Millionaire literary titan Salman Rushdie has two lovely sons, a knack for attracting beautiful women and the prospect of seeing his latest book turned into a video game.
Life is good, eh? Even the daily threat of being poached by religious extremists has eased somewhat.
But Rushdie’s new novel, “Luka and the Fire of Life,” betrays a concern that might affect any man who marries a woman 20 or so years younger than himself.
“When my younger son [Milan] was born I was already 50 years old,” said Rushdie, 63, a part-time Atlantan, calling from his home in New York City. “That’s the same age gap that exists between Rashid and Luka,” the father and son in the new novel, which he will discuss in a visit to the Carter Center Thursday.
“One of the implications of being an older parent is that the question of mortality becomes much more vivid; the subject of life and death is inevitably in your mind in a way it isn’t if you have child at 25.”
Not that the question of mortality has been very far from Rushdie’s mind since 1989, the year Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared a “fatwa” against him for the supposed blasphemy in his satiric novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Yet a father worries that time may do what the ayatollah might not. Hence, the plot line: Rashid, the father of plucky protagonist Luka, falls into a deep sleep and can’t be awakened. As Rashid begins to dwindle, Luka must travel into the Heart of Magic, battle giants, monsters — and even time itself — to bring back the fire that will save his father’s life.
In addition to inspiring this meditation on paternal mortality, Rushdie’s young son Milan, 13, set the book in motion in a more straightforward way: He asked for it. His much older half-brother Zafar got a book of his own (1990’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”) and Milan said he deserved one too.
After reading early chapters, Milan also had some advice: “Don’t write novels. Write series.”
“Luka” certainly leaves the door open for sequels. Written about the same redoubtable family that peopled “Haroun,” the new book is crammed with gods and goddesses from the Greek, Roman, Japanese, Nordic, Vedic, Egyptian and Aztec traditions, among others.
They plunge into action that unspools as if played on an Xbox. Luka collects “lives,” solves puzzles, defeats bosses, finds allies and saves progress as he journeys up from Level One to Level Nine.
We see Milan’s influence here as well. “I would know nothing about [video games] if it were not for my children,” said Rushdie. “When my older son was 11 or 12, that was the age of Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog, and I started learning these games from him. ... I’m no good at them, though I have to say I’ve developed a certain skill on [the iPhone game] Angry Birds.” Rushdie said there are video game developers interested in turning Luka into a game.
Each spring, Rushdie spends about a month teaching seminars at Emory University. His relationship with Atlanta goes back to 2004, when he considered, for the first time, what would happen to his papers. “Since I was marked for death in ’89, it hadn’t occurred to me to think about it,” he said.
As a result of placing his literary archive at Emory University, then joining the Emory faculty in 2006, he’s become not only familiar with Atlanta, but with other parts of Georgia.
“I loved going to see Flannery O’Connor’s home [in Milledgeville],” said Rushdie. “I’ve always been very interested in the literature of Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor. It always struck me as a gap in my knowledge of America that I had spent so little time in the South. Being in Atlanta gave me a way of using it as a jumping-off point.”
His five-year appointment ends this year, but Rushdie said he and the university are talking about extending the contract.
He doesn’t like to talk about the price still on his head, but has said that the danger has eased and that the threat is more one of “rhetoric” than intent. In his memoirs, however, which he started this year, “the starting point would be to tell story of the strange event that happened in 1989.”
He wrote his first “children’s book” immediately after “The Satanic Verses,” partly as a way to cope with the stress of that dark time. “I tried to fill it with light and even give it a happy ending.”
Single since 2007, Rushdie said he has no plans for another children’s book because he has no plans for another child. Yet he hopes books such as “Luka” can help demolish the distinction between children’s and adult literature. He sees evidence, in the popularity of the Harry Potter series, that the barrier is permeable.
“There are books that do cross in the other direction as well,” he said.
“My 13-year-old son just finished reading ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ which is now his favorite book he’s ever read, I suspect,” adding ruefully, “ahead of the one that I just wrote.”
Meet the author
Salman Rushdie discusses and signs copies of “Luka and the Fire of Life.” 7 p.m. Thursday. $27 (includes signed copy of the book). Carter Center Day Chapel, 453 Freedom Parkway. Tickets available online at acappellabooks.com or at A Capella Books, 484-C Moreland Ave. N.E, Atlanta. 404-865-7109, www.acappellabooks.com.
Salman Rushdie in brief
Background: Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) and educated in India and England.
Family: Rushdie has been married four times, most recently to Indian American actress Padma Lakshmi, host of "Top Chef." His sons are from his first and third marriages.
Career: His second novel, "Midnight's Children," won the Booker Prize and later was chosen the best of the first 25 Booker winners. His fourth novel, "The Satanic Verses," triggered condemnation by the spiritual leader of Iran, who issued a fatwa against Rushdie, requiring his "execution" and offering a bounty for his assassination. He went into hiding in England and lived under police protection for years afterward. The proclamation has yet to be lifted.
Knighthood: Rushdie, who lives in England four months of the year, was knighted in 2007 for "services to literature."
The video game verses
Salman Rushdie discusses video games, part of the inspiration for his latest book:
On why they are a natural source for the novelist: “In many ways [video games] have formal connections to the classical world of the quest story, right back to the Holy Grail, or Beowulf, or any of these heroes who must come up against increasingly problematic adversities. It is quite clear that the people who devised these games have studied the quest stories.”
On first-person shooter games: “I’m one of those parents who doesn’t like too much of that around the house. That game, [“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”] that everybody is playing on the PS3, that’s just pure killing.
On trying to get son Milan to stop playing “Modern Warfare 2”: “I protest feebly, and fail.”
