Step Across This Line Part 5

The keeper in the "Super Spurs" Double side was the Scottish international, Bill Brown. He was gaunt and unsmiling and brilliant and had an old-fas.h.i.+oned short-back-and-sides haircut, and n.o.body ever cracked a joke about him.

One day in the mid-1960s, however, Billy Nick splashed out 30,000 pounds, then a world-record transfer fee for a goalkeeper, to bring a huge raw Irish kid the short distance from the little Watford Football Club to mighty Spurs. His name was Pat Jennings, and he wore his hair fas.h.i.+onably long and wavy, with sideburns. The Spurs faithful distrusted him at once.

He did his time in the reserve side but soon enough got his turn in goal. The home fans gave him a hard time that day until, at a crucial moment, he flew across his goalmouth to save a shot that was heading at high velocity for the far top corner, and not only made the save but caught the flying ball cleanly in a single outstretched hand. caught the flying ball cleanly in a single outstretched hand.

We looked at one another, aghast, with the same question in all our eyes: exactly how big are this guy's paws? exactly how big are this guy's paws? After that save, Jennings had no more trouble with the Spurs crowd, who took him to their hearts until, many seasons later, the management did an unthinkable thing. Deciding that Pat-our by now beloved Pat, Ireland's international keeper as well as ours, Pat who was regularly rated as the finest in the world!-was over the hill, they transferred him to a.r.s.enal. To a.r.s.enal, of all clubs, where he went on to enjoy year after year of triumph! Even now, it's hard to put into words the outrage I felt. The outrage I still feel. I can only say what Spurs fans said to each other in those days, furiously, mirthlessly, often adding, as intensifiers, a series of unrepeatable expletives: "It's a joke." After that save, Jennings had no more trouble with the Spurs crowd, who took him to their hearts until, many seasons later, the management did an unthinkable thing. Deciding that Pat-our by now beloved Pat, Ireland's international keeper as well as ours, Pat who was regularly rated as the finest in the world!-was over the hill, they transferred him to a.r.s.enal. To a.r.s.enal, of all clubs, where he went on to enjoy year after year of triumph! Even now, it's hard to put into words the outrage I felt. The outrage I still feel. I can only say what Spurs fans said to each other in those days, furiously, mirthlessly, often adding, as intensifiers, a series of unrepeatable expletives: "It's a joke." *12 *12 4. THE SOUNDTRACK.

Ossie's going to WembleyHis knees have gone all tremblyCome on, you Spurs.Come on, you Spurs.

Soccer is a sung game, l.u.s.tily and thoroughly sung. Teams have their individual anthems-"Glory, Glory" for Spurs, "You'll Never Walk Alone" for Liverpool-and a collection of other so to speak patriotic songs. Ossie was Osvaldo Ardiles, a member of Argentina's 1978 world-champion team, who came to Spurs immediately after his World Cup victory and endeared himself to the supporters both by the neat brilliance of his play and by his inability to master the sound of the English language. ("Tottingham," he called his chosen club or, alternatively, "the Spoors.") Ossie went to Wembley to play for Spurs against Manchester City in the 1981 FA Cup Final, and he had, as a teammate, a fellow Argentinian, Ricardo "Ricky" Villa. The game was drawn, but in the replay Villa scored one of the most inspired goals of modern times, jinking and twisting past most of the opposing defense before he buried the ball in the net. Thus Ossie's final became Villa's triumph. Ricky won the Cup for "Tottingham," but Ossie still has the song.

Soccer has many other aural codes. There is, for example, the rhythm of the scores. Each Sat.u.r.day we hear the results being read on radio and TV, and so formalized is the reading that you can divine the result simply from the announcer's stresses and intonation. Then there's the music of the roars. In the middle 1980s I lived for a time at one end of Highbury Hill, the long road at whose other end is the a.r.s.enal stadium. Match days, when the crowd surged past our house, were often a little wild. (Once somebody stuck a flayed pig's head on the iron railings of my front yard. Why? The pig didn't say.) But I could always work out how the game was going without leaving my study, just by the way the crowd roared. One kind of roar-uninhibited, chest-beating, triumphant-invariably followed a goal by the home team. Another, groanier noise indicated a near miss, a shrieky third informed me of a near miss by the opposition, and a dull grunt, a flayed pig's head of a grunt, would follow a goal by the visitors.

There are also the chants, nonteam specific formulae adapted by each set of supporters for local use. I once took Mario Vargas Llosa to White Hart Lane, and he was bewildered and delighted when he realized that the fans' cry of "One team in Europe! There's only one team in Europe!" was being chanted to, more or less, the tune of "Guantanamera."

That year, Spurs had a right-back called Gary Stevens. A rival soccer club, Everton, also had a right-back called Gary Stevens, and, to make matters worse, both players had at different times played right-back for England. Thus, to Vargas Llosa's further mystification, another version of the "Guantanamera" chant went "Two Gary Stevens! There's only two Gary Stevens!"

All together now: "We all agree . . . a.r.s.enal are rubbis.h.!.+" Or, when your team is winning well: "Are you watching, are you watching, are you watching, a.r.s.enal?" Or, in the same circ.u.mstances, but more ambitiously: "At last they're gonna believe us, at last they're gonna believe us, at last they're gonna believe us! . . . We're going to win the League." (Or, if more appropriate, "Cup.") Or, vindictively, after one's team has taken the lead, and while pointing at the visiting team's supporters in their corral: "You're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing anymore!"

