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

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you can immediately see
that there's a worldview out

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of which that work comes.

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They have a kind
of way of thinking

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about people and societies
which is their own.

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All of us, if we
really look inside,

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have a way we think
about the world.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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

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

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or by whatever it might be.

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But we all have a
picture of the world.

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We think the world is
like this and we live

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in that picture of the world.

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

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

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And if our picture
of the world breaks

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because the world
changes so much

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and the picture doesn't
seem to fit anymore,

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

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

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

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

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

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What would be in the
front of the picture?

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What would be in the background?

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What would be in the background?

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What would be in the
corners of the picture?

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For example, one
of the things which

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has helped me to uncover
how ordinary people lived

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in the past is to
look at great art.

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Often, at the center
of the painting,

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you'll see the main subject.

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That might be a courtly
lady or a wealthy patron

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of the arts or a politician.

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But if you look to the
corners of the frame,

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you'll see the everyday
people, the guy

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with the cart selling
loaves of bread

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or a store selling vegetables.

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Ordinary life is in the
corners of the frame.

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Ordinary life is in the
corners of the frame.

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And it can be very
helpful to see that.

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

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see what's in the middle.

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See what's in the background.

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See what's in the
corners of the frame.

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And gradually that
can become something

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like your picture of reality.

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And then you write out of that.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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

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

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez, nobody
else can write that stuff.

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

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view is so much his own.

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That's true also of Hemingway
and Fitzgerald and Toni

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Morrison and George Eliot,
any number of great writers.

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The thing that
characterizes that genius

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is that nobody else can do it.

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is that nobody else can do it.

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The reason they write
the way they write

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is because they are
the people they are.

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

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is because it sounds
like somebody else.

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Either it sounds clearly
like somebody else,

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

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or it feels like 100 people
could have written that.

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

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

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to a piece of writing.

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

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I could do that.

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So the more personal
and idiosyncratic it is,

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the more it will feel
authentically yours.

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

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

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

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

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

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and why.

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

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the unexamined life
is not worth living.

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Writers are people who
deeply examine their lives

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and ruthlessly.

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

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going to understand yourself.

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You have to go very deep.

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I mean, it's like a
personal psychoanalysis

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to examine your life until
you really understand

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to examine your life until
you really understand

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what motivates you
and what drives you

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and what hinders
you, what blocks you.

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

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

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

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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

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But sometimes in
order to write well,

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But sometimes in
order to write well,

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you need to increase
what you know.

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

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whose life experience
or whatever it may be,

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gender, race, is not yours.

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And that means getting
out of your chair.

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It means getting out
of your apartment.

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

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asking questions.

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It means listening to
people, rather than

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simply deciding for yourself
how those people would be,

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simply deciding for yourself
how those people would be,

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discovering, in other words.

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

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is, be sure that what
you know is interesting

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because these are students
who, in many cases,

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came from middle class
families in the suburbs.

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And there was an enormous amount
of writing about middle class

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families in the suburbs.

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And my dad doesn't
understand me.

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My mother gets angry too much.

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My mother gets angry too much.

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

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And there's just too much of it.

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And it was all kind
of exactly the same.

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

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it would be better if a
spaceship landed on the lawn

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because then there'd
be something enjoyable.

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When I first started
writing, I was

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very influenced in those
days by science fiction.

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

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

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

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populated by immortals.

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And it didn't work very well.

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

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And that's where I
thought that, OK,

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I would like to
write a novel arising

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I would like to
write a novel arising

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from my childhood in Bombay
just because I know it.

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And the thing that
interested me about it

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was that my generation in
India was the first generation

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for over two centuries
that had grown up

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without a colonial power, the
first generation of free people

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to be born in India
for over 200 years.

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

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but it's also an
unusual generation

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because it also was the
generation of transition

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out of colonialism
into the new world.

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out of colonialism
into the new world.

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I think many of the
writers that I most admire

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have this ability to
write about a very

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broad spectrum of society.

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So they're not
confined to any group.

