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librarybrooke's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
3.5
franciscouto_almeida's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
pagemaster_az's review against another edition
3.0
I basically read this whole book because Jean in Bob's Burgers pretends Salman Rushdie wrote Chronicles of Narnia for a laugh and I thought that was gas
melissonomos's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
pithingcontest's review against another edition
slow-paced
4.25
[8.5/10] Very good. Reading this felt like listening to someone try to describe The Master and Margarita from memory after taking one shot too many. Reminds me SO MUCH of Vonnegut, down to the irreverence and nauseating-at-times obscenity. Masterful exploration of immigration & assimilation & metamorphosis & reincarnation & exile & belonging & so on and so forth.
ratgrrrl's review against another edition
5.0
I am so very glad that nearly everything that can be said about this book has been said by my appropriate, knowledgeable, and intelligent people than myself because I don't have a clue what to say on finishing this beyond absolutely loving it with the Sagar Arya narration being one of the greatest performances I've ever had the privilege of listening to!
Absolutely bloody marvellous.
I would be lying if I said I got all of it and didn't struggle a little with keeping track of everything, but this absolutely blew me away.
Just...wow!
Absolutely bloody marvellous.
I would be lying if I said I got all of it and didn't struggle a little with keeping track of everything, but this absolutely blew me away.
Just...wow!
shri_ace13's review against another edition
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
christopherc's review against another edition
4.0
Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is an often touching, occasionally brilliant, and always entertaining novel. Over 500 pages, Rushie ties together exploration of such themes as the crass consumerism of modern culture, the Indian immigrant experience in England, the origin of Islam in the idolatry of the Arabian peninsula, and the nebulous duality of good and evil. However, it is such a good time that one almost feels that the novel is too entertaining, that it doesn't maintain the decorum that Great Literature is supposed to have.
The novel begins as the Indian movie star Gibreel Farishta and Bombay-born Englishman Saladin Chamcha fall from the sky, their London-bound airliner having been blown up by Sikh nationalists. Miraculously they survive the fall of thirty thousand feet and wash up on an English beach. From here, Chamcha, arrested by police believing he is an illegal immigrant, begins to change into a devil, growing horns and cloven hooves. Farishta goes the opposite way, he becomes his namesake archangel and starts to have strange dreams, in which the reader is transported to, among other places, Mecca in the time of the prophet “Mahound”. Although Farishta and Chamcha are now total opposites morally according to appearance, each continues to live their lives in an unpredictable fashion, and the ending, with Farishta's Joycean soliliquoy is truly a tour de force. The transformation and subsequent experiences of Farishta and Chamcha form the main point of The Satanic Verses: there are no polar opposites, no God and no Satan, but rather ready two sides of a single coin. Rushdie has stated that one of his greatest influences in writing this novel was Mikhail Bulgakov's anti-Soviet satire The Master and Margarita, a book in which the devil is, ironically, made a suave hero. With such inspiration, it's plain that Rushdie wants to present an alternate view of human character, and The Satanic Verses triumphantly rises above its predecessor, Bulgakov's rather shabby novel.
While most people are vaguely aware that the publication of The Satanic Verses resulted in Rushie being forced to go into hiding after Iranian clerics led by the ayatollah Khomeini issued a death fatwa, few know just why the novel led to its author fearing for his life. Rushdie, born a Muslim, was sentenced not for merely speaking against Islam, which millions of people do daily. Rather, it was for "apostasy", or attempting to leave Islam once he was already a Muslim. According to the Qu'ran, attempting to leave Islam is to be punished by death. The book brought on this tempest in two ways. One is the book's antepenultimate section, “Return to Jahilia” in which Rushdie openly declares – in a clever way which I shall not spoil for the reader – that he now believes Islam is a total sham. The second is the pathetic character of the exiled Imam, who is a thinly valid allusion to Khomeini himself. Of course, this all came to the attention of hard-line clerics by the book's skewering portrayal of the founding of the religion and repeated jabs against Muhammad's favourite wife Ayesha.