5. DAVID AND THE GENT.

One week before the Worthington Cup Final, Tottenham's French superstar, the gifted left-winger David Ginola, had scored a solo goal in a league match that was almost a replay of Ricky Villa's famous Cup-winning masterpiece. Ginola has movie-star good looks and Pat Jennings's hair: tresses long and silky enough to win him a featured role-this is true-in a L'Oreal television commercial. ("Because I'm worth it" became, in Ginola's heavily accented version, "Because I'm worse eat.") There is no doubt that Ginola is worth it. His skills are even more l.u.s.trous than his locks. Ginola can s.h.i.+mmy like your sister Kate. His balance, his feinting, his tight ball control at high speed, his ability to score from thirty yards out, or by waltzing past defenders like the great matadors who work closest to the bulls, make him a defender's nightmare. Two criticisms have been made of him, however. First, that he is lazy, a luxury player, uninterested in the hard graft of the game. Second, that he dives.

Diving is a form of gamesmans.h.i.+p. A diver pretends to be fouled when he hasn't been. A great diver is like a salmon leaping, twisting, falling. A great dive can last almost as long as the dying of the swan. And it can, of course, influence the referee, it can earn free kicks or penalty kicks, it can get an opponent cautioned or even sent off.

The course of the 1999 Worthington Cup Final between Spurs and Leicester would be greatly altered by a dive.

An earlier Spurs star, the great German goalscorer Jurgen Klinsmann, also used to be accused of diving. Spurs fans screamed "cheat" at Ginola when he was playing for Newcastle United. England fans booed and howled at Klinsmann when he plunged to the ground while playing for Germany. But when the two of them signed for Spurs, the fans understood that these n.o.ble spirits were in truth more sinned against than sinning. Oh, now we saw the subtle pushes with which cynical defenders knocked them off balance, the surrept.i.tious little trips and ankle-taps in whose existence we had so vocally disbelieved. Now we understood the tragedy of genius, we saw how grievously Ginola and Klinsmann had been wronged. Was this just our self-serving fickleness? Certainly not. Reader, it was because the scales fell from our eyes.

As for the other criticism leveled at Ginola, that he was lazy, that all changed when, during the course of the 19981999 season, Spurs acquired a new manager. His name is George Graham, and he was known, when he was an elegant player (one of the stars of the Scotland team), as "Gentleman George." As a manager, he has acquired a less cultured image as the hardest of hard men, a man whose teams are built on the granite of an impregnable defense. In a few short months, he has transformed that well-known joke, the Tottenham defense, into a well-drilled, stingy unit. He has taught the back four to imagine they are joined by a rope, and now, instead of running in opposite directions like Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops, they move as one.

What would a grim fellow like George Graham make of the blessed b.u.t.terfly, Ginola? It was widely believed that the L'Oreal model would be the first player Graham unloaded after taking charge at Spurs. Instead, the winger has blossomed toward greatness, and nowadays he and Graham sing each other's praises almost daily. The manager has inspired the player to work hard, and the player has, well, inspired the manager the way he inspires us all. "Do something extraordinary," Graham now tells Ginola before each game, and it's astonis.h.i.+ng how often Ginola obliges. *13 *13 Oh, there's one more thing about George Graham. First as a player and then as a manager, he made his name, and won a shelf of trophies, at Highbury. Spurs have hired the former manager of their archenemies, a.r.s.enal.

6. DECLINE AND FALL.

How did such a thing come to pa.s.s? The answer lies in Spurs' recent history. They last won a major trophy, the FA Cup, in 1991. After that the club's fortunes started a long, depressing slide. Boardroom incompetence had landed Tottenham in serious financial trouble, and the team's star player, England's moron-genius, the child-man Paul Gascoigne, as famous for bursting into tears during a World Cup game as for his exceptional talent, had to be transferred to Lazio in Rome, Italy, to help pay off the club's debts.

The "sale" of Paul Gascoigne was a traumatic event for the fans. Gascoigne was what we thought of as a true Spurs player, fabulously gifted, a playmaker at least as influential as the late John White. Now Gascoigne, too, had been struck down, and was gone.

As the club declined, the fans were left with their memories. Spurs have had more than their share of genuinely great players: the lethal goalscoring partners.h.i.+p of the "goal-poacher" Jimmy Greaves and Alan Gilzean (he of the "cultured forehead"); the stealthy beauty of the play of Martin Peters, a member of England's 1966 World Champion team. Later Tottenham teams offered us the high-velocity skills of Gary Lineker, a Leicester City player many years before he joined Spurs, and the long-range pa.s.sing accuracy of Ardiles and Villa's English teammate Glenn Hoddle.

(This same Hoddle was fired from his job as coach to the England national team because of a series of confused remarks he made about reincarnation. By jumbling together the languages of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and spiritualist mumbo-jumbo, he managed to give the impression that he believed disabled people were to blame for their disabilities; but in spite of the predictable tabloid uproar, I found it hard to condemn poor "Glenda" for what seemed more like stupidity than malice. I remembered the grandeur of his game in the old days, and the joy it had given me, and I hated to see him turn out to be such a doofus. "At the end of the day I never said them things," he mumbled miserably as he shuffled off into the darkness, making one wish he could still leave the talking to his feet.) *14 *14 The low point of Spurs' fortunes was reached in the 199798 season, when the team's owner, the computer-industry millionaire Alan Sugar, appointed as manager a Swiss person called, alas, Christian Gross. He never managed to command the team's respect or to attract first-rate players to the club, and under his regime Tottenham came close to losing their elite Premiers.h.i.+p status.

At the start of the present season, the team looked even worse, and Gross was duly sacked. Five days after his exit I saw them thrashed 30 at home by Middlesbrough, a team that the great Spurs sides of the past would have effortlessly demolished. The Tottenham players and supporters were utterly demoralized. Then Alan Sugar, to the consternation of many Spurs fans, turned to the ex-Gunner, Gentleman George.

George Graham had taken some hard knocks of his own. In the last decade there has been much concern about the growth of corrupt practices in soccer. There have been allegations that Far Eastern betting syndicates have sought to influence senior players to throw matches. In France in 1997, Bernard Tapie, the multi-millionaire proprietor of the country's then-champion side, Ma.r.s.eille, was found guilty and jailed on charges of match-fixing and corruption.