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If you read Charles Dickens,
he can write about everybody

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from murderers and
pickpockets to prime ministers

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and archbishops and
everything in between,

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petty little
shopkeepers, everything.

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petty little
shopkeepers, everything.

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

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

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Dostoevsky used to
obsessively read the crime

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pages in the newspapers.

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And every book he ever
wrote is a murder story

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and very often
arising from something

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he found in the newspaper.

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He thought, let me
write about that.

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He thought, let me
write about that.

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You read a story in the
newspaper which says,

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student murders moneylender.

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

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

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from which he made
this great masterpiece.

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So I would suggest
that there is always--

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you will grow as a
person and as a writer

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by broadening your horizons.

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by broadening your horizons.

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

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

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The journey from
Manhattan to Nebraska

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is not like going
to the North Pole.

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But get out of the comfort zone.

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And the other thing to say
about that kind of travel

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

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you bring your world along.

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you bring your world along.

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If you go by
yourself, then you're

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just there exposed to
the world you're in.

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And the interaction is stranger
and often more surprising.

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If historical
novels attract you,

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find a period in
history that you

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

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Research is a kind of
journey all of its own.

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And you can find
things out that you

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would never in a million
years have dreamed

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would never in a million
years have dreamed

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of that are better than
anything you could have made up

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because one of the great
things about being a writer

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is that it's a long job.

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You don't have to retire.

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Nobody's going to fire you.

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

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

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

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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The question of
influence is important

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because all writers
have influences.

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Writing comes out of--

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

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and their own take on the world.

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But it also comes
out of their reading.

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It comes out of
the books that came

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before them and the books of
their contemporaries often.

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And influence can be
very, very helpful.

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And influence can be
very, very helpful.

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It can show you the way.

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When influence
becomes unhelpful is

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when it leads to imitation
because you will do something

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

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trying to imitate.

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And what I think happens
in a literary career--

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and I think of
influence as being like,

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

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

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

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And then the rocket
ship takes off.

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And the gantry falls away.

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And then the rocket
is just going.

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I think that's what it is.

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

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holds you in place.

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

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it falls away.

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

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

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influence you because
you're on your way,

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and you know where you're going.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I'm going to read
from this manuscript.

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

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

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anything.

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

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

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I wrote something like
a 300-page draft of it

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00:12:36,041 --> 00:12:40,361
and almost immediately
felt that it was a failure,

245
00:12:40,361 --> 00:12:44,521
and so much so that I
never showed it to anybody.

246
00:12:44,521 --> 00:12:46,531
I never revised it.

247
00:12:46,531 --> 00:12:48,901
I never offered it
for publication.

248
00:12:48,901 --> 00:12:50,811
I just put it away.

249
00:12:50,811 --> 00:12:54,381
From that day until this,
I've never held it in my hands

250
00:12:54,381 --> 00:12:55,251
again.

251
00:12:55,251 --> 00:12:58,521
And it's a book
that I think anybody

252
00:12:58,521 --> 00:13:00,021
who plows their way
through it would see

253
00:13:00,021 --> 00:13:01,131
who plows their way
through it would see

254
00:13:01,131 --> 00:13:07,341
is heavily influenced by Thomas
Pynchon, and in particular

255
00:13:07,341 --> 00:13:10,611
by "Gravity's
Rainbow," which anyway,

256
00:13:10,611 --> 00:13:12,411
is a very difficult book.

257
00:13:12,411 --> 00:13:17,121
And for me to attempt to
do something like that

258
00:13:17,121 --> 00:13:21,621
was perhaps doomed to failure.

259
00:13:21,621 --> 00:13:24,451
I should have known
better, but I didn't.

260
00:13:24,451 --> 00:13:30,021
But I learned by doing
it not to do it again.

261
00:13:30,021 --> 00:13:30,731
But I learned by doing
it not to do it again.

262
00:13:30,731 --> 00:13:33,311
It will begin with
a roll of drums

263
00:13:33,311 --> 00:13:37,921
and with a staring eye,
that much is certain.

