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The Satanic Verses

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 · rating details · 22,894 ratings · 1,769 reviews

One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie’s best-known and most galvanizing book. Set in a modern world filled with both mayhem and miracles, the story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living sy...more

Paperback, 576 pages

Published March 11th 2008 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published January 1st 1988)

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Dec 14, 2012 Petra X rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, crap-authors-and-books-i-loathed

I never got past page 60 in this book. I read and forgot and reread and forgot again up unto about the fifth reading when I thought to myself that I might rate Midnight's Children as one of the greatest books I've read, enjoyed the depiction of Benazir Bhutto as the Virgin Ironpants in Shame a great deal, but I also couldn't read Shalimar the Clown and thought that Grimus was excreble (not even Rushie rated this first offering of his oeuvre). So what was I doing trying so hard with the Satanic V...more

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Jun 27, 2007 Max Ostrovsky rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, fiction, fantasy

Occasionally, I will go into Half Price Books and buy a book that hasn't been recommended by any one I know, by an author I've never read before, solely because of its "critical acclaim." I buy and read a book because I feel that I should, based on the general public's reaction to it.

It is a weakness.

Many months ago, I decided to buy Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. My decision was based on the controversy surrounding the book. It was thought to be so controversial, so blasphemous, that Ay...more Occasionally, I will go into Half Price Books and buy a book that hasn't been recommended by any one I know, by an author I've never read before, solely because of its "critical acclaim." I buy and read a book because I feel that I should, based on the general public's reaction to it.

It is a weakness.

Many months ago, I decided to buy Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. My decision was based on the controversy surrounding the book. It was thought to be so controversial, so blasphemous, that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on Salman Rushdie. It became every Muslim's sacred duty to hunt down this writer of fiction and kill him. So I thought (these were the days long before the reaction to Danish comics) wow, this book pissed off people enough that they want to kill him? Wow. I must read this book. It's gotta be good.

That's what controversy does. It brings a lot of attention to something that doesn't always merit the attention.
So, when I bought Rushdie's book, I fell for the hype. Partly because it was a subject that I did have an interest in. I'm an amateur theologian, and I can't find better amusement than blasphemy. Besides that, I love Magic Realism and this book had plenty of that.

What this book did not have plenty of was editing. This book was in serious need of an editor. There were parts that were more thrilling and exciting, but overall, the writing of the book was bland and uninspired for its very interesting subject matter.

Quick Plot Summary: Two Indian ex-patriots, now living in England living very famous lives are on an airplane when it is exploded by terrorists. They survive the explosion and the fall and upon landing begin changing. The garish obnoxious one, gains a halo, becoming the arch-angel Gabreel and the prim and proper other one gains horns and goat legs. The devil's story is his reintroduction into society and the angel's story is through his dreams, he inspires the prophet Mohammad. Everything culminates into a showdown between these two entities.

But along the way, nothing happens. We have pages and pages of unnecessary background information. And then, we have more pages and pages of unnecessary background information. We keep getting filled with pages and pages of unnecessary background information. Suddenly, we're faced with a book that is much larger, and more importantly, much drier than it should be. It really does have the basis for a great story. Wonderful things happen in this book that everyone should read, but it's not worth getting through all the unnecessary to get there.

I've never taken so long to read a book. Usually, I read a book when I want to and usually that's all the time. This book, I only read in great spurts when I was sitting and waiting. I read a bunch when I was sitting and waiting at a debate tournament. I read a bunch while I was sitting and waiting monitoring my students testing. I read a bunch while I was sitting and waiting in the bathtub for my health to return. Never was there a point when I wanted to pick up this book because it was interesting and I couldn't wait to get back to the story.

As big a fan of magic realism as I am, I was disappointed. If you're looking for a Muslim centric magic realism story that uses a lot of the same story telling techniques that Rushdie uses, I recommend a far superior story done by a far superior writer: Farnoosh Moshiri's At the Wall of the Almighty. (less)

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Feb 24, 2012 Riku Sayuj rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Tanuj Solanki

Shelves: reviews, favorites

Satanic Verses: A Composition

He had just finished his thirty-fourth reading of the play. The unsaid hate, the unseen events, the half-imagined wrongs; they tormented him. What could cause such evil to manifest, he just could not figure. He loved him too much to believe the simple explanation.

And then the idea starts growing on him - to explore the growth of evil just as Shakespeare showed, explored the tragic culmination of it. And because you show the growth, it can no longer be a tragedy, no,...more Satanic Verses: A Composition

He had just finished his thirty-fourth reading of the play. The unsaid hate, the unseen events, the half-imagined wrongs; they tormented him. What could cause such evil to manifest, he just could not figure. He loved him too much to believe the simple explanation.

And then the idea starts growing on him - to explore the growth of evil just as Shakespeare showed, explored the tragic culmination of it. And because you show the growth, it can no longer be a tragedy, no, no it has to be a comedy. A tragi-comedy. Yes. And he set to it. He painted Othello as an Indian actor, worshiped and adored and off on a mad canter to get his Ice Queen, his Desdemona. On his way he meets him - the poor man trying to forget his own roots and desperately reinventing himself, his Iago.

