Met Fatima Bhutto, a beautiful, fascinating woman with an exceptionally strong, fine nose. When I said something about her family and particularly her aunt being regarded by the West as a bulwark against fundamentalism, she rather told me off, saying Benazir Bhutto had compromised with them.
She wants to influence things from below, by writing, but I wonder how long she can her evade her destiny as a political leader?
I think maybe we all have propensity to do this – as well to run away from real love when we find it. I first began to think about this when I read Rilke's retelling of the Prodigal Son in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. In his version the son leaves because he can't take the responsibility of being loved.
Of course there is an esoteric - or at least idealist – interpretation of this story too. The son leaves to descend into the material world, gets the fatted calf when he returns because he had acquired qualities his brother hasn't.
How did you meet fatima?
Posted by: Ahmed Shah | June 23, 2008 at 06:59 PM
She was meeting British editors.
Posted by: jonathan black | June 24, 2008 at 04:06 PM