Would anybody object if I tried to use this thread as a general-purpose Rushdie thread? I checked google and this seems to me to be the most likely candidate. If a new or different thread seems more appropriate and somebody could let me know, I'd be happy to re-post.
I'm reading the short story "The Prophet's Hair" for school and was curious to see what others thought of it. I know of Rushdie's work in a vague way, but this is my first time reading it for myself. The basic story is that a holy relic is stolen and then abandoned by the thieves in the ensuing tumult. It brings bad luck to everyone who crosses its path, including the family of a wealthy moneylender. Longer description of the story here, with spoilers, though I don't think it's a story much spoiled by knowing what happens.
There are a lot of cultural and religious references in the story, and it seems to try to work on so many different levels (as comedy, as moral tale, as fantasy) that I was a little uncertain where to start. One question that came to mind early was about the role of authenticity. The notion of a hair as relic made me think of the bits of the true cross that are purported to exist. How would one authenticate them, and does it matter? Phil Dick has this great bit in "The Man in the High Castle" about historicity:
She said, "What is 'historicity'?"
"When a think has history in it. Listen. One of those two lighters was in Franklin D. Roosevelt's pocket when he was assassinated. And one wasn't. One has historicity, a hell of a lot of it. As much as any object ever had. And one has nothing. Can you feel it?" He nudged her.
The speaker goes on to make his point by producing documentation verifying the authenticity of the lighter:
From the wall he took the Smithsonian Institution's framed certificate; the paper and the lighter had cost him a fortune, but they were worth it -- because they enabled him to prove that he was right, that the word "fake" meant nothing really, since the word "authentic" meant nothing really.
And yet, the moneylender and his family are profoundly affected by the relic, whether or not it is possible to authenticate it. The notion of the force of belief is treated a little more fully in this article (not sure who Fiona Richards is, this is just something I found online while poking around):
PDF of "The Desecrated Shrine: Movable Icons and Literary Irreverence in Salman Rushdie's 'The Prophet's Hair'"
She says of the act of looking behind the facades of icons:
What is hidden may be nothing, as in Baudrillard's formation, but conversely may be the ability to represent different interests in a potent appearance of absolute truth.
So I'm wondering what roles proofs, authenticity, and beliefs play in this story. Has anybody else read it? Do these themes come up in his other work? There's an article of Rushdie's called "Imaginary Homelands" that gets quoted a lot by people discussing this story, so I'm going to try to find that and read it as well. |
