The Sigla Blog

It’s been a while since there’s been a decent creative spat but who better than Germaine Greer to kick things off with a pseudo-racist rant about Monica Ali’s Brick Lane. Producers of the film adaption of the book have not been permitted to film in the eponymous area of East London. Greer, in a sanctimonious piece in last week’s Guardian asserts that this refusal is due to Ali’s misrepresentation of Bangledeshi Britons.

The piece was condescending and Salman Rushdie, no stranger to literary controversy himself, responded in a letter to the paper branding Greer’s comments “philistine, sanctimonious and disgraceful”.

Kevin also comments on the story and Guardian supplies an update with a handy guide to some previous literary scraps. Natasha Walters makes some worthy assertions today, but I liked Sam Leith’s suggestion for how to solve the row most of all. Writing in the Telegraph (and with his tongue planted firmly in cheek) he compares Greer and Rushdie’s love-hate relationship to Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing and believes that feud could be solved easily:

“A discreet suite at the Savoy, champagne on ice, a quilt scattered with rose petals, and a copy of Krapp’s Last Tape on DVD should just about do the trick.”