Yes Iago too was once a man. What twists of fate made him evil incarnate? He sets out his prime motif: The question that’s asked here remains as large as ever it was: which is, the nature of evil, how it’s born, why it grows, how it takes unilateral possession of a many-sided human soul.

Wait a minute, he blinks at his notes, if Iago is evil incarnate, does that not also mean that he is Satan incarnate? Chamcha then is Satan incarnate? Then Othello has to be God? A little bit more corruptible maybe? Let us make him the angel Gibreel, he decided. As an aside, as the angel, he can slip into that reality in his dreams and reenact the story (history?) of Prophet Mohammad in inflammatory fashion, maybe talk about the 'Satanic Verses' since his Satan can't help but gloat over his little jokes. Why not call the novel so too, except that it would mean something else - the verses that the real Satan of the story, Iago, sings in Othello's ear. He knows that this might be cause for misunderstanding, might ruffle a few feathers, but it is just a digression, the real story is beyond that - it is not the Event Horizon. But he can't help himself. He never could keep a story simple.

Ah, now something beyond mere Othello is taking shape is it not? If Iago is Satan, then surely it is in character to enjoy with consummate pleasure the sight of his own jealousy consuming himself - the green-eyed monster that feeds on itself. So Satan decides to narrate the story of one of his incarnations? Or rather, possessions? The questions that are to run his plot are flowing freely now. How an ordinary man when in contact with an angel inevitably had to transform into Lucifer himself. How can one exist without the other. They meet and the spiral ensues and Iago mutates and agitates and like a cancerous growth his strange fate builds until he turns his wrath square on his angel, his Othello. And how can he then not try to destroy what he is not, what he can not be. There is the moment before evil, then the moment of, then the time after; and each subsequent stride becomes progressively easier. But what about before and after the madness? It surely must be an ordinary life, with ordinary joys and pains. It is a cosmic drama, he concludes.

In the process, every insinuated implication in the play is to be played out in this story - Cassio does sleep with Iago's wife, Iago is madly lustful of Desdemona, Othello is a deserving victim of directed revenge for very real ills and Iago needs no invented or unbelievable reasons for his actions. He is justified. It was inevitable.

Salman Rushdie sets down his pen.

He has vindicated Iago, many a literature lover's favorite character.

And for that, I am eternally thankful.(less)

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Dec 10, 2007 Stanka rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm doing my best not to think "Here goes Rushdie again." I never read this one before although I read every other book he ever wrote. And now, to fill the gap, I am stuck with the last unread jewel, except that it's somehow lackluster because Salman doesn't age or accumulate well. I mean, the more you read him the more he sounds the same. And has this ever happened to you: that you discover in a writer just a wisp of too much wit and it's wit that bores you?
Yes, I'm reading on, with strange com...more I'm doing my best not to think "Here goes Rushdie again." I never read this one before although I read every other book he ever wrote. And now, to fill the gap, I am stuck with the last unread jewel, except that it's somehow lackluster because Salman doesn't age or accumulate well. I mean, the more you read him the more he sounds the same. And has this ever happened to you: that you discover in a writer just a wisp of too much wit and it's wit that bores you?
Yes, I'm reading on, with strange compulsive patience that some readers acquire... Maybe we think, it'll get better or it'll reach a moment when all the nonsense will have become justified.
And then, there is the miserable expository didactic style. You don't believe me? Ok, how about this: "Now, however, change had begun to feel painful; the arteries of the possible had begun to harden."
Arteries of the possible?!? No, really, is that writing?
Or this: "...she had no confidence at all, and every moment she spent in the world was full of panic, so she smiled and smiled and maybe once a week she locked the door and shook and felt like a husk, like an empty peanut-shell, a monkey without a nut."
A monkey without a nut? Now how exactly do you imagine such a character? And is she a husk or a monkey... Or is it both?
Amendment, if you'll allow me: finally, I reached the end and must say, almost despite myself, that it is worth the effort. What happens? Various disconnected and initially confusing strands of the story come together, more or less. There is, in any case, a feeling of wholeness and an idea that seems to animate it. And it is in this "main" idea that I recognize Rushdie and realize that he has always been faithful to himself. I think he tries, here as elsewhere, to address the question of faith, but in a sense much broader than the mere religious one. What does it mean to believe something so strongly that the fiction comes to be real or reality is denied and becomes a miracle? This question matters as much to literature as it does to religion and here the two overlap. This I find to be a very powerful achievement of The Satanic Verses: to ask you when and how you believe and what the consequences of that belief may be... Or when and how you don't believe and what the consequences of that unbelief may be... So my favorite aspect of the book: the steady, intricate focus on fiction -- its reality and its delusions.(less)

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Sep 09, 2007 Johanna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Magical Realism Fans, Neil Gaiman fans, studiers and enthusiasts of post-colonial politics

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is overwhelming in terms of plot, imagery, and its large cast of characters. However, it is completely worth it and it flows beautifully once you get in tune with the book. I bought the Satanic Verses when I was 17 and I was not ready for it--I read 15 pages and then put it away. I picked it up again 7 years later and could not put it down.

There is just....so much packed into this book. One would have to read it many many times to get the full meaning...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, reading-through-history

This is a funny entry into the magical realism genre, because maybe nothing magical happens. (view spoiler) Rushdie uses this misty method to expose the ugliness of belief in magic, the rot of blind faith. It's a religious book, but not a superstitious one.

