Reason #482 Why Salman Rushdie is a Colossal Douchebag

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 4, 2008 
Filed Under Rushdie, Salman

Los Angeles Times: “It was as a puckish media figure rather than as that ‘employee’ that he attended Vanity Fair’s post-Oscar party and met Robert Altman — one of Rushdie’s proudest moments. ‘Late that night,’ Rushdie said, ‘I found him leaning against a bench at the side of the room, cradling his Academy Award. I sat down next to him and said hi. And I said, ‘Can I hold your Oscar?’ He said, ‘It’s bad luck, you know. . . . If you hold someone else’s Oscar you’ll never win your own.’ I said, ‘Give me the damn Oscar.’ So I held Bob’s Oscar. He died a few months later. It was the last time I’d seen him.’”

Comments

5 Responses to “Reason #482 Why Salman Rushdie is a Colossal Douchebag”

  1. Edward Yang on July 4th, 2008 12:23 pm

    Write the other 481 reasons and you got yourself a book that I will gladly fork over 23.99 for. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children excepted, is the most overrated writer of the last 30 years. I find him unreadable, his prose as pompous as he is.

  2. LouisBranning on July 4th, 2008 1:47 pm

    “Overrated”, “unreadable”, “pompous”, yeah, Edward Y., you’ve totally nailed SR.

  3. James on July 4th, 2008 5:52 pm

    I don’t know the extent of Rushdie’s douchebaggery, but is this anecdote really supposed to illustrate it? Altman clearly suggests it’s bad luck for Rushdie to hold someone else’s Oscar, but he does it anyway because he doesn’t care about his own odds of winning one. One of his proudest moments is meeting Robert Altman on Oscar night, so that makes him a douche?

  4. James Marcus on July 4th, 2008 11:35 pm

    With two truly great novels under his belt (that would be “Midnight’s Children” and “Shame”), I don’t think Rushdie needs to worry about your spitballs, folks. I agree that his subsequent work has failed to match that one-two punch. But does he really deserve a flogging for palpating somebody else’s Oscar? It’s not a crime.

  5. Noelle on July 11th, 2008 1:03 pm

    That curse is totally true, you know. When he was in his 40’s, my grandpa got to hold someone else’s Oscar. Fifty-three years later, he was dead.

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