30 MARCH 1996, Page 21

AND ANOTHER THING

The pot of caviare, the Rushdie Affair and the last of the Leavisites

PAUL JOHNSON

he current controversy over literary biography has led some to claim that read- ers are more interested nowadays in writ- ers' lives than in their works. But it is a fact that an episode in the first can transform the understanding of the second. A case in point is Salman Rushdie, probably the most important novelist alive today.

It has hitherto been assumed that the ori- gins of the 'Rushdie Affair' were exclusive- ly religious. But recent research points to a literary factor as well. Professor Dagmar Eliot of Ann Arbor, investigating literary Paris in the third quarter of the 20th centu- ry, has unearthed an unknown aspect of the life of the Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini during his long exile, most of which was spent at 206 rue de Vaugirard. It has long been known that the Ayatollah had a taste for French literature, and in particular for the works of Balzac — he is said to have been the only Persian to have read the whole of La Comedie Humaine — but it comes as a surprise to learn that he sought to master English letters too.

It is important to the story to know that Khomeini came from the seaport of Gomishan, on the south-east shores of the Caspian. Caviare from the sturgeon caught in the waters near Gomishan, known as Mugaz caviare, is highly prized, though available only in small quantities. Followers of the Ayatollah, however, ensured that he received a plentiful supply throughout his exile. When he expressed a desire to learn English, to explore, as he quaintly put it, 'the imaginative riches of Protestant tale- tellers', Paris friends put him in touch with the playwright Samuel Beckett, then living not far from the Ayatollah's apartment. Beckett had taken language pupils in his youth, like his great mentor James Joyce, but the belated success of Waiting for Godot had made such work unnecessary, and at first he turned down the request. The pre- sent of a substantial pot of Mugaz changed his mind. For Beckett, though austere in most of his tastes, had a passion for caviare, and Mugaz was (and still is) unobtainable in Paris, even at Fauchon, the specialist grocers in the Place de la Madeleine. When Beckett understood that a regular supply would be forthcoming —that he would, in fact, be paid in Mugaz — he warmly under- took to give Khomeini weekly lessons. As Professor Eliot notes (his findings are published in the spring issue of Critical Comments, available from Yale University Press), these lessons proceeded satisfactori- ly so far as learning English was concerned. But Khomeini's prime motive was to get to know the great English novelists, and he became increasingly uncomfortable with Beckett's insistence that they confine them- selves exclusively to the works of Joyce. The Ayatollah enjoyed Dubliners, and he delighted in the Portrait of an Artist, espe- cially the descriptions of hell-fire sermons, but he was baffled and irritated by Ulysses, and disgusted by Molly Bloom's musings. Finally, when Beckett made it clear that they would henceforth confine their read- ing entirely to Finnegans Wake, Khomeini drew the line. He declared it to be less comprehensible even than the most dense of the Sufi mystical fragments, and not worth grasping even when Beckett labori- ously explained the meaning. So the lessons, and the supply of Mugaz, abruptly ceased.

The Ayatollah's encounter with Beckett, however, left him with an abiding distaste for narrative obscurity, which had striking consequences after his Paris exile ended and he returned to triumph and power in Iran. Naturally, the foundation of an Islam- ic state at home, and the conduct of the war against the Great Satan abroad, occupied most of his energies. But he contrived to sustain his efforts to master the English novel and he subscribed to the London Review of Books, even when Iran's growing foreign currency shortage made this diffi- cult. He laboriously progressed through the works of Miss Ivy Compton-Burnett, declaring himself pleased with what he termed 'their insistent, though subtle, moral pleading' and their distinctive plots. He often quoted the Shiraz poet Bandar Haji Abbas (1623-79), who remarked, 'The storyteller, like the ploughman, best follows a clear line.'

Unfortunately, the cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy in London, even before 'This no fault business takes all the fun out of divorce.' the final breach in diplomatic relations, failed to cater for the Ayatollah's tastes. He continued to send him examples of what the old man called 'the accursed school of Amis and Barnes'. An unavailing attempt to grasp the plot of Midnight's Children rubbed salt into his wounds, and when The Satanic Verses turned up in the bag the Ayatollah's literary patience fatally snapped. The arguably blasphemous nature of its contents did not escape him, and of course was the pretext for the fatwa he issued. But it was his inability to make sense of the plot — if there was a plot — and his insoluble difficulties in discerning the novel's true theological purpose — if it had one — which really infuriated the old man and decided him to make an example of its author. The rest is history, though it is worth noting that the fatwa was actually issued on the anniversary of the death of Flaubert, whose Bouvard et Pecuchet was one of the Ayatollah's favourite books.

It is significant that the Ayatollah, while sentencing Rushdie to death, took no per- sonal steps to carry it out. The fact that the novelist was condemned rather to 'internal exile', in the company of police officers with traditional literary tastes, may have been part of Khomeini's plan. Professor Eliot draws our attention to other fatwas issued by the Ayatollah, close study of which reveals subtexts — one in favour of traditional Isfahan verse, the other to encourage rose-growing. There is no sign yet that Rushdie's punishment has pushed him in the literary direction Khomeini wished him to follow. A rare photograph, taken of Rushdie dancing at a forbidden party with Martin Amis's ex-wife, suggests rather that he is busy choreographing a new and exotic version of the tango. This was possibly inspired by a sequence from A Night at the Opera, where Groucho Marx grapples with his rich benefactress on the dance floor, explaining why he was originally known as `Croucho'. The 'internal exile', then, has not been wholly barren of cultural novelty. But we are still waiting for a Rushdie novel with a straightforward plot. Khomeini, in Profes- sor Eliot's view, thought the experiences Rushdie has undergone since the fatwa was issued would supply one. His earnest hope was that Rushdie would then take his proper place in 'the Great Tradition' of English nov- elists. Not for nothing do they still refer rev- erently to the Ayatollah in Teheran's cercle anglais as 'the last of the Leavisites'.