But also: (view spoiler) So it's magical after all? It's about faith.

Satanic Ve...more

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Jul 25, 2009 Fildmarshal rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

کل اسم این کتاب به خاطره 3 4 صفحه از کتابه که میگه در اوایل بعثت،پیامبر داشته کنار کعبه نماز و قرآن میخونده که یسری آیاتو شیطان در تجلیل از بتها به پیامبر میگه که پیامبرم ناخود آگاه بلند تکرار میکنه و...که این چرنده.حالا باقیشو؟

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Jan 04, 2008 Sheba rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't really review Rushdie's work. I don't understand everything he writes about. But I do love him because his language and his prose and his stories are just so Indian.

He writes lushly, extravagantly, with story tripping over story, subplot over sub sub plot. Characters tromp through with no regard for their antecedents. The colors are candy pink, good luck red, and Aegean blue, and everything is crashing and tumbling into each other.

And on top, his stories are amusing, mischievous, clever,...more

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Aug 18, 2007 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

People jumping into this book blindly may soon find themselves wishing they had informed themselves somewhat beforehand. I must claim an embarrassing ignorance about just about every aspect of this daunting work at the outset: I had only the faintest whisper of a memory of having heard the phrase "satanic verses" outside of a discussion of the ever-present religiously-sanctioned hit out on the author's life. I had very little knowledge of Indian culture and none regarding the cross-cultural expe...more

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Apr 24, 2007 Taylor rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those who are not easily daunted.

Shelves: fiction, to-reread, favorites, own, recommended, desert-island-picks, ramble-on, the-power-of-love

Here's the thing about this book that you will immediately grasp from what everyone says: it's a beast. I do not mean this in a bad sense. I mean this in the sense that it's overwhelming. It's long, complex (storylines that involve overlapping characters and storylines that don't overlap in time or space at all), dense and occasionally slow. It is not for the reader with ADD. No matter how quickly you think you might read, reading this book will slow you down. No matter how determined you are to...more

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Jul 19, 2007 Victoria rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Someone with a lot of patience

I have decided that it's time for me to leave this book. I have tried to stick with it. It jumps around way to much, has too many moments of abstract non-sensical story inserts and I often feel as though I have ADD when I pick it up. I always have to read the last few pages I read the time before in hopes of refreshing myself for the current reading session. Unfortunately because the book is so abstract, new characters constantly appear as if they have been there all along, causing immediate dis...more

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May 03, 2012 Jean-marcel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's always interesting returning to a book read years before and gaining a different perspective. I first read this my final year of highschool and it blew my mind at the time; I don't think I stopped talking about it for months. A few months ago I returned to the book and, while I still think it's great, and I probably got a lot more of the references, it's not as amazing to me as it was over ten years ago. Rushdie's style is occasionally flowing and lyrical, but then he'll throw in all sorts...more It's always interesting returning to a book read years before and gaining a different perspective. I first read this my final year of highschool and it blew my mind at the time; I don't think I stopped talking about it for months. A few months ago I returned to the book and, while I still think it's great, and I probably got a lot more of the references, it's not as amazing to me as it was over ten years ago. Rushdie's style is occasionally flowing and lyrical, but then he'll throw in all sorts of references to pop culture or some obscure Indian films that go right over my head and occasionally even put a big, barely digestable lump in the narrative. Still, when this book is good, it's really poignant, tragic, and sometimes full of mirth.

I never liked the term "magic realism" much, but I suppose it can be applied to this novel. I do think it probably fits better with Midnight's Children though, as parts of The Satanic Verses are outright, unashamed fantasy (though fairly allegorical of course) and quite good at that. The premise of the book is that an Indian movie star and an expatriate Indian voice artist living in London meet on a plane that gets hijacked and blows up, and for some reason they survive their fall to earth, but become angelic beings in the process. Gibreel, the flamboyant, pompous film star, walks around with a big glowing halo (even if you can't always see it) and seems to be unable to do any wrong, except to his sometime lover, the mountain-climber Aleluia Cone, , whereas Saladin Chamcha looks like a goat-man, smells horrible and, until over halfway through the book, can only speak in animal noises. I understand better what Rushdie was trying to do with this parable in 2012, whereas in 1999 I just thought it was a crazy and awesome story, although I did grasp the moral implications well enough. Salman has a lot to say about prestige, what it means to be outcast, what it means to have a country, or be an alien in a country that you really wish was your own. Sometimes he's quite subtle with this, but at other times the heavy hand of symbolism causes a slight flinch.