264
00:13:37,921 --> 00:13:42,121
Sound without vision,
an apprehensive fanfare

265
00:13:42,121 --> 00:13:44,551
to the unknown,
modulating to vision

266
00:13:44,551 --> 00:13:48,791
without sound, the
mute, compromised wisdom

267
00:13:48,791 --> 00:13:50,641
of hindsight.

268
00:13:50,641 --> 00:13:54,511
But how to evaluate the scenes
in between, the middle ground,

269
00:13:54,511 --> 00:13:56,161
the development?

270
00:13:56,161 --> 00:14:00,021
How should he judge the
rightness of its resonances?

271
00:14:00,021 --> 00:14:00,151
How should he judge the
rightness of its resonances?

272
00:14:00,151 --> 00:14:03,301
The sky is nude today,
encasing his documentary

273
00:14:03,301 --> 00:14:07,331
in a very un-February
blue, a blank canvas,

274
00:14:07,331 --> 00:14:11,761
lacking character or definition,
devoid before genesis.

275
00:14:11,761 --> 00:14:14,861
He imagines a signature in
the corner, scrawled perhaps

276
00:14:14,861 --> 00:14:19,181
in factory sacks
near the horizon.

277
00:14:19,181 --> 00:14:22,601
Blank Sky Number
63, Andy Warhol.

278
00:14:22,601 --> 00:14:24,161
And smiles bitterly some.

279
00:14:24,161 --> 00:14:26,951
People get rich and
famous and respected

280
00:14:26,951 --> 00:14:30,021
by cracking bad jokes.

281
00:14:30,021 --> 00:14:30,181
by cracking bad jokes.

282
00:14:30,181 --> 00:14:32,521
You see, I don't even
know what that's about.

283
00:14:36,121 --> 00:14:40,381
And I think I'm just grateful
that I had the brains to put

284
00:14:40,381 --> 00:14:41,341
that away in a drawer.

285
00:14:41,341 --> 00:14:44,911
And that is the first
and last time in my life

286
00:14:44,911 --> 00:14:46,891
that I've ever read from it.

287
00:14:46,891 --> 00:14:51,361
I could see that what I'd
done was to be over-influenced

288
00:14:51,361 --> 00:14:53,611
and to fall into the
trap of imitation.

289
00:14:58,866 --> 00:15:00,021
The only way of
thinking about the book

290
00:15:00,021 --> 00:15:00,491
The only way of
thinking about the book

291
00:15:00,491 --> 00:15:03,921
was that it was a poor imitation
of the work of another writer.

292
00:15:03,921 --> 00:15:06,491
At least my shit
detector was working.

293
00:15:06,491 --> 00:15:09,981
It told me, don't do
any more with this.

294
00:15:09,981 --> 00:15:12,551
And I put it aside.

295
00:15:12,551 --> 00:15:16,401
And from that day to this,
I've never looked at it again.

296
00:15:16,401 --> 00:15:17,411
But here we are.

297
00:15:17,411 --> 00:15:19,211
I've now read a
paragraph of it loud.

298
00:15:19,211 --> 00:15:21,559
[MUSIC PLAYING]

299
00:15:26,041 --> 00:15:29,971
What happens with most
writers is that you start off

300
00:15:29,971 --> 00:15:30,021
with a world you know.

301
00:15:30,021 --> 00:15:31,411
with a world you know.

302
00:15:31,411 --> 00:15:34,771
And you can write about that.

303
00:15:34,771 --> 00:15:38,631
At a certain point,
you may find or you

304
00:15:38,631 --> 00:15:41,541
may begin to feel
that you've exhausted

305
00:15:41,541 --> 00:15:45,251
that material, that you don't
have anything new to say.

306
00:15:45,251 --> 00:15:48,701
And that's where I think
it helps to, in a way,

307
00:15:48,701 --> 00:15:53,261
take on some of the
skills of the journalist

308
00:15:53,261 --> 00:15:58,781
and to just set yourself to the
business of learning the world.

