A Lecture from Rushdie

In this video Rushdie talks about several topics that we have discussed in class. However I wanted to focus on one are in particular, since it was part of our last class. He talks about private lives and public lives and how in modern times it is increasingly difficult to separate private lives (family falls into this category) and public lives. This reminded me of the discussion we had in class, as a part of The Moor’s Last Sigh, about “revealing his secret identity” (414). While in his lecture Rushdie incorporates family as a part of the private life, I think that The Moor’s Last Sigh contradicts this sentiment. Each character has a life that they maintain separate from the family and out of the public sphere; Abraham and his life as a Mafioso, Aurora’s revenge affairs, Moor’s affair with Uma. Therefore lives are split into three parts; public, family and individual.

Also, (if you want) go to youtube and look at some of the responses to this video…it gets out of hand really fast.