In between the chapters telling the story of Gibreel and Saladin are historical stories running through about three separate narratives. Much of this has to do with the birth of islam, or pilgrims on the Haj, and these may be my favourite sections of the book. Rushdie brings the setting of ancient Jahilia to a strange, distant sort of life, and portrays the dealings and political machinations and religious fervour with a good deal of subtlety. It is, I think, these chapters that got Rushdie into so much trouble, as they do indeed appear quite blasphemous and make the prophet Mohammad out to be a bit of a huckster and a charlatan. I like a big helping of irreverent mockery and this book does deliver on that count. It's interesting to observe, too, how these "side narratives" end up weaving into the main story in a way and tackling similar themes in different ways. I think that brings me finally to the greatest strength of the book: It's not just a simple, clear-cut tale that you can distill to a single statement or fragment of moral. There are many, many layers, and many things Rushdie wants to bring out into the open. Some of his messages even appear slightly contradictory, and yet that's part of the pleasure of the experience; this book will have you thinking and asking questions about your perceptions of the world around you, the home you live in and the people with whom you share it.(less)

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view all 7 comments

Jean-marcel haha..I read this comment last night while both somewhat intoxicated and half asleep and started writing this reply about how I thought you had one he...more
Jun 15, 2012 06:53am

Emma It was actually two Rushdie books! The last occupant also left The Ground Beneath Her Feet but I didn’t ever finish it. My travelling buddy was readin...more
Jun 15, 2012 08:59am

Apr 20, 2010 Rich rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Salman Rushdie uses excessive language to cloud discordant plots, has a part-time occupation of scouring the news to write op-eds about evil Muslim organizations he reads about, and is obsessed with celebrity.

Rushdie strangles his plot in The Satanic Verses by hitching every development to a forced and unnecessarily long description or metaphor. His overwriting prevents the development of narrative flow. He even returns to more metaphors about the same topic sometimes, like when he writes about...more

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Jul 25, 2007 Radhika rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Rushdie fans

I only picked up this book because I wanted to know what the big hullabaloo was about. It was a slog in parts and not Rushdie's best work. And yet, one must acknowledge that the man is definitely a master of his pen. This book is quite ambiguous in many ways and it is likely that the author meant it to be that way.

"Verses" refers not only to the pseudo-Koranic verses which appear in the book, but also to childish rhymes and other words spouted by various characters in the book. There is a chara...more

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Jul 27, 2007 Reshma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those who are intrigued by confusion.

Well, I just finished it. Here's the thing. I made the mistake of reading this book a few pages at a time, spread out over a long time. Not the way to read this book. If you choose to read it, commit to it. Or it will confuse you more.

The "confusion" is not a bad kind of confusion. It's the kind that, after you finish reading the book, makes you want to stand back and smile, wondering how you got suckered into this ride and how you became consumed in it. You can spend endless hours trying to fig...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Beth F. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: banned-books, 1001-books, magical-realism, infidelity, pea-soup, 2008, eastern-hemisphere

Salman Rushdie is a weird man. Sometimes he would write things like, “…Chamcha was going down head first, in the recommended position for babies entering the birth canal…” and “…Saladin, like a bloody lettuce, I ask you…” and he used a lot of big words I’ve never seen like “orotund” and “obsolescent” and the whole time, I kept thinking, ‘wow, Salman Rushdie made a cameo appearance in the Bridget Jones’s Diary movie and he has funny eyebrows like Jack Nicholson.’

Um. Right. This book was not an e...more Salman Rushdie is a weird man. Sometimes he would write things like, “…Chamcha was going down head first, in the recommended position for babies entering the birth canal…” and “…Saladin, like a bloody lettuce, I ask you…” and he used a lot of big words I’ve never seen like “orotund” and “obsolescent” and the whole time, I kept thinking, ‘wow, Salman Rushdie made a cameo appearance in the Bridget Jones’s Diary movie and he has funny eyebrows like Jack Nicholson.’

Um. Right. This book was not an enjoyable read for me. It was dense and too long. I had to force myself to read a little bit every day because I kept picking up other books to read instead of this one. Once I made it past the first 100 pages, it became more interesting but it was still a dredge to read. I thought most of the scenes are way too drawn out. I’d have appreciated this book a whole lot more if the parts that involved Saladin and Chamcha were thinned down by a third and the parts that involved Mahound and his band of merry men and gals was beefier.

So anyway, unless you are a brainiac (and you’re probably not so quit giving yourself airs) and/or are comfortable with several facets of Indian culture and also have a comfortable working knowledge of Islam, you’re setting yourself up for failure if you decide to just sit down and noncommittally read The Satanic Verses. I don’t think that’s possible. I came close to quitting several times but didn’t, thanks largely in part to this: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/anglo...

The document is almost 100 pages long but the way I see it, if you’re actually going to put forth the commitment to read this dang book with the intention of understanding what the hell is going on, what’s an extra 100 pages? Especially if they’ll actually help you capture and understand some of the non-transparent characters and events that fill this book. It is divided up by chapters. I read the notes before starting each new chapter and referred back as necessary.

Obviously scanning this document while I was reading the book added to the length of time it took to work my way through this book. However, I feel no shame whatsoever in admitting that this book would have been so far beyond my level of comprehension if I hadn’t had the help that I don’t even care.

I'm relieved to be done with this book. (less)

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Jun 26, 2008 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent. Maybe not worth a death sentence, but excellent.

