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Title: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0312270828 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: December, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83
Rating: 2
Summary: I did not get it, or maybe it really is bad?
Comment: Never has there been so much international outrage on the subject of a single literary novel as with The Satanic Verses (1988) of Salman Rushdie. Reason enough for me to dive in the unknown and taste a little bit of controversy by reading this cursed work. This is likely to be the number one reason why people start reading Rushdie's book, proving that censorship has actually the opposite effect on sales. Why didn't the Ayatollah think about that, he?
The Satanic Verses is a by times fascinating, sometimes even funny mix of adventure, dreams and myths, facts and fiction. It playfully juggles with religion, philosophy and literature. Central is the struggle between good and evil, personified by two men who miraculously survive, without a single scratch, a drop of 10 kilometers out of the sky, following an exploded airplane towards the city of London. Both men try to go their own way in search of their identity. But nothing is more complicated, it seems.
The basic concept of the book is quite ingenious, but the implementation is a bit lacking behind. I had to start reading this book about three times before I was able to finish it, every time being disappointed by another part that was excelling in being boring as -seems appropriate- hell. Once I even threw it against the wall out of pure frustration, serious. With any other boring book a reader would quickly decide to simply stop reading and burn the book -seems appropriate too-, but the problem with this specific one is that it constantly gives you the impression that something really remarkable is bound to happen. Seduced by some inaccessible prospect you keep saying to yourself: "maybe next chapter I will start to understand what Rushdie means with this" and you flip over to the next page. I hope I do not completely spoil the book for you by giving away that the end just does not deliver at all.
There are some readable chapters though, like the one where a whole village starts on a crusade for Mecca and hopes that the Gods will split the sea to give them a way through. Though in the end it might not be worth the trouble. I must admit that I may not be very familiar with the Muslim culture to completely understand what this book is all about, but then again the people who do have this knowledge have maybe already burned their copy.
Rating: 5
Summary: A story visible but unseen
Comment: I bought the Satanic Verses when the book came out as a gesture of solidarity with the author, not necessarily to read it or even expect that over the years it would become the most-oft read book I own. I don't want to offer the ubiquitous Joyce comparison, but the scope of the book is certainly Joycean. In the many intermingling storylines I discovered (over many reads) two overarching ideas, the first being the clash of spheres: the clash between cultures, migration, adaptation and repulsion of other peoples' influences on the one hand, but also the clash between the secular (Mirza) and the divine (Ayesha), the vulgar (Gibreel) and the cultured (Saladin). In these conflicts Rushdie manages to first offer all coping strategies as viable, just to let them fail one by one. There is no way out of the quandary of being an immigrant, we are forever trapped in the cultural baggage we were born with.
The second idea is about the birth of ideas themselves, especially those (like Islam) strong enough to change the world. Rushdie asks two questions of those ideas. The first one, conspicuously: What kind of an idea are you? One that compromises and finds a niche or one that doesn't and that will most likely fail, but in one out of a hundred times will change the world. Gibreel then inquires about the second question but is advised to answer the first one first. Only much later and almost in an aside the second question is asked: What will you do if you win? This set of questions about idealism and corruption is applicable to all kinds of revolutions both political (Russia, Cuba, the U.S. and its foreign policy) and religious (Christianity and Islam in particular), but it becomes especially powerful when Rushdie asks the second question of Mohamed ('Mahound') after his victorious return to Mecca ('Jahilia'). Ostensibly the fatwa on Rushdie was issued because of his vulgar description of the prophet's life (his twelve wives as whores), but the more powerful and insidious idea was that Mohamed started rewriting the Quran as a rulebook to further his own goals--the Satanic Verses. Religion, Rushdie seems to imply, succeeds only as the combination of superhuman ideals proliferated by ruthless actions.
Both ideas reappear frequently in the different realms of the story, both in the 'real' worlds of the Sufyan and the Cone families, the 'dream' worlds of Gibreel and Rosa Diamond and the worlds inbetween like Saladin's diabolic ordeal, and they mercilessly guide the protagonists to their respective faiths. While the theme of the book seems to be pessimistic, Rushdie's great talent is to raise doubt and show the victory of faith (in the Ayesha pilgrimage) at the same time. This book does not give an answer about the purpose of our existence, but sometimes the art is to ask the right questions.
Rating: 5
Summary: An almost overwhelming, but deeply pleasurable task.
Comment: __________
Fluff or Not? NOT
__________
Similar to several other reviewers I freely admit a lack of robust understanding of all that went on in Rusdie's 'Verses'. However, I do feel compelled to give it a full star rating. There were poetic gems that left me breathless, whole sections that still have me bewildered, and characters whom I didn't fully understand but who had moments with which I identified, and overall appreciated. This book, for me, warrents a second go-through.
+: poetry, wildly immaginative, fun characters, crazy circumstances, great language
-: tough going sometimes, big words, you need to know some background, you can get totally lost
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Title: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0140132708 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0679744665 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: January, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Shame: A Novel by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0312270933 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0679463348 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 10 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Ground Beneath Her Feet: A Novel by Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0312254997 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: March, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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