

techniques.

I mean, I remember, for example
when "Midnight's Children" came

out, most people in the
West praised it as a--

as a kind of fantastic novel.

It was a novel of using
elements of the fantastic.

It was a novel of using
elements of the fantastic.

When people read it in
India, they read it almost

like a history book.

You know, because they knew
that everything in that book

actually has its roots in things
that actually have happened

and that do happen.

The fact that they understood
what I was trying to do

and saw it as real,
was important.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If you're going to deviate
from naturalistic realism,

If you're going to deviate
from naturalistic realism,

that has to be a part of your
initial concept of the story.

It doesn't just happen.

In a way, it's kind of central
to the conception of the story.

Because it affects
how you write it.

And it would be very
strange to write

a novel which was
realistic and then suddenly

a novel which was
realistic and then suddenly

changed into something else.

So I think, yeah, you do
have to make that decision

to begin with and think
about the implications

of that decision.

How far are you
going to go with it?

How fantastic is it going to be?

What rules, if you like--
what are the rules of realism

that you're going to break?

And why?

Because then that becomes
a part of your agreement

Because then that becomes
a part of your agreement

with the reader.

That you're saying
to the reader,

it's going to be
this kind of story.

And then people go, OK, then I'm
ready for that kind of story.

If you know that you're going
to tell a story about a boy who

finds a wonderful lamp, and rubs
it, and the genie comes out,

you have to be,
from the beginning,

you have to be,
from the beginning,

telling a story in
which that's possible.

So that there are--

I mean, in the story of
"Aladdin," there are magicians

and so on before we get
to the lamp, you know?

And the lamp just becomes
the most magical thing

that happens.

But we know that we're
in a world in which magic

is possible.

So, again, you're making an
agreement with the reader

that you're going to tell
them certain kind of story.

And I think that's best-- it
is best done like straight off.

And I think that's best-- it
is best done like straight off.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So this is the opening
of "The Satanic Verses,"

a long novel, but many things.

"'To be born again,' sang
Gibreel Farishta tumbling from

the heavens.

'first you have to die.

Ho Ji!

Ho Ji!

To land upon the bosomy
earth, first one needs to fly.

To land upon the bosomy
earth, first one needs to fly.

Tat-taa!

Taka-thun!

How would you ever smile
again if first you won't cry?

How to win the darling's
love, mister, without a sigh?

Baba, if you want to get born
again--' Just before dawn one

winter's morning, New Year's
day or thereabouts, two real,

full-grown, living men
fell from a great height,

29,002 feet towards
the English Channel,

29,002 feet towards
the English Channel,

without benefit of parachutes
or wings out of a clear sky."

The opening sentence of this
book arrived relatively late.

And I found myself
writing the scene

about this terrorist
attack on a plane.

And I suddenly thought, you
know, this doesn't belong here

in the middle.

It belongs at the beginning.

And that sentence
actually goes with this.

And then I had the idea that--

And then I had the idea that--

sort of surreal
idea that Gibreel,

one of the two men
falling from the sky,

would actually be
singing as he falls

and that would be one of
the lines of the song.

So it was a beginning
that I found.

And I just thought it's
such a big, dramatic scene.

And what follows
from the explosion

is something
impossible, which is

that these two men,
who are the two

major characters
of the novel, have

major characters
of the novel, have

got to make a soft landing on a
beach in the South of England.

And so I suppose it's
my way of saying,

this is going to be
a book which contains

this kind of fabulist element.

That people can fall 30,000 feet
and land unharmed on the Earth.

That people can fall 30,000 feet
and land unharmed on the Earth.

And we'll proceed from
that starting point.

So it starts in a way
with an impossible thing.

And if you buy that, if you
accept that as the reader,

then you are ready for
everything that follows.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There are kinds of writing which
move outside the human race.

There's science fiction,
there's fantasy.

There are moments when a jinn--

There are moments when a jinn--

genie-- will appear in
the lives of human beings.

And so the question is what do
we do about little green men

from Mars?

How do we write about them?

And either you can
decide that this--

you have to think in
like species terms.

You have to start thinking
that, OK, if there

is a world inhabited
by the jinn, what

is a world inhabited
by the jinn, what

are the characteristics
of that world?

How does that world
differ from our world?

And how do they live
there amongst themselves?

And then what is their
view about human beings?

Because you know they are
immortal, they can fly,

they can grant wishes.

They're powerful.

Do they think of us as feeble?

Do they think of us as inferior?

Do they think of us as inferior?

Or do they envy us
because we have capacities

that they don't have?

Such as emotion,
the ability to feel.

There's very, very few books
which are only about aliens,

but there's no
human beings at all.

So you need to work that out.

You need to think
how they will behave,

if they found themselves
in a room with people.

if they found themselves
in a room with people.

How would people react to them?

Are we afraid of them?

Are we prejudiced against them?

Is it a kind of racism--

interspecies racism?

I mean, one of the great
forms of science fiction

is a thing called the
First Contact story.

That story about the first
time that human beings meet

an intelligence from elsewhere.

"Close Encounters of the Third
Kind" is a first contact story.

How do we deal with the moment
that the spaceship lands?

How do we deal with the moment
that the spaceship lands?

And do they come in peace?

There are some absolutely
brilliant first contact

stories, one of which I
used in my recent book,

because it's about a spaceship
that's arriving on Earth.

And it makes visual contact with
kind of mission control down

on Earth.

And they look exactly like us.

But when they arrive on
Earth, they drown in a puddle

because they're about this big.

And the whole story is about
how on a television screen,

And the whole story is about
how on a television screen,

you don't know what
scale people are.

I mean, I'm all for aliens
landing on the lawn.

I think if you have a sort of
quiet suburban novel about life

in the suburbs, family--

somebody mowing the lawn
and the children misbehave,

the teenage children
misbehaving,

it becomes much more
interesting if a spaceship

lands on the lawn.

So I recommend it.

[CHUCKLES]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There's something that can go
wrong with this highly imagined

writing.

There's a danger of what
I would call silliness.

Sometimes it just sounds dumb.

And readers are very,
very sharp about that.

And if what you're doing seems
to be indulgent and foolish,

they will really notice that.

they will really notice that.

And the thing is always
to try and keep close

to the emotional
truth of the moments.

To give you an example,
there's a moment in García

Márquez's novel, "100
Years of Solitude,"

where one of the characters
shoots himself and kills

himself.

And what García Márquez tells
us is that the blood flows down

And what García Márquez tells
us is that the blood flows down

to the floor, flows out under
the door into the street,

makes a turn, looks left and
right before crossing the road,

makes its way through the
town, and arrives in his

mother's kitchen at her feet.

And then she knows
her son is dead.

Now, obviously, this is a
completely surrealistic image.

Blood doesn't behave like that.

Blood doesn't behave like that.

But what he's doing is to
use the metaphor of the blood

to tell us about the
news of the son's death

reaching his mother.

And so we feel it as true.

Because, of course, that's
emotionally very powerful thing

to happen.

So, again, there we
completely go along

with the surrealism of it,
because the emotional truth

with the surrealism of it,
because the emotional truth

is right there.

So that's when it works.

But that's when it works.

When it doesn't work is when
it's just whimsical and just

for the sake of it.

Somebody turns into a frog.

So what?

And you have to really look
out for the "so what" response.

That if what you're
doing doesn't in some way

That if what you're
doing doesn't in some way

show you the truth of the
characters, then it's just--

then it's just done
for the sake of it.

And it's not interesting.

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