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Apr 25, 2012 Hend added it · review of another edition

Shelves: the-most-disgusting-book-ever-read, indian-literature

يقول المفكر البريطانى رولد ديهل
ان هذا النمط من اثارة الحساسية قد اوصل كتبا غير متميزة على الاطلاق الى قمة الكتب الاكثر مبيعا فى العالم ولكن فى نظرى هذه طريقة رخيصة للوصول للهدف وفى نظرى انه انتهازى خطير
ديلى نيوز مارس 1989

كتاب ايات شيطانية يدل على احد امرين اما الجهل المطبق بالاسلام والمسلمين او تعمد تشويهه بغير حق

فى اعلان عن كنيسة كانتربرى فى انكلترا يقول الدكتور روبرت رونسى

ان فاقد القدرة على تمييز الحق هو وحده الذى يخفق فى ان يرى ان نشر هذا الكتاب قد اساء للمسلمين فى كل انحاء العالم واعتقد ان ا...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Javier rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: prose

For all it's hype, I was pretty disappointed with this book. Pretty is an understatement actually. This experience reminded me of my attempted reading of Thomas Pynchon's "V." I have come to the conclusion that idiosyncratic wording and arrangements are a turn off, and that's exactly what I found in the "Satanic Verses." The book itself is also confusing because there's two or three story lines intertwined with each other. What you basically have is a story about two Indian born characters, one...more For all it's hype, I was pretty disappointed with this book. Pretty is an understatement actually. This experience reminded me of my attempted reading of Thomas Pynchon's "V." I have come to the conclusion that idiosyncratic wording and arrangements are a turn off, and that's exactly what I found in the "Satanic Verses." The book itself is also confusing because there's two or three story lines intertwined with each other. What you basically have is a story about two Indian born characters, one an expatriate and the other a famous Indian Cinema star. Over the course of the book we follow the mis-adventures of the two as they progress through a series of odd dream like transformations after the bombing a plane they were traveling in.

These story lines use allusions regarding an apocryphal legend (history?) regarding a series of verses supposedly recited by the Muslim prophet Muhammad. These verses were said to have been recited in order to gain the support of locals who were still hesitant to submit to Allah. By reciting these verses, which espoused three goddesses these villagers worshiped, the hope was that the Muslims could win the support of the locals and secure new converts. Of course, being that such reverence for other deities are counter to the beliefs of Muslims, these recitations are considered blasphemous. In the end Muhammad retracts these verses after it was decided that Satan had led him astray. These events are thinly disguised in the book by replacing the names of historical figures and places...Mecca is renamed Jahilia and the prophet is renamed Mahound...interestingly enough Jahilia and Mahound are considered pejoratives towards Muslims. These names signify the author's thinly disguised irreverence or disdain for Islam. I found myself not overly impressed because this was looking more and more like a polemic.

Gibreel, the Indian actor, is transformed into an angel, seemingly representing his ethereal nature, and aloof existence. He never openly renounces his Indian heritage as does Saladin, the Indian expatriate. Therefor he is portrayed as a cloven hoofed beast. Eventually they return to their normal states, but why and how is never discernible to me. Throw in an uninteresting love triangle(s) and another storyline involving a butterfly clad prophetess and you're left with a slightly over indulgent novel. I can only surmise that these were merely dreams by Gibreel in his increasingly deteriorating mental state, which is hinted at.

I'm still left wondering how these story lines connect to one another...and perhaps that's why it took me over two months to get through this book. I felt compelled to finish it only out of a desire to finish what I started, and relief came when I was done. Not exactly a good sign. (less)

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Sep 22, 2007 Lily rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Life is too short to endure bad fiction.

The story started out interesting enough, with the characters literally falling out of the sky. It took me a awhile to get into the story, but I finally did. The problem was that every time you managed to get a hold of the basic underlying narrative it would evaporate and be replaced by a nonsensical dream sequence. The transitions between the two realities was so seamless that you frequently find yourself lost. Add all of that to the fact that you are try...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Djayawarman Alamprabu rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: culture, sastra, religion

I can't understand why Queen of England give Salman Rushdie a Knight of literature status? Anyone who like to put dirty words and provoke people can easily produce such books like this!

Just like anyone who can draw can produce cartoon to mock one's religion. I wonder why is a big powerfull country like britian still uses old lame monarch system and believe in that Dumb Queen who actually like to read this so called book, that only brings a provocation after another with bad foul mouth langguage...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Whitaker rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, 2009-read

I liked it more than I thought I would. Rushdie is ~~a bit~~ exceedingly heavy-handed with the symbolism (I mean, Indian expatriate who denies his Indian roots turns into the incarnation of evil? Come on!), but makes up for it by his pungent prose. Beware though. If sentences like, "Exit Pimple, weeping, censored, a scrap on a cutting-room floor." or "Here he is neither Mahomet nor MoeHammered; has adopted, instead, the demon-tag the farangis hung around his neck." make you cringe then you'll want t...more

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Dec 10, 2008 Ellie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was massively underwhelmed by this. I have put off and put off reading it, and then I was told by a friend that it was her favourite book, so I thought I'd give it a go, and frankly I wish I hadnt bothered.

I found the writing pretentious, with very little story. It has the potential to be brilliant, as the bones of it is good, but there is so much waffle, rubbish and unnessessary wording that it fast becomes tedious and irritatnig.

That said its made him very rich, so good on him!

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Aug 30, 2012 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars

For eight days we wrestled. "The Satanic Verses" and I locked in heaving struggle. At times it nearly escaped as I chased it uphill, my straining hand holding fast its heel as it wriggled; then I myself would seek respite from the battle, clutching for the out-of-bounds only to be pulled back in. But we finished the struggle, and were better for it.

