Salman Rushdie

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 symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times.

Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/158937/the-satanic-verses-by-salman-rushdie/9780812976717

a novel

The Satanic Verses

The explosion of a jetliner over India triggers an Apocalyptic battle that sweeps across the subcontinent. Reprint.

A Novel

AND an Obscene Bird of Night reference!! Sir Rushdie how many deep cuts are you going to make in this??

Eli Alvah Huckabee

‘The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest, where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.’

Flatland reference?? Is this a common occurrence that I am only now uncovering in my old age?? Dear followers please inform me of my ignorance!

When I become the voice of a bottle of bubble bath, I am entering Flatland knowingly, understanding what I’m doing and why.

里森

But names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

‘It isn’t true. My husband exploded. No survivors. Do you hear me? I am the widow Chamcha whose spouse is beastly dead.’

We have all known one another too long, Pamela thought as Jumpy left. We can hurt each other with memories two decades old.

That night, he told the manticore and the wolf that he was with them, all the way.

‘But how do they do it?’ Chamcha wanted to know. ‘They describe us,’ the other whispered solemnly. ‘That’s all. They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct.’

‘Wherever the English settle, they never leave England,’ Dr Babington said as he faded into the moonlight. ‘Unless, like Doña Rosa, they fall in love.’

What’s a ghost? Unfinished business, is what.

once they had proved the existence of a single unified force of which electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak forces of the new physics were all merely aspects, avatars, one might say, or angels, then what would we have but the oldest thing of all, a supreme entity controlling all creation

For a man like Saladin Chamcha the debasing of Englishness by the English was a thing too painful to contemplate.

Property is so soothing, I do recommend it.’

Movie producers, left in seven lurches, panicked expensively.

Let’s face it: it was impossible for them to have heard one another, much less conversed and also competed thus in song. Accelerating towards the planet, atmosphere roaring around them, how could they? But let’s face this, too: they did.

Notice anything unusual? Just two brown men, falling hard, nothing so new about that, you may think; climbed to high, got above themselves, flew too close to the sun, is that it?

So cool. Took me so much longer to get through than I expected just because of the sheer vocabulary of Rushdie! Nothing happens in this book that I thought would occur, flabbergasted the entire time. Love my boys Gibreel and Saladhudden, love the mountain climber Allie, and the animal hospital was so goooood! First Rushdie, won’t be the last.

Brishti Basu

Overwhelming is the word I'd use to describe The Satanic Verses. Although it had a brilliant concept and was immensely thought provoking at times,the book was so riddled with unnecessary and tangential plot-lines that it took a ridiculously long time to finish reading it.

Simon Harding

Rushdie demands your full concentration. If your mind wanders, you'll find yourself winding back pages, trying to recapture the thread.

The truth is that this is a complex, sometimes confusing novel, held together by prose so eloquent that it fizzes off the page.

If I am honest, I struggled a little to keep up with the story. At times I wondered if I was clever enough to do it justice. Now that I've finished, there are still questions I have that I know will never be answered. But the words. Oh the words. Glorious, vivid. There is no question that Rushdie can write.

I think the overall moral of the story may have been wasted on me, and I will leave that to those with a far deeper outlook than me, but I will forgive Rushdie that for the countless sentences that had me drooling over the page. And then of course there is Si-Si Sissodia. Perhaps the most ingenious character of them all? His speech pattern created an avenue for Rushdie to deliver some of his most amusing plays on words.

Rushdie is a genius, and this book is witty and fulll of social commentary. 

Would I recommend this book? It is not for the faint hearted. It demands full attention at all times, and even then it wants more. But I can forgive that prose anything.

Laura Mauler

Well I can see why Muslims were pissed as shit about this book, especially since, to paraphrase a line in the book, followers of Mohammad cannot stand wit, or insults.

Taylor

Recommended listening: https://open.spotify.com/track/2bv5aQ...

Vedat Güven

Garip bir kitap. Gerekli olmayan hikayeler eklenmiş. Farklı konuların, zorlarsan, ortak noktaları var ama çok da birbiriyle bağlantılı değil gibi. Bazı yerleri fantastik kurgu bazı yerleri gerçek kurgu. Kitap bazen günümüzde geçiyor bazen İslam'ın geldiği zamanda bazen ise belli olmayan bir zamanda geçiyor. Cümleler uzun, karmaşık ve çok eski kelimelerden oluşması, okumayı ve anlamayaı zorlaştırıyor. Bazen bir kahraman bir rakip olabiliyor; bazen melek ruhlu bir kişi, şeytanlık yapıyor. Her insanın içinde iyi ve kötü vardır; melek ve şeytan her insanın içinde aynı anda bulunur. Peygamberimizin hayatı hakkında, Cebrail hakkında hassas konularda yazılmış pasajlar var. Ne kadarı uydurma ne kadarı tarihsel gerçeklere dayanıyor, bilemiyoruz. El netice; "hoşgörü" dini olan İslam'da hem de İslam Cumhuriyeti olan İran tarafından, ölüm fetvasının çıkarılmasını yanlış buluyorum. İslam'ı bu fetvalarla savunarak değil ilim ile, hoşgörü ile, sevgi ve barış ile yüceltmeliyiz.

Guin Hartinger

Salman Rushdie uses prose that sprawls out before the reader in powerful and natural patterns that always enchant. Even formatting is utilized to further the impact of the story; metatextuality is just one of the myriad faces to this work. Rushdie's images of Evil are compelling as is the nature of Evil presented. In our modern world of masks and liars, an Evil that assumes multitudes of shapes is extremely relevant. However, Rushdie creates a voice for Evil that matches his images, which is even more powerful to the reader as the sense of sound is less mediated through the text. While Evil is compelling (and often seems to bury Virtue), Life and morality are presented in painful honesty that complicates any moral claims the text or characters make. This labyrinthine image of the world reflects reality and asks the reader to question their assumptions regarding fundamental principles of life and humanity. The greatest way Rushdie achieves this is through his portrayal of 'magic' or miracles in The Satanic Verses, which seem to manifest for those who believe in them but not for onlookers. This presentation of magic sews doubt as to where this magic manifests, either in the mind or in reality that others cannot access. Faith and madness are intertwined, reality is not fixed and will challenge you to understand its secrets. A superb novel.

Katie Cheng

This book was a struggle for me. Could not understand the imagery or the references for long stretches of the book. I can definitely feel that it has content and depth, but it's beyond what my limited knowledge can grasp. When I finished reading I fancied that I might do some research, and go at the book a second time, but that may end up being pretty ambitious of me.

Alyssa C Smith

Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel's publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie's comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The tale of an Indian film star and a Bombay expatriate, Rushdie's masterpiece was deservedly honored with the Whitbread Prize.

Source: https://www.recordedbooks.com/title-details/9781461824060

Suzie

Mitesh Jobanputra

Paige Wanner

Tarannum Kamlani

Martha F.

The author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses describes his 1986 trip to Nicaragua and shares his impressions of the true Nicaragua--the people, politics, land, poetry, and problems behind the headlines. Reprint.

The Satanic Verses a novel

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