As a player, George Graham was a member of the a.r.s.enal team that did the Double in 1971, thus emulating the Spurs' great achievement. (They've since done it again, d.a.m.n it, just a year ago; and they played so brilliantly, so much like a cla.s.sic Spurs side, that I was forced to set aside a lifetime's prejudices and cheer them on.) As a manager, Graham led the Gunners to two League Champions.h.i.+ps and four other major honors. But in the mid-nineties he, too, faced accusations of wrongdoing. He was found guilty by the Football a.s.sociation of receiving "bungs," under-the-counter cash payments worth approximately 425,000, made as "sweeteners" during the course of big-money transfer deals. In spite of all the success he had brought to a.r.s.enal, Gentleman George lost his job.

However, he's a tenacious character, and he slowly fought his way back into the big time. By the time Sugar made his approach, Graham had become the manager of another Premiers.h.i.+p club, Leeds United, where he had put together one of the most promising young sides in the league. But the lure of one of the country's traditional "big five" clubs proved irresistible, and he came back to London.

If some Spurs fans mistrusted him, the speed of the team's improvement has shut them up. Tottenham still don't have a great side; as I write this they're stuck in the middle of the Premiers.h.i.+p table. But getting to Wembley is the most glamorous event in a club player's life. George Graham must take the credit for bringing a little of the old glamour back to depressed White Hart Lane.

7. A RESULT TEAM.

A man on his way to the big game pa.s.ses a pub near the stadium and grimaces at the sidewalk, which is ankle-deep in used plastic beer gla.s.ses and empty cans. "That's why the game will never catch on in the States, right there," he says, a little shamefacedly. A second man chimes in. "That, and the food," he says. "The meat pies, the f.u.c.king burgers." The first man is still shaking his head at the garbage. "Americans would never leave this mess." He sighs. "They wouldn't stand for it."

A third man, pa.s.sing, recognizes the first and greets him gaily: "You're like bleeding dogs.h.i.+t, mate-you're everywhere, you are."

The three men go off happily toward Wembley.

Inside the stadium, the field of play is covered in two giant s.h.i.+rts and a pair of giant soccer b.a.l.l.s. There is much razzamatazz-great flocks of blue and white balloons are released, and giant flares begin to burn as the teams arrive-and this has plainly been learned from studying American sporting occasions. But as ever, the point of being there is not this sort of thing but the crowd. You'd have to be made of stone not to be affected by the communal release of shared excitement, by the simple sense of standing together against the world, or the opposing team, anyhow. The chanting swells and surges from one end of the grand old stadium to the other. Next year Wembley is to be demolished and a new third-millennium super-stadium built in its place. This is almost the old lady's last hurrah. *15 *15 The game begins. I quickly see that it isn't going to be a cla.s.sic. Leicester look distinctly second-rate, and although Spurs settle first into a rhythm, they don't inspire full confidence. In the twenty-first minute Sol Campbell, an England international player, completely misses a crucial tackle, and Leicester are kept at bay only by a fine covering tackle by Spurs Swiss defender Ramon Vega, another player whose form has improved dramatically since Graham arrived.

My heart's in my mouth, but Ginola gives me something to enjoy: a couple of fast, swerving runs with no fewer than three Leicester players trying to shut him down, and one moment of breathtaking ball control, in which he pulls down an awkwardly high ball with one touch of the outside of his right boot, and pa.s.ses it away almost instantly, the speed of his artistry setting up a dangerous Tottenham break.

No goals in the first half. In the second, however, high drama. In the sixty-third minute, the Tottenham full-back Justin Edinburgh is crudely tackled by Leicester's blond-thatched Robbie Savage. Irritated by the clumsiness of the tackle, Edinburgh stupidly reaches out with an open hand and smacks Savage somewhere on the head. Blond hair flies. Then, after a comically long pause, Savage executes a perfect backflip of a dive and collapses to the ground.

The referee, Terry Heilbron, has been fooled. He cautions Savage for his unfair tackle, but then shows Edinburgh the dreaded red card for his "foul" on Diving Robbie. Edinburgh has been sent off, expelled from the game, and Spurs are down to ten men against Leicester's eleven.

"Cheat, cheat," chant the Spurs fans, and then boo. The noise made by thirty-five thousand or so soccer fans booing in unison is unearthly, monstrous; but in our hearts we fear that the day may be lost. And for the next several minutes, as Leicester City charge forward, our fears seem justified. In the Spurs goal, Ian Walker has to stretch hard to catch a loose ball. Then Leicester burst through Spurs' depleted defenses again, and this time Vega is cautioned for a "professional foul"-the deliberate fouling of a player whom he couldn't have stopped by fair means.

It's all Leicester City, but slowly-and this is an indication of the steely confidence Graham has engendered-Tottenham regroup. Their fans sing a rousing chorus of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah" to encourage them, and, surprisingly, Spurs begin once more to have the better of the exchanges. David Ginola on the left wing is having a quiet game by his exalted standards, but Leicester are still being forced to use two or even three players to stop him. This means that, in spite of being a man down, Spurs actually often have a man over on their right flank, and it is down this flank that their best attacks now come. The Tottenham right-back Stephen Carr is making more and more threatening runs. The England international midfield player Darren Anderton (once nicknamed "Sicknote" because he got injured so often, but fit at last these days) is also beginning to show, with his trademark long-legged stride and his dangerous floated crosses. Spurs main goalscorer, Les Ferdinand, is looking livelier, and so is the team's duo of Scandinavian stars: the Norwegian striker Steffen Iversen and the Danish midfielder Allan Nielsen, who has been picked only because the team's new signing, the England player Tim Sherwood, is ineligible, have a shot each, and then combine fluently to allow Nielsen another shot, well saved by Kasey Keller.

