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Indian novelist and political thinker Salman Rushdie speaks in Royce Hall Tuesday night to over 6

Toward the tail end of Salman Rushdie’s appearance at Royce Hall last night, a patron asked the internationally renowned author if one of the night’s main topics – storytelling – could possibly work itself into the political debate and, in turn, enrich it.

Rushdie’s response was more serious in tone than his generally whimsical responses to other queries. He wondered aloud why, after the 2001 election, the media didn’t turn to the novelists who shaped their literary careers around the world’s political debate: the Don DeLillos or Philip Roths, or even the Salman Rushdies.

“Here (in the U.S.), people would argue, ‘what the hell does a novelist know about politics?’ To which the answer is, ‘what the hell does anyone know about it?’” he said.

In the context of Rushdie’s entire presentation, the words carried weight. In spite of his towering status as a literary dissident that already approaches mythical proportions, Rushdie spoke to the nearly full Royce audience with a humble directness that outweighed his intellectual fervor.

The author’s latest tour was inspired by the release his new book “Steps Across the Line,” which compiles his non-fiction columns, essays and memoirs from 1992-2002. There was no mention of the book throughout the night, either from the author himself or the patrons who were able to ask him questions during a short question and answer session.

Instead Rushdie dealt indirectly with the topics contained in his latest wide-ranging compilation. He transitioned with ease to a number of issues, applying the literary style of “magic realism” to try and understand the recent California election, or evoking Saul Bellow’s work “Deans of December” to compare novelists to barking dogs. The author took a few minutes to point out the inherent awkwardness of patrons paying to hear a writer speak, but Rushdie proved himself at ease.

Rushdie’s presentation shows that he remains preoccupied with thoughts of the world’s political problems, and by the constant struggle for free speech as shown by the government-issued fatwa that made him a marked man for nearly two decades. But as any almost well-traveled thinker has shown, a good way to handle it is with at least a bit of humor.

“The biggest lie in this world is that things are normal,” Rushdie said. “And it’s the telling of stories that reveal the truth.”