Rushdie Hits Out Again

Sadly, the man seems to be making a career out of rebuking those who've written less than flattering things about his work. Here he is on John Updike: "The thing that disappointed me most about Updike is that he did not say in that review [of Shalimar The Clown in The New Yorker] that he had just completed a novel about terrorism. He had to sweep me out of the way in order to make room for himself. I don't subscribe to the very predominantly English admiration of Updike. If you take away Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest, and some of the short stories, there's a lot of ... slightly ... garbage. Think of The Coup! The new one [Terrorist] is beyond awful. He should stay in his parochial neighbourhood and write about wife-swapping, because it's what he can do."