Meanwhile, Leicester's Savage, clearly rattled by the boos that fill the stadium whenever he touches the ball, is involved in another bit of rough stuff, but gets away with it. The game goes into its last five minutes. If there is no result after ninety minutes' play, there will be half an hour of extra time, and if the scores are still level, the game will be decided by penalty kicks. (Soccer fans hate the arbitrariness of the sudden-death penalty shoot-out. We always hope it won't come to that.) In the eighty-sixth minute, Ian Walker moves to the edge of his penalty area to gather a loose ball, slips, misses the ball completely, and allows Leicester's Tony Cottee to send it bouncing and bobbling across the face of Tottenham's undefended goal. Amazingly, there isn't a single Leicester player on hand to tap it into the empty net. Walker scrambles back into position. Tottenham's moment of greatest danger has pa.s.sed.

The game enters the last minute of normal time. Leicester, already playing for extra time, take the precaution of bringing off the much-reviled Robbie Savage, who would be sent off if cautioned a second time, and the way he's been playing, he's lucky not to have been shown the red card already. On, in his place, comes Theo Zagorakis, captain of Greece's international side. Before Leicester have time to settle down to the change in their formation, however, lightning strikes.

A whipped pa.s.s from Ferdinand in midfield releases Iversen, whose fast run down the right catches the Leicester defense cold. He cuts in toward goal and shoots. It isn't a great shot, on target but weak. Somehow, however, Kasey Keller fails to hold the ball, and palms it feebly right onto the forehead of the charging Allan Nielsen. Boom! As the Univision commentators would say, "Goooooooooooool!!!!!!"

It's all over in an instant, and Tottenham have won 10. And then there are the celebrations to enjoy, the presentations, the jeering. You're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing anymore. You're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing anymore. The oddly three-handled Worthington Cup is held high by each Tottenham player in turn. In victory they suddenly stop looking like rich, pampered superstar athletes and become, instead, innocent young men bright with the realization that they are experiencing one of the great moments of their lives. The ma.s.sed joy of the Spurs fans is itself a joy to behold. Never mind the sc.r.a.ppiness of the game. It's the result that counts. The oddly three-handled Worthington Cup is held high by each Tottenham player in turn. In victory they suddenly stop looking like rich, pampered superstar athletes and become, instead, innocent young men bright with the realization that they are experiencing one of the great moments of their lives. The ma.s.sed joy of the Spurs fans is itself a joy to behold. Never mind the sc.r.a.ppiness of the game. It's the result that counts.

George Graham is famous as a manager of "result teams," teams that will somehow grind out the result they need without bothering too much about providing entertainment along the way. I can't remember when the term was last applied to a Spurs lineup. It's an a.r.s.enal kind of concept. "Boring a.r.s.enal" were also "Lucky a.r.s.enal," because of their habit of stealing games like this one. Well, who's boring and lucky now?

As I left the ground, beaming foolishly, a fellow Spurs fan recognized me and waved cheerily in my direction. "Gawd bless yer, Salman," he yelled. I waved back, but I didn't say what I wanted to say: Nah, not Gawd, mate, he doesn't play for our team. Besides, who needs him when you've already got David Ginola; when you're leaving Wembley Stadium with a win?

April 1999

Farming Ostriches

[Originally delivered as a keynote address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors]

It's a somewhat daunting privilege to face so distinguished a "press conference" at an hour of the morning at which I'm usually barely capable of speech. Although I must say that after my recent American book tour, 9:00 A.M. feels like child's play. On one January day in Chicago I found myself sitting up in President Reagan's hotel bed-I should say not at the same time as President Reagan-and giving, by telephone, no fewer than eleven radio interviews before eight o'clock: a personal best. When I came to Was.h.i.+ngton four years ago to partic.i.p.ate in a free-speech conference, an aide of President Bush, explaining why no member of that administration was willing to meet me, remarked that, after all, I was "just an author on a book tour." It is hard to put into words how sweetly satisfying it felt this January, what a sense of overcoming it gave me, in spite of all those early starts, finally to be, indeed, just an author on a book tour. An author on a book tour sleeping in the president's bed. sleeping in the president's bed.

Speaking of presidents, it may interest you to know that when I was finally able to visit the White House, the meeting was arranged for the day before Thanksgiving, and scheduled to take place immediately before President Clinton's unbreakable appointment on the White House lawn with a certain Tom the Turkey, whom he was to "pardon" before the a.s.sembled press corps. It was therefore understandably unclear whether the president would have time to be involved in my own visit. On the way to the meeting I found myself hysterically inventing the next day's headlines: "Clinton Meets Turkey-Rushdie Gets Stuffed," for example. Fortunately, this imaginary headline turned out to be incorrect, and my encounter with Mr. Clinton took place, and proved interesting and, to speak politically, extremely useful.

I was wondering what I might usefully and interestingly say to you you today-wondering what, if any, common ground might be occupied by novelists and journalists-when my eye fell upon the following brief text in a British national daily: "In yesterday's today-wondering what, if any, common ground might be occupied by novelists and journalists-when my eye fell upon the following brief text in a British national daily: "In yesterday's Independent Independent we stated that Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is farming ostriches. He is not." we stated that Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber is farming ostriches. He is not."

One can only guess at the brouhaha concealed beneath these admirably laconic sentences: the human distress, the protests. As you know, Britain has been going through a period of what one might call heightened livestock insecurity of late. As well as the mentally challenged cattle herds, there has been the alarming case of the great ostrich-farming bubble, or swindle. In these overheated times, a man who is not an ostrich farmer, when accused of being one, will not take the allegation lightly. He may even feel that his reputation has been slighted.

