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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Rushdie describe as the earliest message from the gods (246)?

2. In what year does Saligia first appear in writing?

3. Which of the following does Rushdie note is assumed to be objectionable by those who have not read or viewed it?

4. To which of the following is Hitchens’s mind compared?

5. Which of the following reality shows does Rushdie note invited him to appear?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Rushdie note as a reason the interviews in the Paris Review are worth attention?

2. Why does Rushdie note admiring Susan Orlean in regards to Adaptation?

3. What justification does Rushdie see used to condemn artists in India and the United States?

4. What final gift does Rushdie note being able to offer Hitchens?

5. Why does Rushdie posit that the United States tolerates Pakistan’s quiet hosting of terrorist groups and figures?

6. For what reason was Sunflower Seeds cordoned off from the public?

7. What does Rushdie call “the final victory of the censor” (228)?

8. What does Rushdie note is the wrong answer to give when asked about autobiographical fiction?

9. Why does Rushdie argue that the Hinduism of the BJP is not true Hinduism?

10. How does Rushdie propose readers fight against censorship and artistic repression?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Readerly attention focuses on the following passage: “I believe that the books and stories we fall in love with make us who we are, or, not to claim too much, that the act of falling in love with a book or story changes us in some way, and the beloved tale becomes a part of our picture of the world, a part of the way in which we understand things and make judgements and choices in our daily lives” (3). Does the passage bear out? What in the anthology and in your experience suggests as much? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

In “Heraclitus,” Rushdie asserts “These are the four roots of the self: language, place, community, custom” (58). Does your experience bear out the assertion? How or how not?

Essay Topic 3

If the anthology were a work of fiction and nothing else about the work were changed, how reliable would the narrator be? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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