"The Satanic Verses" is, I suspect, one of the most unread of best-sellers. It is, indeed, a cantankerous beast with sections that one must slog thro...more For eight days we wrestled. "The Satanic Verses" and I locked in heaving struggle. At times it nearly escaped as I chased it uphill, my straining hand holding fast its heel as it wriggled; then I myself would seek respite from the battle, clutching for the out-of-bounds only to be pulled back in. But we finished the struggle, and were better for it.

"The Satanic Verses" is, I suspect, one of the most unread of best-sellers. It is, indeed, a cantankerous beast with sections that one must slog through, but overall I think its reputation for impenetrability is somewhat undeserved.

The novel deals with migration, intermingling, hybridization of people, religion. The novel opens with two Indian actors with British ties and sensibilities falling from a plane blown up by terrorists over England. One, Gabreel Farishta, apparently comes to Earth as the archangel Gabreel (or its avatar), wearing a golden halo. The other, Saladin Chamcha, grows into a horned, hoofed devil. The two try to come to grips with their (temporarily) changed forms and try to cope with the struggles of life, their pasts and their relationships, romantic and familial. Gabreel experiences dreams in which he apparently is the angel he seems to be. This includes Rushdie's recreation/alteration of the prophet Muhammad's (here Mahound) supposed divine revelations, the Satanic verses of the title, and whether Mahound has himself altered these verses.

Gabreel has modern visions, as well; he supposedly inspires a village to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in which the people will cross the Arabian Sea, which they think will part for them.

When Rushdie first moves to the story of Mahound, the novel hits, temporarily, a brick wall that I was tempted not to clamber over. It is slow and disorienting at first. Our second visit to this vision, later, is much more involving. And the stories of Ayesha and her village's modern pilgrimage is by turns ponderous and incredibly beautiful (butterflies follow them, lighting on Ayesha like a blanket).

I expected to be baffled by what exactly was happening at times. I really wasn't; my problems in comprehension dealt more with just exactly what Rushdie was up to. Though I see the interconnectedness of the past and present visions and the story of Gabreel and Saladin (who slowly plots a revenge on Gabreel after the two have been separated in the wake of their miraculous fall to Earth), I occasionally was confused by just how Rushdie wanted us to relate them to each other. Just what is Rushdie, in the overall, going on about?

I really think Rushdie (and this novel in particular) would benefit greatly from end notes. Just as, with old classics, we might not in modern times understand archaic words or objects, so the non-Indian (or Britain-ized Indian) probably doesn't have a good understanding of Indian words or, particularly for me, Islam. Annotated edition, anyone?

It's hard to separate "The Satanic Verses" from the fatwa declared on its author that put him in fear for his life for many years. It contributed greatly to its readership (or those who owned it in curiosity and soon gave up on reading it at all). I don't claim to know much about Islam or Muhammad, though calling for someone's death because of a few small scenes in a novel seems, er, a tad extreme.

"The Satanic Verses" is a sprawling and voluminous creature. I don't think it, on the whole, is great. A paring down and a sharper focus would have helped. But Rushdie is one hell of a writer; that's what carried the day for me. If I missed some of the nuances of how all of it tied together, I delighted in Rushdie's use of language, and there are several moving scenes. A section late in the book at the death bed of a character is just lovely.

Would I recommend the book to others? Maybe. But NOT if: this is your first Rushdie (try "Midnight's Children"); you want a linear, easily comprehensible plot; you get frustrated when the plot doesn't to go where you want it to; you have to understand everything; you are impatient. Otherwise, if you're adventurous, have a go. (less)

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May 22, 2008 Photo Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this ages ago, it seems, and in competition with the dude I was dating (he started earlier, but I had to finish first). Anyway, I was shocked by Rushdie's sense of humor. I dunno, I guess I thought the dude who had a fatwa out on him was probably going to be pretty dour. WRONG! "The Satanic Verses" is a lovely dose of mystic realism or realistic mysticism, along with a great examination of cultural identity, and the things that can go awry when you deny your peoples.

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Nov 20, 2012 Stela rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: magic-realism