Plainly, it was quite wrong of The Independent The Independent to suggest that Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was actually breeding ostriches. He is of course a celebrated exporter of musical turkeys. But if we agree for a moment to permit the supposedly covert and allegedly fraudulent farming of ostriches to stand as a metaphor for all the world's supposedly covert and allegedly fraudulent activities, then must we not also agree that it is vital that these ostrich farmers be identified, named, and brought to account for their activities? Is this not at the very heart of the project of a free press? And might there not be occasions on which every editor in this room would be prepared to go with such a story-one might call it Ostrichgate-on the basis of less-than-solid evidence, in the national interest? to suggest that Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was actually breeding ostriches. He is of course a celebrated exporter of musical turkeys. But if we agree for a moment to permit the supposedly covert and allegedly fraudulent farming of ostriches to stand as a metaphor for all the world's supposedly covert and allegedly fraudulent activities, then must we not also agree that it is vital that these ostrich farmers be identified, named, and brought to account for their activities? Is this not at the very heart of the project of a free press? And might there not be occasions on which every editor in this room would be prepared to go with such a story-one might call it Ostrichgate-on the basis of less-than-solid evidence, in the national interest?

I am arriving by degrees at my point: which is that the great issue facing writers both of journalism and of novels is that of determining, and then publis.h.i.+ng, the truth. For the ultimate goal of both factual and fictional writing is the truth, however paradoxical that may sound. And truth is slippery, and hard to establish. Mistakes, as in the Lloyd Webber case, can be made. And if truth can set you free, it can also land you in hot water. Fine as the word sounds, truth is all too often unpalatable, awkward, unorthodox. The armies of received ideas are marshaled against it. The legions of all those who stand to profit by useful untruths will march against it. Yet it must, if at all possible, be told.

But, it may be objected, can there really be said to be any connection between the truth of the news and of the world of the imagination? In the world of facts, either a man is an ostrich farmer or he is not. In fiction's universe, he may be fifteen contradictory things at once.

Let me attempt an answer.

The word "novel" derives from the Latin word for new; new; in French, in French, nouvelles nouvelles are both stories and news reports. A hundred years ago, people read novels, among other things, for information. From d.i.c.kens's are both stories and news reports. A hundred years ago, people read novels, among other things, for information. From d.i.c.kens's Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas Nickleby, British readers got shocking information about poor schools like Dotheboys Hall, and such schools were subsequently abolished. British readers got shocking information about poor schools like Dotheboys Hall, and such schools were subsequently abolished. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Huckleberry Finn, and and Moby-d.i.c.k Moby-d.i.c.k are all, in this newsy sense, information-heavy. are all, in this newsy sense, information-heavy.

So: until the advent of the television age, literature shared with print journalism the task of telling people things they didn't know. This is no longer the case, for either literature or print journalism. Those who read newspapers and novels now get their primary information about the world from the TV, Internet, and radio. There are exceptions: the success of that lively novel Primary Colors Primary Colors shows that novels can just occasionally still lift the lid on a hidden world more effectively than reporting; and of course the broadcast news is highly selective, and newspapers provide far greater breadth and depth of coverage. But many people now read newspapers, I suggest, shows that novels can just occasionally still lift the lid on a hidden world more effectively than reporting; and of course the broadcast news is highly selective, and newspapers provide far greater breadth and depth of coverage. But many people now read newspapers, I suggest, to read the news about the news. to read the news about the news. We read for opinion, att.i.tude, spin. We read not for raw data, not for Gradgrind's "facts, facts, facts," but to get a "take" on the news that we like. Now that the broadcasting media fulfill the function of being first with the news, newspapers, like novels, have entered the realm of the imagination. They both provide versions of the world. We read for opinion, att.i.tude, spin. We read not for raw data, not for Gradgrind's "facts, facts, facts," but to get a "take" on the news that we like. Now that the broadcasting media fulfill the function of being first with the news, newspapers, like novels, have entered the realm of the imagination. They both provide versions of the world.

Perhaps this is clearer in a country like Britain, with its primarily national press, than in the United States, where the great proliferation of local papers allows print journalism to provide the additional service of answering to local concerns and adopting local characteristics. The successful quality papers in Britain-among dailies, The Guardian, Times, Telegraph, The Guardian, Times, Telegraph, and and Financial Times Financial Times-are successful because they have clear pictures of who their readers are and how to talk to them. (The languis.h.i.+ng Independent Independent once did, but appears latterly to have lost its way.) They are successful because they share, with their readers, a vision of British society and of the world. once did, but appears latterly to have lost its way.) They are successful because they share, with their readers, a vision of British society and of the world.

The news has become a matter of opinion. And this puts a newspaper editor in a position not at all dissimilar from that of a novelist. It is for the novelist to create, communicate, and sustain over time a personal and coherent vision of the world that entertains, interests, stimulates, provokes, and nourishes his readers. It is for the newspaper editor to do very much the same thing with the pages at his disposal. In that specialized sense-and let me emphasize that I mean this as a compliment!-we are all in the fiction business now.

Sometimes, of course, the news in newspapers seems fictive in a less complimentary sense. Over Easter, a leading British Sunday newspaper ran a front-page lead story announcing the discovery of the tomb-indeed, of the very bones-of Jesus Christ himself; a discovery, as the newspaper was quick to point out, with profound significance for the Christian religion, whose adherents were, at that very moment, celebrating Jesus's physical ascension into heaven, presumably accompanied by his bones. Not only Jesus but Joseph, Mary, someone called Mary II (presumably Magdalene), and even a certain Judah, son of Jesus, had been discovered, banner headlines proclaimed. A long way down the article-far further than most readers would have read-it was revealed that the only evidence the only evidence that this was indeed the family of Jesus was the simple coincidence of names, which, the journalist admitted, were among the most common names of the period. Nevertheless, she insisted, the mind could not resist the speculation . . . that this was indeed the family of Jesus was the simple coincidence of names, which, the journalist admitted, were among the most common names of the period. Nevertheless, she insisted, the mind could not resist the speculation . . .

Such nonsense has perhaps always been a part of newspapers' entertainment value. But the spirit of fiction permeates the press in other ways as well.

