Jamad 's Reviews > Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Mixed feelings about this book. Interesting in places but, told in the first person singular, it struck me that he was trying too hard. His attempts at humour struck me as forced. His views on religion, towards the end of the book, however were, I thought well expressed.

Why did he he take the engagement in Chautauqua?

As it happened, we had some big domestic bills to pay our homes. Whole air-conditioning system was old on the edge of breaking down and needed to be renewed so the money would be very handy.

Really?

There were some statements made by other world leaders even Boris Johnson then the British Prime Minister who once had written an article saying I didn’t deserve the knighthood I’d received in June 2007 for services to literature because I wasn’t a good enough writer now found some grudging platitudes

“ I have never felt the need for religious faith to help me comprehend and deal with the world. However, I understand that for many people religion provides a moral anchor and seems essential. And in my view the private faith of anyone is nobody’s business except that of the individual concerned. I have no issue with religion when it occupies this private space and doesn’t seek to impose its values on others. But when religion becomes politic even weaponised then it’s everybody’s business because of its capacity for harm.”