309
00:15:58,781 --> 00:16:00,021
To give just one example
from my own experience,

310
00:16:00,021 --> 00:16:02,021
To give just one example
from my own experience,

311
00:16:02,021 --> 00:16:06,671
in my novel, "The Golden
House," which is set primarily

312
00:16:06,671 --> 00:16:09,551
in New York City, one of
the things I wanted to do

313
00:16:09,551 --> 00:16:14,911
was to write a character who
was thinking about a gender

314
00:16:14,911 --> 00:16:19,231
transition, thinking about
transitioning, and very

315
00:16:19,231 --> 00:16:23,361
conflicted about it, not at
all sure what they wanted to do

316
00:16:23,361 --> 00:16:27,439
or indeed who they
were or wanted to be.

317
00:16:27,439 --> 00:16:30,021
And this is not my personal
life experience, you know?

318
00:16:30,021 --> 00:16:30,981
And this is not my personal
life experience, you know?

319
00:16:30,981 --> 00:16:34,701
I needed to know much more about
it than just a couple of people

320
00:16:34,701 --> 00:16:39,061
that I happened to anecdotally
know in my own life.

321
00:16:39,061 --> 00:16:41,421
So that meant going to find out.

322
00:16:41,421 --> 00:16:45,721
It meant going to talk to
people and learn things.

323
00:16:45,721 --> 00:16:50,149
And so yes, everybody can
write about everything.

324
00:16:50,149 --> 00:16:51,941
But that doesn't mean
that you can get away

325
00:16:51,941 --> 00:16:53,951
with doing it sloppily.

326
00:16:53,951 --> 00:16:55,991
And if you do do
it sloppily, you

327
00:16:55,991 --> 00:16:58,501
will be called out when you
deserve to be called out.

328
00:16:58,501 --> 00:17:00,021
One of the things that
helped me actually,

329
00:17:00,021 --> 00:17:00,341
One of the things that
helped me actually,

330
00:17:00,341 --> 00:17:05,151
several years ago, I was asked,
actually by people working

331
00:17:05,151 --> 00:17:09,981
with the Gates Foundation to
help to put together a book

332
00:17:09,981 --> 00:17:13,431
project to write about the
HIV/AIDS problem in India.

333
00:17:13,431 --> 00:17:18,380
I asked to stay in what is
now Mumbai, my old hometown,

334
00:17:18,380 --> 00:17:21,620
to talk with the
transgender community,

335
00:17:21,620 --> 00:17:24,291
in India, the hejira
community, which

336
00:17:24,291 --> 00:17:29,601
I knew about from my
childhood, seen them around.

337
00:17:29,601 --> 00:17:30,021
But I'd never, as a word,
got inside the community.

338
00:17:30,021 --> 00:17:32,601
But I'd never, as a word,
got inside the community.

339
00:17:32,601 --> 00:17:36,591
I spent a lot of time with
them in order to write a piece.

340
00:17:36,591 --> 00:17:41,721
And the thing that interested
me is that they varied a lot.

341
00:17:41,721 --> 00:17:44,661
Some of them were very hurt
and wounded and defensive.

342
00:17:44,661 --> 00:17:47,001
And others were very
confident and kind of

343
00:17:47,001 --> 00:17:51,711
activist and interested
in political activity

344
00:17:51,711 --> 00:17:55,621
to improve their lot, to improve
the condition of the community.

345
00:17:55,621 --> 00:17:57,711
Anyway, so there's a
spectrum of character types.

346
00:17:57,711 --> 00:18:00,021
But the one thing
they all agreed on

347
00:18:00,021 --> 00:18:01,183
But the one thing
they all agreed on

348
00:18:01,183 --> 00:18:03,141
was that they wanted to
characterize themselves

349
00:18:03,141 --> 00:18:07,011
as a third gender, that
they didn't see themselves

350
00:18:07,011 --> 00:18:10,161
as men who had become women.

351
00:18:10,161 --> 00:18:11,991
They saw themselves
as a third gender.

352
00:18:11,991 --> 00:18:14,841
And they wanted to be
recognized as a third gender.