The Satanic Verses does have one flaw, however, which for me made it only a four-star work: Rushdie often weaves in quotations and allusions to literature without doing anything meaningful with them. Rather, it seems like he is regurgitating the Western tradition in order to add further weight to his already excellent work. Perhaps Rushdie, like his character Saladin Chamcha, feels he must wholeheartedly embrace Englishness and show it off for his readers.
I'd certainly recommend The Satanic Verses. While not a perfect novel, it is one of the most worthwhile reads in contemporary English literature, and spurs the reader to learn about many of the topics Rushdie presented, such as the archaeological exploration of early Islam, the experience of Indian and Pakistani immigrants to London, and religious fundamentalism. Furthermore, since the novel caused such a tempest in the media and was brought to the attention of the world, it's important to read the novel to understand exactly why the fatwa happened.
The novel begins as the Indian movie star Gibreel Farishta and Bombay-born Englishman Saladin Chamcha fall from the sky, their London-bound airliner having been blown up by Sikh nationalists. Miraculously they survive the fall of thirty thousand feet and wash up on an English beach. From here, Chamcha, arrested by police believing he is an illegal immigrant, begins to change into a devil, growing horns and cloven hooves. Farishta goes the opposite way, he becomes his namesake archangel and starts to have strange dreams, in which the reader is transported to, among other places, Mecca in the time of the prophet “Mahound”. Although Farishta and Chamcha are now total opposites morally according to appearance, each continues to live their lives in an unpredictable fashion, and the ending, with Farishta's Joycean soliliquoy is truly a tour de force. The transformation and subsequent experiences of Farishta and Chamcha form the main point of The Satanic Verses: there are no polar opposites, no God and no Satan, but rather ready two sides of a single coin. Rushdie has stated that one of his greatest influences in writing this novel was Mikhail Bulgakov's anti-Soviet satire The Master and Margarita, a book in which the devil is, ironically, made a suave hero. With such inspiration, it's plain that Rushdie wants to present an alternate view of human character, and The Satanic Verses triumphantly rises above its predecessor, Bulgakov's rather shabby novel.
While most people are vaguely aware that the publication of The Satanic Verses resulted in Rushie being forced to go into hiding after Iranian clerics led by the ayatollah Khomeini issued a death fatwa, few know just why the novel led to its author fearing for his life. Rushdie, born a Muslim, was sentenced not for merely speaking against Islam, which millions of people do daily. Rather, it was for "apostasy", or attempting to leave Islam once he was already a Muslim. According to the Qu'ran, attempting to leave Islam is to be punished by death. The book brought on this tempest in two ways. One is the book's antepenultimate section, “Return to Jahilia” in which Rushdie openly declares – in a clever way which I shall not spoil for the reader – that he now believes Islam is a total sham. The second is the pathetic character of the exiled Imam, who is a thinly valid allusion to Khomeini himself. Of course, this all came to the attention of hard-line clerics by the book's skewering portrayal of the founding of the religion and repeated jabs against Muhammad's favourite wife Ayesha.
The Satanic Verses does have one flaw, however, which for me made it only a four-star work: Rushdie often weaves in quotations and allusions to literature without doing anything meaningful with them. Rather, it seems like he is regurgitating the Western tradition in order to add further weight to his already excellent work. Perhaps Rushdie, like his character Saladin Chamcha, feels he must wholeheartedly embrace Englishness and show it off for his readers.
I'd certainly recommend The Satanic Verses. While not a perfect novel, it is one of the most worthwhile reads in contemporary English literature, and spurs the reader to learn about many of the topics Rushdie presented, such as the archaeological exploration of early Islam, the experience of Indian and Pakistani immigrants to London, and religious fundamentalism. Furthermore, since the novel caused such a tempest in the media and was brought to the attention of the world, it's important to read the novel to understand exactly why the fatwa happened.