David Lodge observed somewhere that there are books you read and books you rather read about – I’ve often wondered during my lecture whether it’s the second that applies to Rushdie’s novel, with all the scandal and the death threats around the religious issues that went with.
By the way, I doubt the author didn’t suspect his book would rise controversies. Even if I don’t know much about Muslim religion I do know about fanaticism and you can find, if you want to, some blasphemous allusions in the...more David Lodge observed somewhere that there are books you read and books you rather read about – I’ve often wondered during my lecture whether it’s the second that applies to Rushdie’s novel, with all the scandal and the death threats around the religious issues that went with.
By the way, I doubt the author didn’t suspect his book would rise controversies. Even if I don’t know much about Muslim religion I do know about fanaticism and you can find, if you want to, some blasphemous allusions in the book, like the name of the prophet Mahound, which was the derogatory name the English used for Mohammad during the crusades, or the devilish (in the book) Saladin, whose name reminds the great Muslim hero during the same crusades, the controversial Ayesha character, etc.
It was interesting to learn (via Wikipedia, of course) what are the Satanic Verses: it is said that Mohammad thought that some verses, in which he was permitted prayer to three Meccan goddesses, were sent to him by God as part of the Qur’an, instead of Satan. Even more interesting was to know that the phrase Satanic Verses was coined by western academies, the Muslims calling them Bird Verses.
I have to say I’ve had mixed feelings about this book from the beginning. Many years ago, irritated by the awful (I thought then) truism of the first phrase in the book, “To be born again, first you have to die!”, I decided not to read it but eventually (and evidently!) I reconsidered and here I am, trying to make sense of the love-hate relationship I developed all along my reading ☺
What really annoyed me was that everything in this book is too ornate – as oriental carpets are and it is so tiring to follow such an intricate pattern sometimes! Indian immigrants, film industry, London noise, mystic revelations, religious pilgrimages, and so forth, in a jumble that turns your head, in order to build a colourful world in a frenetic, incessant to and fro movement similar to a tireless fair.
The alienation through immigration and loss of religion is an interesting subject but it misses some sort of equilibrium, compositional equilibrium that is – for example I found the religious layer was too emphasized and overall that there were too many themes that in the end remained undeveloped: it leaves you with the sensation of unfinished and overstuffed at the same time.
And yet. And yet. I don’t think I’ve ever read something more beautiful than the chapter “The Parting of the Arabian Sea”. And to suggest in the next chapter that it was only a scenario for a movie – absolutely brilliant! Also, I don’t think I’ve encountered a more suggestive rendering of the sound of the city, deafening, shrilling, exhausting, contributing to the alienation of the characters. The death of Saladin’s father is also an interesting example of sublimation of complicated relationships, whereas Gibreel’s death is somehow burlesque.
I closed the book, I finished my reading notes and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. And I'm looking at Midnight Children on my shelf wondering whether I will read it or not. Maybe. Sometime.
(less)

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Feb 16, 2012 Hitesh rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I strongly agree to below lines from one of the review of this book which rightly said:
If you are new to Rushdie, do yourself a favor and skip this book. Start with "Midnight's Children," but his other books may be good entry points as well; whatever you choose, don't make "The Satanic Verses" your first Rushdie novel!

But I did it

It took me some time to get into the storyline, but finally I did after first few pages.
Little bit tough & tricky read for me. It is difficult at times to understan...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Nathan rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no-one

If you are new to Rushdie, do yourself a favor and skip this book. I'd say start with "Midnight's Children," but his other books may be good entry points as well; whatever you choose, don't make "The Satanic Verses" your first Rushdie novel!

After the joy of reading the masterpiece that is "Midnight's Children," I was really excited about sinking my teeth into Salman Rushdie's most (in)famous book. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an utter mess.

Here's the crux of my problem with this shambles o...more If you are new to Rushdie, do yourself a favor and skip this book. I'd say start with "Midnight's Children," but his other books may be good entry points as well; whatever you choose, don't make "The Satanic Verses" your first Rushdie novel!

After the joy of reading the masterpiece that is "Midnight's Children," I was really excited about sinking my teeth into Salman Rushdie's most (in)famous book. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an utter mess.

Here's the crux of my problem with this shambles of a novel: Separate stories that re-use character names do not end up making a cohesive narrative world. If, like me, you get a ways into this book thinking, "Well, these separate storylines don't make sense now, but they must get tied up at the end," well, do yourself a favor and just put the book down. They don't.

For example, Rosa Diamond and her backstory were completely unnecessary. Her entrance was when I began to lose interest and think "this whole thing is not going to pan out in the end, is it?" I should have listened to that inner voice.

If Rushdie had wanted to write a satire of the life and times of Mohammed, he could have done it without the Farishta/Chamcha narrative as a frame. It is never established whether Gibreel's dreams were actually supposed to have happened in the physical world or not. And, in the end, it doesn't matter, because they have *absolutely* no impact on the framing story anyway.

The Ayatollah narrative is also completely unnecessary. I think in Rushdie's introduction to the 25th-anniversary edition of "Midnight's Children" he mentioned that putting in references to contemporary history would either strengthen the novel—giving it a certain timelessness—or weaken it with unnecessary "it was what was going on at the time" baggage. I think he was right about it strengthening "Midnight's Children," but the latter seems to be the case in "Verses." It's not fascinating satire or anything, it's just "oh, I think he's talking about Khomeini there."

And while I understand and appreciate magical realism, Rushdie used to it much better effect in "Midnight's Children." There, he used an unreliable narrator—it was always ambiguous whether the fantastical things that happened to him *actually* happened, or whether they were just the narrator's attempt at juicing things up. Not so in "Verses." (view spoiler)

The sanitarium/asylum saga is unnecessary and the escaped beasts and "freaks" never factor into the story after the escape. What about the cracked-glass-skin-painfully-attached-to-flesh-within analogy? Rushdie spends a fair amount of time harping on it on multiple occasions, yet its purpose is never clear, and it, like the escaped freaks, just up and disappears from the novel after the hospital section.

Then there's the "what kind of idea are you" idea. Take Ayesha's march to the sea... she embodies the unyielding old-world-religion sort of idea. The bad: she encourages the stoning of a baby. The good: eventually she and her pilgrims finally find salvation in a parted sea. Or do they? Recollections of the event vary. And—to me, anyway—it's not an intriguing ambiguity, but more of a "this is poorly constructed and explained" situation.

