Salman Rushdie and the Fatwa

The second half of MAO II concerns Bill's attempts to free a writer being held hostage by a terrorist group. When DeLillo wrote MAO II, anxiety about the role of the writer in world terror was at an all-time high. Particularly, many writers worried about the fate of their fellow novelist, Salman Rushdie--a famous British-Indian author, who was sentenced to death after publishing The Satanic Verses (1988), a novel that playfully and irreverently represented the story of Muhammad, among its many other story lines.

Thankfully, the fatwa (death sentence) placed on Rushdie's head by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the then-leader of Iran, was never carried out. However, Rushdie suffered for many years under the fear of death and pursuit by a series of assassins bent on carrying out Khomeini's will. Rushdie's difficult situation greatly affected many writers during the period in which DeLillo was writing. What did it mean that someone would want to kill a writer for insulting a religious figure or deity? Did other writers need to live in fear? The case of Rushdie haunts MAO II.

Warhol

Even beyond inspiring its name, Andy Warhol's series of Mao portraits features prominently in Don DeLillo's novel, MAO II. Warhol was famous for many things--one of which was _being_ famous and drawing attention to the power of fame and celebrity in postwar American culture! Many of you have probably heard the phrase "15 minutes of fame" used to describe the fleeting nature of celebrity. Andy Warhol was the originator of the phrase, remarking in 1968 that: "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Later, Warhol commented that his prediction had been right. In many ways, Warhol imagined the culture we live in today long before its inception; he wouldn't have been surprised to see a world of fleeting celebrity, in which starring on reality television or internet porn could make anyone famous--even if for only a few minutes of time.

Warhol also prefigured a number of currents in the art world by becoming an expert in multiple media. He was a painter, a filmmaker, a writer, and an arbiter of style and taste. He was a fundamental part of the Pop Art movement that deeply influenced American art and culture.
For more on Warhol, check out these links:
Wiki page
Andy Warhol Museum
Andy Warhol Foundation
Interview with Ric Burns about Warhol doc
Pop Art Explained

“If you’re looking for Andy Warhol, don’t look any further than the surface of my paintings or the surface of me. There’s nothing behind there.”-Andy Warhol





Image of Warhol (on left) next to one of his artworks, an oversized replica of a Brillo box--part of his series of artwork devoted to making art objects out of everyday consumer products.

The Unification Church AKA The Moonies and MAO II

I wanted to give you some background information on the opening scenes of DeLillo's Mao II. The mass wedding narrated as the book begins is based on the real-life collective marriage ceremonies performed by Revered Sun Myung Moon. Moon founded the Unification Church in Korea and it has spread to a number of nations and now has over a million members. The Unification Church is often thought of as a cult and as an example of alternative religion that offers its followers a (sometimes problematic) means of losing their identity is the collective. Moon's followers are most commonly called "Moonies." Below, please find a photo of a mass wedding ceremony and some helpful links to understanding the beginning scenes of DeLillo's novel. On the sidebar of the blog, you'll see some more general links about DeLillo that might be helpful, as well.




Links: Wiki article

BBC article on mass weddings

Welcome and DeLillo

Welcome to Contemporary American Literature! For our first few classes, we will be exploring the work of Don DeLillo, who is famous for his ability to tap into some of the more disturbing currents of contemporary life. Long before the Twin Towers fell on September 11th, DeLillo was fascinated by the intersection of technology and terror in the twentieth century; in Mao II, and throughout his many works of fiction, he ponders what role the writer can have in such a climate. Can the writer compete with the terrorist? Whose narrative of the contemporary world will hold sway and sear itself onto the consciousness of its listeners? In the piece we'll be reading for Friday's class, "In the Ruins of the Future," written in October 2001, DeLillo asks some of these very questions with the urgency that many writers and artists and everyday people experienced in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Please read DeLillo's essay with an eye both to how his work can help us talk about Mao II and how it can lead us to some of the larger questions we will ask in our course.

Our course will be guided by the notion that history and literature are often inextricable: that is, we can't necessarily separate between the things that our favorite authors write and the events going on in the world around them. I look forward to using DeLillo's essay as a springboard to talk about some of these exciting issues! Don't worry if the piece is a little hard to understand at moments; we'll use class and this blog to unpack the important parts.