One of the more extraordinary truths about the soap opera that is the British Royal Family is that to a large extent the leading figures have had their characters invented for them by the British press. And such is the power of the fiction that the flesh-and-blood Royals have become more and more like their print personae, unable to escape the fiction of their imaginary lives.

The creation of "characters" is, in fact, rapidly becoming an essential part of print journalism's stock-in-trade. Never have personality profiles and people columns-never has gossip gossip-occupied as much of a newspaper's s.p.a.ce as they now do. The word "profile" is apt. In a profile, the subject is never confronted head-on but receives a sidelong glance. A profile is flat and two-dimensional. It is an outline. Yet the images created in these curious texts (often with their subjects' collusion) are extraordinarily potent-it can be next to impossible for the actual person to alter, through his own words and deeds, the impressions they create-and, thanks to the mighty Clippings File, they are also self-perpetuating.

A novelist, if he is talented and lucky, may in the course of a lifetime's work offer up one or two characters who enter the exclusive pantheon of the unforgotten. A novelist's characters hope for immortality; a profile journalist's, perhaps, for celebrity. We wors.h.i.+p, these days, not images but Image itself: and any man or woman who strays into the public gaze becomes a potential sacrifice in that temple. Often, I repeat, a willing sacrifice, willingly drinking the poisoned chalice of Fame. But for many people, including myself, the experience of being profiled is perhaps closest to what it must feel like to be used as a writer's raw material, what it must feel like to be turned into a fictional character, to have one's feelings and actions, one's relations.h.i.+ps and vicissitudes, transformed, by writing, into something subtly-or unsubtly-different. To see ourselves mutated into someone we do not recognize. For a novelist to be thus rewritten is, I recognize, a case of the biter bit. Fair enough. Nevertheless, something about the process feels faintly-and, I stress, faintly faintly-improper.

In Britain, intrusions into the private lives of public figures have prompted calls from certain quarters for the protection of privacy laws. It is true that in France, where such laws exist, the illegitimate daughter of the late President Mitterrand was able to grow up unmolested by the press; but where the powerful can hide behind the law, might not a good deal of covert ostrich farming go undetected? I'm still against laws that curtail the investigative freedoms of the press. But, speaking as someone who has had the uncommon experience of becoming, for a time, a hot news story-of, as my friend Martin Amis put it, "vanis.h.i.+ng into the front page"-it would be dishonest to deny that when my family and I have been the target of press intrusions and distortions, my principles have been sorely strained.

Still, my overwhelming feelings about the press are ones of grat.i.tude. No writer could have wished for a more generous response to his work-or for fairer, more civil profiles!-than I have received in America and around the world-this year. And in the long unfolding of the so-called Rushdie affair, American newspapers have been of great importance in keeping the issues alive, ensuring that readers have kept sight of the essential points of principle involved, and even pressuring America's leaders to speak out and act. But there is more than that to thank you for. I said earlier that newspaper editors, like novelists, need to create, impart, and maintain a vision of society. In any vision of a free society, the value of free speech must rank the highest, for that is the freedom without which all the other freedoms would fail. Journalists do more than most of us to protect those values; for the exercise of freedom is freedom's best defense, and that is something you all do, every day.

However, we live in an increasingly censorious age. By this I mean that the broad, indeed international, acceptance of First Amendment principles is being steadily eroded. Many special-interest groups, claiming the moral high ground, now demand the protection of the censor. Political correctness and the rise of the religious right provide the pro-censors.h.i.+p lobby with further cohorts. I would like to say a little about just one of the weapons of this resurgent lobby, a weapon used, interestingly, by everyone from anti-p.o.r.nography feminists to religious fundamentalists: I mean the concept of "respect."

On the surface, "respect" is one of those ideas n.o.body's against. Like a good warm coat in winter, like applause, like ketchup on your fries, everybody wants some of that. that. Sock-it-to-me-sock-it-to-me, as Aretha Franklin puts it. But what we used to mean by respect-what Aretha meant by it; that is, a mixture of good-hearted consideration and serious attention-has little to do with the new ideological usage of the word. Sock-it-to-me-sock-it-to-me, as Aretha Franklin puts it. But what we used to mean by respect-what Aretha meant by it; that is, a mixture of good-hearted consideration and serious attention-has little to do with the new ideological usage of the word.

Religious extremists, these days, demand respect respect for their att.i.tudes with growing stridency. Very few people would object to the idea that people's rights to religious belief must be respected-after all, the First Amendment defends those rights as unequivocally as it defends free speech-but now we are asked to agree that to dissent from those beliefs-to hold that they are suspect, or antiquated, or wrong; that, in fact, they are for their att.i.tudes with growing stridency. Very few people would object to the idea that people's rights to religious belief must be respected-after all, the First Amendment defends those rights as unequivocally as it defends free speech-but now we are asked to agree that to dissent from those beliefs-to hold that they are suspect, or antiquated, or wrong; that, in fact, they are arguable arguable-is incompatible with the idea of respect. When criticism is placed off limits as "disrespectful," and therefore offensive, something strange is happening to the concept of respect. Yet in recent times both the American National Endowment for the Arts and the very British BBC have announced that they will use this new version of "respect" as a touchstone for their funding decisions.

Other minority groups-racial, s.e.xual, social-have also demanded that they be accorded this new form of respect. To "respect" Louis Farrakhan, we must understand, is simply to agree with him. To "diss" him is, equally simply, to disagree. But if dissent is also to be thought a form of "dissing," then we have indeed succ.u.mbed to the Thought Police. I want to suggest to you that citizens of free societies, democracies, do not preserve their freedom by p.u.s.s.yfooting around their fellow-citizens' opinions, even their most cherished beliefs. In free societies, you must have the free play of ideas. There must be argument, and it must be impa.s.sioned and untrammeled. A free society is not a calm and eventless place-that is the kind of static, dead society dictators try to create. Free societies are dynamic, noisy, turbulent, and full of radical disagreements. Skepticism and freedom are indissolubly linked; and it is the skepticism of journalists, their show-me, prove-it unwillingness to be impressed, that is perhaps their most important contribution to the freedom of the free world. It is the disrespect disrespect of journalists-for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors-that I would like to celebrate this morning, and that I urge you all, in freedom's name, to preserve. of journalists-for power, for orthodoxies, for party lines, for ideologies, for vanity, for arrogance, for folly, for pretension, for corruption, for stupidity, maybe even for editors-that I would like to celebrate this morning, and that I urge you all, in freedom's name, to preserve.