I suppose, at the end of the day, if you like being strung along with no chance of things being explained to you at the end (because they never made sense in the first place), you might find this book "intriguing" or "mysterious." So, if you enjoyed watching "Lost," this book might be right up your alley. You can develop all sorts of interpretations for it, but nothing will ever really fit.

Bottom line: "The Satanic Verses" is tedious, and I don't think anyone much would read it or put it on "best of" lists if not for the controversy surrounding it. The fact that people died over its publication is made all the more tragic by the fact that it's just not a very good book.(less)

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Apr 24, 2010 Marcus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: air travelers

Shelves: magical-realism, read-again

I'd been meaning to read the Satanic Bible for a long time now, and now that I've finally gotten around to it... I kid. This book isn't the Satanic anything, but it is strange. At times while reading it I'd try to imagine how Rushdie came up with it. I can't. His life, his thought process are so foreign to me as to be almost other-worldly. I've never read anything like it. It's magical realism, but it really has little in common with the Latin American variety of the genre. The plot is fairly st...more I'd been meaning to read the Satanic Bible for a long time now, and now that I've finally gotten around to it... I kid. This book isn't the Satanic anything, but it is strange. At times while reading it I'd try to imagine how Rushdie came up with it. I can't. His life, his thought process are so foreign to me as to be almost other-worldly. I've never read anything like it. It's magical realism, but it really has little in common with the Latin American variety of the genre. The plot is fairly straightforward, but it is intertwined with so many strange dreams, transformations, sub-plots, backgrounds and most oddly, detailed religious and pseudo-religious events, rites, superstitions and metaphors that it is hard to imagine it all coming from the mind of one man. Every time I looked, i could see, or imagine I saw, symbolism, metaphor, literary allusions and philosophy. It felt like a book that I could read over and over without ever finishing it. In a way, it's strange. I can't tell if it is a work of genius that isn't as acclaimed as it deserves, or if it's the ramblings of a man who is at least a little deranged. It eludes easy categorization.

Woven into a very real and contemporary story of two men's experiences with emigration to England is their parallel experience of possible conversion in to an arch-angel, complete with halo, and a devil, complete with horns and cloven hooves. Sometimes their supernatural transformations are almost absent from the story. There are the expected clash of cultures, family drama, relationships begun and ended and at times, the story feels normal. Then there are long dream chapters of villagers led by a teenaged girl clothed in butterflies on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The arch-angel blazing down pedestrians with fiery breath of righteous indignation. The giant goat-devil who becomes physically and culturally larger than life, both outgrowing his attic home and sparking a popular movement. The juxtaposition is both jarring and enchanting. It makes it easy to get pulled into the story, despite being unfamiliar with almost everything in it and its non-negligable length.

A couple examples of the writing:

...now whenever a trunk was opened, a batch of wings would fly out of it like Pandora's imps, changing colour as they rose; there were butterflies under the closed lids of the thunderboxes in the toilets of Peristan, and inside every wardrobe, and between the pages of books. When you awoke you found the butterflies sleeping on your cheeks.

And:

He stands motionless while small groups of residents rush past in different directions. Some (not all) are carrying weapons. Clubs, bottles, knives. All of the groups contain white youngsters as well as black. He raises his trumpet to his lips and begins to play.

Little buds of flame spring up on the concrete, fuelled by the discarded heaps of possessions and dreams. There is a little, rotting pile of envy: it burns greenly in the night. The fires are every colour of the rainbow, and not all of them need fuel. He blows the little fire-flowers out of his horn and they dance upon the concrete, needing neither combustible materials nor roots. Here, a pink one! There, what would be nice?, I know: a silver rose. And now the buds are blossoming into bushes, they are climbing like creepers up the sides of the towers, they reach out towards their neighbours, forming hedges of multicoloured flame. It is like watching a luminous garden, its growth accelerated many thousands of times, a garden blossoming, flourishing, becoming overgrown, tangled, becoming impenetrable, a garden of dense intertwined chimeras, rivalling in its own incandescent fashion the thornwood that sprang up around the palace of the sleeping beauty in another fairy-tale, long ago.

I don't know where it came from and I'm sure there was a lot I missed, but it is a story that will be rolling around my head for a long time to come.
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Oct 20, 2008 محمد rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

الرواية فعلا مثيرة ، الاستطراد سمة أساسية في الرواية ، الخلط بين الثقافة الاسلامية و الهندية للأبطال واضح ، أيضا فكرة التناسخ ترد في فقرات كثيرة ، على المستوى الحقيقي و الخيالي
الاجزاء التي تحكي قصة النبي محمد ستغضب أي مسلم معتدل ، هناك الكثير من الأحداث المختلقة ، و لا تقف الأجزاء الصادمة عند قصة الغرانيق الشهيرة فقط ، هناك الكثير من الأفعال التي يقوم بها الصحابة ، مجتزأه من احداث وردت في السيرة ، او مختلقة تماما
في بعض الأحيان ألاحظ ان المترجم حذف بعض الجمل ، رغبة في الاختصار ، و مع ذلك فسلمان ر...more

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About Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a novelist and essayist. Much of his early fiction is set at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world.

His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, led to protests from Muslims in several coun...more

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