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Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No to turn.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt.

This is Bookworm.

Today I have the pleasure of a continued conversation with Salman Rushdie about his new novel, Kishat, which is a version of Don Quixote, the Servantes, but also of the opera based upon Don Quixote by Massinay.

Now tell me what does the opera do to the book?

Well, what it does is release me from being excessively dependent on the story of Don Quixote,

because Massenae is not very dependent on it.

He's only in the sketchiest way similar to Don Quixote.

He's playing with Don Quixote in French, so he's Quichotte,

and tell me, this is a short opera, isn't it?

It's an early 19th century opera.

But the whole relationship between Kishat and the woman he loves is quite different.

You know, the way in which the story goes is different.

And the reason I did it as a way was to tell myself that, yes, of course, this is a book

which has its point of origin in this great masterpiece,

but it's going on down its own road. And I very much wanted it, having started off with

...