Salman Rushdie and Friends in Conversation: The Only Subject is Love

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Novelist Sir Salman Rushdie, Emory professor Dr. Deepika Bahri, filmmaker Deepa Mehta and writer Christopher Hitchens discuss love, sex, writing, stories and friendship. The conversation was inspired by Rushdie's assertion in his 1999 essay on the anniversary of the fatwa that "love feels more and more like the only subject."
'The Only Subject is Love' Symposium was staged in honor of the opening of Salman Rushdie's archive at Emory University on February 26, 2010.
www.emory.edu/rushdie

[@seckhoffable]

I love how Hitch mixes really bad jokes into brilliant commentary.

[@BreninBoncyn]

Horrible news coming out from New York right now. I immediately thought of this conversation. Love must prevail.

[@Basil_Hallward]

If i ever want to have a laugh I peruse the internet for some Hitch-Rushdie combo. These are strange times indeed.

[@monsieurhassan]

The poem was "The Walrus and the carpenter" by Lewis Carroll, its funny how quickly I remembered it instantly having read it somewhere

[@christopherpardell4418]

I am reminded of someone telling Joni Mitchel how much they treasured her love songs, and Joni replying that she didn’t really write love songs, that she always thought of them more as “scene of the crime” songs.

[@TristanM2013]

At the end of the video I felt a genuine urge to clap with the crowd and remembered I wasn't there

[@kittycatcarley]

Very lovely discussion about love.

[@lankstephens6374]

Although I've read quite a few Rushdie novels, have always supported him (and find the stabbing horrific and tragic and wish him all the best), I am critical of his unkind comments about Wim Winders starting at 6min22s. First he would have us believe that Wenders merely adopts his woman's set of beliefs as a chameleon might; what an odd and ungracious thing to impute to a man and artist of intelligence! Then he notes a period when Wenders thought art should be un-ironic, no doubt a stance in defiance of Tarantino and David Lynch ("Pulp Fiction" and "Wild at Heart," for instance, have an underlying irony, a tongue-in-cheek and self-referential quality which ultimately does not present its characters seriously). Rushdie asks Wenders about "Wings of Desire," perhaps the best film of that decade, because he thinks it an ironic premise that angels should want to be human. Wenders corrects him of this wrong notion, and Rushdie admits this made him angry, mad enough to satirize Wenders in his novel (the audience, inscrutably, found this whole anecdote funny and laughed all the way through it, no doubt thinking themselves also to be so far above the silly man Wenders who understands characters as serious, earnest, passionate, authentic, spiritual). Not Rushdie's finest moment...

[@Mike3303]

Salman Rushdie...the master of impressions?

[@AA-69]

Have you ever seen Hitch so quiet... But aren't we all in the company of our hero's ? 🥃Slange

[@fubintien]

A perfect ending to a great conversation.

[@tonyyounan9013]

Love isn't appreciated without it's opposite.

[@matimus100]

Hitchens if you (hate) you don't understand. Dislike is a better term.

[@kaspakingx3413]

The Christian Bible emphasizes love that one must love everyone indiscriminately, yet it imposed a fidelity kind of love on a partner, or their god seems relatively contradicting. First is their concept of fidelity, or to love only one partner (absolutely). Saying that it is immoral to break an oath to one's partner even if a falling out is evident (this precede legal adjudication; the legality of love does not constitute immorality, hence, divorce. In our contemporary, the Catholic church repudiate this concept). This also foreshadows the concept of monotheism, that you can only love one god as stated in the Bible, which is instead a contradicting element of his view (their deity) of an ever-loving god. Meaning he is declaring to you that you must love everyone and everything indiscriminately, yet, not another point of view, i.e., gods. Thus, defeating the concept and the purpose of Christianity's version of love (an ever-loving god), stating that fidelity is absolute yet also implies to love everyone indiscriminately.

[@ToThoseWhoVanished]

vid doesn't play

[@ashleylovesdaddy]

12 weeks is "3" months approximately. Just sayin'.

[@muralipat6305]

If there no hate, violence, there is no need for saints and God and Human beings kill each other in the name of God.

[@Br1an.J]

As unpopular as this may be because i admire hitch very much his attentp at loving god as the precursor to sadomasochism is a little much, too nihilistic

[@tyleranyways]

31:50

[@matimus100]

Praying or Karma doesn't save innocent women and children's lives anywhere in the world 🌎 That's false love for starter's.

[@josee4283]

this is hilarious

[@GreatMan_from_East]

It's just small time before Christopher Hitchens discovered that he has Cancer

[@jadaco8920]

He doesn't look so well

[@KnowThyself619]

Two walking libraries.

[@AnhTuPhucDerrickHoangCanada]

What's an Emory virgin? A laff

[@SandeepKulshrestha]

Mr Rushdie mourns the domestication of love. It may be true but people have to work on relationships. One can't leave his wife because she has a gynecological issue (he divorced Padma for that or for lack of sex). The people who are forever in love and let the relationship be nurtured are great people. Such intellectuals have double standards and have all the reasons in the world to justify infidelity. He also says we don't have to know our neighbours. Well that also nurtures a self obsessed cocooned narcissistic point of view.

[@foxandscout]

1. You are simplifying Rushdi’s relationship to gossip from his (ex)wife’s very vocal complaints to the media. They were together for several years: plenty of time to “work on the relationship”-and you have no evidence that they didn’t. Here say doesn’t count. Perhaps she was no longer attracted to him. Then it smacks of rejection and hurt and becomes an unsustainable marriage. Second, Rushie said you don’t have to know your neighbor when living in a big city. Those of us who e.g., live in a large apartment building in a city know that if there is desire/need for privacy or no time to chat to random folks, it’s vital to try to Not know the neighbors or their “friendliness” can quickly become intrusive and time-stealing. And if one gets to know a next door neighbor and discovers -maybe both have this reaction-an unpleasant unlikable person, that is sure to compromise one’s peaceful living with unwanted negative emotions. Interesting how you use Rushie (last name) but Padma (first name). You support her badmouthing her ex-husband, but at the same time do not give her the same respect (by not addressing her formally as you do him): it smacks of innate sexism. Finally, “people let a relationship be nurtured” is a passive act. I’m going to assume you meant to say that people who are happy in longterm relationships are proactive and “nurture the relationship.”

[@clarkanorak]

Deepa Mehta is waaaayyyy out of her league.

[@josee4283]

or just bored

[@LukasOfTheLight]

I wonder if this attitude comes from the fact that she is probably way out of yours.

[@ph03n1xamb1t]

A Stratfordian element. What a plonker

[@AnhTuPhucDerrickHoangCanada]

I must say it's a beautiful setting for the devil ☺️😈

[@AnhTuPhucDerrickHoangCanada]

Makes ordinary woman look like crab apples