353
00:18:14,841 --> 00:18:17,851
So that, I thought, gave
me a bit of a handle on it.

354
00:18:17,851 --> 00:18:21,791
I thought, OK, well that's
how it works in that culture.

355
00:18:21,791 --> 00:18:24,821
Let's see how it
works over here.

356
00:18:24,821 --> 00:18:27,611
So what I'm saying
is the only answer

357
00:18:27,611 --> 00:18:30,021
to how to get outside your
own skin is to go find out.

358
00:18:30,021 --> 00:18:33,861
to how to get outside your
own skin is to go find out.

359
00:18:33,861 --> 00:18:34,731
Go find out.

360
00:18:34,731 --> 00:18:38,381
There are writers,
great writers,

361
00:18:38,381 --> 00:18:43,851
for whom their immediate
world is enough.

362
00:18:43,851 --> 00:18:47,541
And they can spend a
lifetime creating a body

363
00:18:47,541 --> 00:18:51,091
of work of the highest quality.

364
00:18:51,091 --> 00:18:54,951
One of the great examples
of this is William Faulkner.

365
00:18:54,951 --> 00:18:57,561
There he is in
Oxford, Mississippi,

366
00:18:57,561 --> 00:19:00,021
which is a small place.

367
00:19:00,021 --> 00:19:00,151
which is a small place.

368
00:19:00,151 --> 00:19:06,631
And yet, he makes a lifetime's
body of work, of great art,

369
00:19:06,631 --> 00:19:09,121
from this tiny
patch of the earth.

370
00:19:09,121 --> 00:19:13,731
But even there,
Faulkner, for example,

371
00:19:13,731 --> 00:19:17,321
wrote very well
about the race issue

372
00:19:17,321 --> 00:19:21,821
and was actually in
his time quite disliked

373
00:19:21,821 --> 00:19:24,941
by quite a lot of white
people in Oxford because

374
00:19:24,941 --> 00:19:28,691
of his sympathy towards
black people in Oxford

375
00:19:28,691 --> 00:19:30,021
and how they were treated.

376
00:19:30,021 --> 00:19:30,761
and how they were treated.

377
00:19:30,761 --> 00:19:33,641
So even there, he
was able to perform

378
00:19:33,641 --> 00:19:38,021
the act of empathetic
migration from his own skin

379
00:19:38,021 --> 00:19:39,761
into the skin of another.

380
00:19:39,761 --> 00:19:44,811
I think really, in the
end, the only thing one

381
00:19:44,811 --> 00:19:48,651
can say is to, in Shakespeare's
words, to thine own self

382
00:19:48,651 --> 00:19:49,581
be true.

383
00:19:49,581 --> 00:19:53,211
If you feel that
what you have written

384
00:19:53,211 --> 00:19:57,351
is as truthful and honest
as you can make it,

385
00:19:57,351 --> 00:20:00,021
you're the best judge
of that, actually.

386
00:20:00,021 --> 00:20:00,381
you're the best judge
of that, actually.

387
00:20:00,381 --> 00:20:03,481
Again, of course you
can show it to people.

388
00:20:03,481 --> 00:20:08,291
And I think if you're
at all worried about it,

389
00:20:08,291 --> 00:20:10,181
then you should
show it to people.

390
00:20:10,181 --> 00:20:14,801
And if they say that they
feel you've got things wrong,

391
00:20:14,801 --> 00:20:18,171
then you should try
to correct them.

392
00:20:18,171 --> 00:20:22,751
But in the end, the great
gamble of literature

393
00:20:22,751 --> 00:20:26,441
is that you do it by yourself.

394
00:20:26,441 --> 00:20:27,761
You do it by yourself.

395
00:20:27,761 --> 00:20:30,021
And then you offer
it to the world.

396
00:20:30,021 --> 00:20:30,231
And then you offer
it to the world.

397
00:20:30,231 --> 00:20:32,981
And you hope that the
world will like it.

398
00:20:32,981 --> 00:20:35,521
[MUSIC PLAYING]