A cause worthy of support.

But Rushdie’s message is pants. Is the man incapable of writing a sentence without a comma? My message to Salman, in 64 words:

“Let’s make today International Plain English day. On this is day, I’ll try to use fewer commas. My sentences will contain just one clause. You should try it. Your tiered sentences are a problem. I’m not illiterate or stupid. But I’ve never finished one of your books. I feel your financial pain – book sales are probably slow and I’m not helping. Perhaps try harder?”

Richard,

You can’t have been trying particularly hard. I read The Satanic Verses a few weeks ago and besides being an excellent book, it was eminently readable.

For the record, i’m 17.

Its difficult to get ‘into’ the style. I found the first 20 pages of SV, Midnights Children and Shame all quiote difficult. But then, I rattled through. He’s a real page turner, IMO.

I’ve read Rushdie’s early work and found it funny, moving and – to be honest – easy to read. I’m not sure I got all his references but he’s no Joyce.

Read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master & Margarite before Satanic Verses and you’ll enjoy it more: they’re similar structurally though Bulgakov takes the Crucifixion as his springboard.

Actually, read Bulgakov even if you’ve no intention of reading Rushdie.

I’m not illiterate or stupid. But I’ve never finished one of your books. I feel your financial pain – book sales are probably slow and I’m not helping. Perhaps try harder?

Hah! I agree. I got bored of Midnight’s Children and I’ve never not finished a book about India!

I can’t believe they were able to pull this together in 6 days.

My experience in launching campaigning websites over the years has been so very different: more like 6 agonising days to come to a consensus on 64 words and long-winded soul searching over yellow vs. red…. and all the while time is ticking and the campaign’s potential for impact wanes.

Which in itself is not a tragedy, except that the big charities/NGOs tend to be the worst and it is painful to watch knowing that so many people on the outside place so much trust in them.

Burma Campaign deserve a big applause for this. An example to learn from.

… oh, and I didn’t know that Salman Rushdie shares a birthday with Aung San Suu Kyi and *me*!

aung san suu kyim should be released immediatelly because the burma regime humilates the
value of nobel and the desisions of norwegian nobel institute that the last period is being critisized in whole world for its very bad choises in the nobel of peace such as al gore, marti ahtisaari and henry kissinger .it is very logical other countries ion the world not to pay any attention to the choises of norwegian nobel institute because they vote usually people who support the american foreign policy and that had as aresult reactions all over the world that
makes west in the eyes of the the asian or african people very unpopular
the ballance that norwegian nobel institute kept for many years is being lost with last scandal the nomination of tony blair and bush jr by members of the norwegian parliament
and they had and the support of many politicians all over the world

http://www.arelis.gr
it contains erotonomicon that socked greek society with its anticolonial and violent almost pornografique context and the poems new york -olympia and exhibition of orthodromic retrospection