April 1996

A Commencement Address

FOR BARD COLLEGE, N.Y.

Members of the Cla.s.s of 1996, I see in the paper that Southampton University on Long Island got Kermit the Frog to give the commencement address this year. You, unfortunately, have to make do with me. The only Muppet connection I can boast is that Bob Gottlieb, my former editor at Alfred Knopf, also edited that important self-help text Miss Piggy's Guide to Life. Miss Piggy's Guide to Life. I once asked him how it had been to work with such a major star and he replied, reverentially, "Salman: the pig was divine." I once asked him how it had been to work with such a major star and he replied, reverentially, "Salman: the pig was divine."

In England, where I went to college, we don't do things quite this way on graduation day, so I've been doing a little research into commencement and its traditions. The first American friend I asked told me that in her graduation year-not at this college, I hasten to add-she and her fellow-students were so incensed at the choice of commencement speaker, whom I suppose I should not name-oh, all right then, it was Jeane Kirkpatrick-that they boycotted the ceremony and staged a sit-in in one of the college buildings instead. It is a considerable relief, therefore, to note that you are all here.

As for myself, I graduated from Cambridge University in 1968-the great year of student protest-and I have to tell you that I almost didn't make it. This story has nothing to do with politics or demonstrations; it is, rather, the improbable and cautionary tale of a thick brown gravy-and-onion sauce. It begins a few nights before my graduation day, when some anonymous wit chose to redecorate my room, in my absence, by hurling a bucketful of the aforesaid gravy-and-onions all over the walls and furniture, to say nothing of my record player and my clothes. With that ancient tradition of fairness and justice upon which the colleges of Cambridge pride themselves, my college instantly held me solely responsible for the mess, ignored all my representations to the contrary, and informed me that unless I paid for the damage before the ceremony, before the ceremony, I would not be permitted to graduate. It was the first but, alas, not the last occasion on which I would find myself falsely accused of muckspreading. I would not be permitted to graduate. It was the first but, alas, not the last occasion on which I would find myself falsely accused of muckspreading.

I paid up, I have to report, and was therefore declared eligible to receive my degree. In a defiant spirit, possibly influenced by my recent gravy experience, I went to the ceremony wearing brown shoes, and was promptly plucked out of the parade of my gowned and properly black-shod contemporaries, and ordered back to my quarters to change. I am not sure why people in brown shoes were deemed to be dressed improperly, but I was again facing a judgment against which there could be no appeal.

Again I gave in, sprinted off to change my shoes, got back to the parade in the nick of time; and at length, after these vicissitudes, when my turn came, I was required to hold a university officer by his little finger, and to follow him slowly up to where the vice-chancellor sat upon a mighty throne. As instructed, I knelt at his feet, held up my hands, palms together, in a gesture of supplication, and begged in Latin for the degree, for which, I could not help thinking, I had worked extremely hard for three years, supported by my family at considerable expense. I recall being advised to hold my hands way up above my head, in case the elderly vice-chancellor, leaning forward to clutch at them, should topple off his great chair and land on top of me.

I did as I was advised; the elderly gentleman did not topple; and, also in Latin, he finally admitted me to the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

Looking back at that day, I am a little appalled by my pa.s.sivity, hard though it is to see what else I could have done. I could have not not paid up, paid up, not not changed my shoes, changed my shoes, not not knelt to supplicate for my B.A. I preferred to surrender and get the degree. I have grown more stubborn since. I have come to the conclusion, which I now offer you, that I was wrong to compromise; wrong to make an accommodation with injustice, no matter how persuasive the reasons. knelt to supplicate for my B.A. I preferred to surrender and get the degree. I have grown more stubborn since. I have come to the conclusion, which I now offer you, that I was wrong to compromise; wrong to make an accommodation with injustice, no matter how persuasive the reasons.

Injustice, today, still conjures up, in my mind, the memory of gravy. Injustice, for me, is a brown, lumpy, congealing fluid, and it smells pungently, tearfully, of onions. Unfairness is the feeling of running back to your room, flat out, at the last minute, to change your outlawed brown shoes. It is the business of being forced to beg, on your knees, in a dead language, for what is rightfully yours.

This, then, is what I learned on my own graduation day; this is the message I have derived from the parables of the Unknown Gravy-Bomber, the Vetoed Footwear, and the Unsteady Vice-Chancellor upon his Throne, and which I pa.s.s on to you today: first, if, as you go through life, people should someday accuse you of what one might call Aggravated Gravy Abuse-and they will, they will-and if in fact you are innocent of abusing gravy, do not take the rap. Second: those who would reject you because you are wearing the wrong shoes are not worth being accepted by. And third: kneel before no man. Stand up for your rights.

I like to think that Cambridge University, where I was so happy for three marvelous years, and from which I gained so much-I hope your years at Bard have been as happy, and that you feel you have gained as much-that Cambridge University, with its finely developed British sense of irony, intended me to learn precisely these valuable lessons from the events of that strange graduation day.

