I think Douglas Murray’s piece in The Spectator puts it best:
“The attacker should get exactly the opposite of the response he will have hoped for. Not just hopefully a failure to silence Rushdie, but a failure to limit what the rest of us are allowed to think, read, hear and say.”
I’ve purchased The Satanic Verses at least three times, at least once after I got to hear Mr. Rushdie read at Macalester College to promote one of his more recent novels. Shakily, I took the mic and asked him what he’d been reading (this must have been around 2017). He graciously mentioned Christopher Logue’s War Music, a retelling of the Iliad. I went on to read Joseph Anton, his memoir of his years with armed guards and his eventual decision to move through the world without them.
I pray for freedom from pain and permanent disfigurement, but if that’s not possible, at least we know that no one can restrain his vast imagination.