Members of the Cla.s.s of 1996, we are here to celebrate with you one of the great days of your lives. We partic.i.p.ate today in the rite of pa.s.sage by which you are released from this life of preparation into that life for which you are now as prepared as anyone ever is. As you stand at the gate of the future, I should like to share with you a piece of information about the extraordinary inst.i.tution you are leaving, which will explain the reason why it is such a particular pleasure for me to be with you today. In 1989, within weeks of the threat made against me by the mullahs of Iran, I was approached by the president of Bard, through my literary agent, and asked if I would consider accepting a place on the faculty of this college. More than a place; I was a.s.sured that I could find, here in Annandale, among the Bard community, many friends and a safe haven in which I could live and work. Alas, I was not able, in those difficult days, to take up this courageous offer, but I have never forgotten that at a moment when red-alert signals were flas.h.i.+ng all over the world, and all sorts of people and inst.i.tutions were running scared, Bard College did the opposite-that it moved toward me, in intellectual solidarity and human concern, and made not lofty speeches but a concrete offer of help.

I hope you will all feel proud that Bard, quietly, without fanfares, made such a principled gesture at such a time. I am certainly extremely proud to be a recipient of Bard's honorary degree, and to have the privilege of addressing you today.

Hubris, according to the Greeks, was the sin of defying the G.o.ds, and could, if you were really unlucky, unleash against you the terrifying, avenging figure of the G.o.ddess Nemesis, who carried in one hand an apple-bough and, in the other, the Wheel of Fortune, which would one day circle around to the inevitable moment of vengeance. As I have been, in my time, accused not only of gravy abuse and wearing brown shoes but of hubris, too, and since I have come to believe that such defiance is an inevitable and essential aspect of what we call freedom, I thought I might commend it to you. For in the years to come you will find yourselves up against G.o.ds of all sorts, big and little G.o.ds, corporate and incorporeal G.o.ds, all of them demanding to be wors.h.i.+ped and obeyed-the myriad deities of money and power, of convention and custom, that will seek to limit and control your thoughts and lives. Defy them; that's my advice to you. Thumb your noses. For, as the myths tell us, it is by defying the G.o.ds that human beings have best expressed their humanity. according to the Greeks, was the sin of defying the G.o.ds, and could, if you were really unlucky, unleash against you the terrifying, avenging figure of the G.o.ddess Nemesis, who carried in one hand an apple-bough and, in the other, the Wheel of Fortune, which would one day circle around to the inevitable moment of vengeance. As I have been, in my time, accused not only of gravy abuse and wearing brown shoes but of hubris, too, and since I have come to believe that such defiance is an inevitable and essential aspect of what we call freedom, I thought I might commend it to you. For in the years to come you will find yourselves up against G.o.ds of all sorts, big and little G.o.ds, corporate and incorporeal G.o.ds, all of them demanding to be wors.h.i.+ped and obeyed-the myriad deities of money and power, of convention and custom, that will seek to limit and control your thoughts and lives. Defy them; that's my advice to you. Thumb your noses. For, as the myths tell us, it is by defying the G.o.ds that human beings have best expressed their humanity.

The Greeks tell many stories of quarrels between us and the G.o.ds. Arachne, the great artist of the loom, sets her skills of weaving and embroidery against those of the G.o.ddess of wisdom herself, Minerva or Pallas Athena; and impudently chooses to weave versions of only those scenes that reveal the mistakes and weaknesses of the G.o.ds-the rape of Europa, Leda and the Swan. For this-for the irreverence, not for her lesser skill-for what we would now call art, art, and and chutzpah chutzpah-the G.o.ddess changes her mortal rival into a spider.

Queen Niobe of Thebes tells her people not to wors.h.i.+p Latona, the mother of Diana and Apollo, saying, "What folly is this!-To prefer beings whom you never saw to those who stand before your eyes!" For this sentiment, which today we would call humanism, humanism, the G.o.ds murder her children and husband, and she metamorphoses into a rock, petrified with grief, from which there trickles an unending river of tears. the G.o.ds murder her children and husband, and she metamorphoses into a rock, petrified with grief, from which there trickles an unending river of tears.

Prometheus the t.i.tan steals fire from the G.o.ds and gives it to mankind. For this-for what we would now call the desire for progress, progress, for improved scientific and technological capabilities-he is bound to a pillar while a great bird gnaws eternally at his liver, which regenerates as it is consumed. for improved scientific and technological capabilities-he is bound to a pillar while a great bird gnaws eternally at his liver, which regenerates as it is consumed.

The interesting point is that the G.o.ds do not come out of these stories at all well. If Arachne is overly proud when she seeks to compete with a G.o.ddess, it is only an artist's pride, joined to youthful gutsiness; whereas Minerva, who could afford to be gracious, is merely vindictive. The story increases Arachne's shadow, as they say, and diminishes Minerva's; it is Arachne who gains, from the tale, a measure of immortality.

And the cruelty of the G.o.ds to the family of Niobe proves her point. Who could prefer prefer the rule of such cruel G.o.ds to self-rule, the rule of men and women by men and women, however flawed that may be? Once again, the G.o.ds are weakened by their show of strength, while the human beings grow stronger, even though-even the rule of such cruel G.o.ds to self-rule, the rule of men and women by men and women, however flawed that may be? Once again, the G.o.ds are weakened by their show of strength, while the human beings grow stronger, even though-even as as-they are destroyed.

And tormented Prometheus, of course, Prometheus with his gift of fire, is the greatest hero of all.

It is men and women who have made the world, and they have made it in spite of their G.o.ds. The message of the myths is not the one the G.o.ds would have us learn-"behave yourself and know your place"-but its exact opposite. It is that we must be guided by our natures. Our worst natures can, it's true, be arrogant, venal, corrupt, or selfish; but in our best selves, we-that is, you you-can and will be joyous, adventurous, cheeky, creative, inquisitive, demanding, compet.i.tive, loving, and defiant.

Do not bow your heads. Do not know your place. Defy the G.o.ds. You will be astonished how many of them turn out to have feet of clay. Be guided, if possible, by your better natures. Great good luck and many congratulations to you all.

May 1996