I love magical realism, so there is plenty to enjoy in this famous novel. The writing is complex and entertaining, but I don't have the necessary background to judge or even understand the blasphemous parts.

There are 3 stories -- a main story and a couple of confusing dream stories that are probably what pissed off Muslim religious leaders. The main storyline looks at life in Bombay, London, national identity, racism, mental illness, faith, family, love, and everything. It is filled with magic, reincarnation and interesting characters. I really liked the devil and angel characters.... it was mostly impossible to tell who was good and who was evil. The dream bits are probably what transforms an entertaining book into great literature.....lots of parallels and deep meanings that I was too lazy to dig out.

Favorite Quote: "The universe was a place of wonders, and only habituation, the anaesthesia of the everyday, dulled our sight."

Read for Banned Book Week.

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 الاساءة للمسلمين او اى دين هى اساءة الى المسيحية

ادلى كبير حاخامات اليهود فى انجلترا اللورد جاكوبقيتش
هذا الكتاب ما كان ينبغى ان ينشر
وانه عملية تشويه مقصودة

هناك فرق بين محاولة مناقشة اى دين وبين قلب الحقائق والتشويه المتعمد

هى رواية مقززة تحتوى احط و ارخص العبارات
سخرية من الميسلمين بالفاظ اقل ما يقال عنها انها قذرة

اى انسان يقرا هذه الرواية يتاكد انها ليست صدفة ولا من خيال المؤلف بل
تشويه متعمد

وليس هذا فقط ولكنها رواية عنصرية الى اقصى درجة
ضد الديانات الهندية وذوو البشرة السوداء

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 that's not even smart. (the most probable reason is that The queen never even read it in the first place)

If Rusdhie has at least some amount of humor like Southpark writers had, his foul mouth writing could sound Intelligent, but in this book is just purely lame.

From the archives: September 27 1988

The Satanic Verses, the controversial first draft of the Quran recently discovered after spending 1379 years in a safe deposit box, finally appeared yesterday to a mixed reception.

"Wheeeeee! I'm so excited!!" said one fan who had spent all night lining up outside her local Barnes & Noble. "A new book by Allah! Can you believe it?!"

Other readers are however less enthusiastic about the novel, and take exception to its portrayal of the much-loved character Mohammad as a lecherous smalltime crook. Influential blogger AyatollahK has been particularly outspoken. "Allah never intended this book to be published," he said yesterday in a tersely worded post. "Salman Rushdie and HarperCollins are agents of Shaitan and will be hunted down like dogs."

قرأت الرواية لأن صديقة لي مثقفة أخبرتني أن الكاتب سلمان رشدي انتقد في هذه الرواية آيات إيران.
طبعًا ما صدقتها لكنها أصرت أن سلمان رشدي كان ينتقدهم لذلك اهدروا دمه.

فوجئت بمدى قباحة هذا العمل، رواية بذيئة جِدًّا تسيء للرسول عليه أفضل الصلاة والسلام ولزوجاتهِ الطاهرات أمهات المؤمنين.

David Lodge observed somewhere that there are books you read and books you'd rather read about – I’ve often wondered during my lecture whether it’s the second rule 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 create 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 pretty blasphemous allusions in the book, like the name Mahound, which was the derogatory name the English used for the prophet Mohammad during the crusades, or the devilish (in the book) image of Saladin, whose name is similar to the name of another great Muslim hero during the same crusades, or the arguable 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 right from the beginning. Many years ago, irritated by the awful (I thought then) truism of the first sentence, “To be born again, first you have to die!”, I decided not to read it but eventually (and obviously!) I reconsidered and here I am, trying to make sense of this love-hate relationship I developed all along my reading.

What really annoyed me was that everything in this book is over-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, building 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 should it not miss some sort of equilibrium, composition 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 browsing my reading notes and I’m still not sure how I should feel about it. And I'm looking at Midnight Children on my shelf wondering whether I will read it or not. Maybe. Sometime.

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!

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 to avoid this like the plague. But if you find it bracingly different, then plunge right in. An Indian magic realist look at racism, identity, religion, and redemption.

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 experiences of Indian immigrants living in Great Britain, and I only knew the barest outline of the history of Islam. While reading this book, I fell head-first into every one of these gaps in my knowledge and quite a few more besides. To pigeonhole the Satanic Verses as a book solely concerned with and influenced by the above mentioned topics is to miss a great deal of what Rushdie put into it. Personally, while reading, I often found it helpful (and at times necessary) to educate myself along the way. Even still, I recognize that I have not grasped many of the story's finer points and subtler themes, and I suspect that, if ever in my life I am able and patient enough to deepen my understanding of this work, my rating will almost certainly improve.

The Tangled history of the "Satanic Verses"
https://www.ft.com/content/ddcae759-0...

****
“Acredites ou não, disse Babasaheb Mhatre ao seu pupilo, aprendi nesse mesmo instante a minha lição: não te metas, Mhatre, naquilo que não podes compreender.”

“(Depois de paga a última conta, quando acabou de esvaziar a carteira que um dia encontrara na ponta de um arco-íris, o pai disse-lhe: «Vês? Agora sabes tratar das coisas. Fiz de ti um homem.» Mas que homem? É isso que os pais nunca podem saber. Não podem sabê-lo antecipadamente; não podem sabê-lo senão quando já é demasiado tarde.)”

“(…) Chamcha reparou que o novo estado de espírito dos nove homens começava a torná-los semelhantes uns aos outros, todos o mesmo, idênticos, mercê da tensão e do medo.”

“As pessoas estavam sempre a morrer-lhe, deixando-a com a boca cheia de palavras e ninguém a quem as atirar à cara.”

“«Ninguém pode avaliar uma lesão interna», dissera então, «pelo tamanho da ferida superficial, do buraco».

“Toda a ideia nova, Mahound, deve responder a duas perguntas. A primeira é-lhe feita enquanto ela é fraca: QUE TIPO DE IDEIA ÉS? És dessas que aceitam compromissos, fazem acordos, se acomodam à sociedade, procuram encontrar um nicho, sobreviver; ou és das outras, dessas ideias malditas, teimosas, inflexíveis, que preferem parvamente deixar-se quebrar a oscilar ao sabor da brisa? – Esse tipo de ideia que quase fatalmente, noventa e nove vezes em cada cem, acaba destruída, aniquilada; mas que da centésima vez transforma o mundo.”

“Temos de dizer uma coisa ainda mais dura: que o mal talvez não esteja sepultado tão fundo, tão abaixo das nossas superfícies, como gostamos de pensar que está. – Que na realidade pendemos para ele “naturalmente”, ou seja, não “contra as nossas naturezas”. (…) pois a verdadeira atracção do mal reside na facilidade sedutora com que se pode seguir esse caminho. (E, acrescentemos à laia de conclusão, a posterior impossibilidade de regresso.)”

“Há o momento antes do mal; depois o momento dele; depois o tempo que se segue, quando o passo já foi dado, e cada passo seguinte se torna progressivamente mais fácil.”

“Quando um homem não está seguro da sua essência, como é que pode saber se é bom ou mau?”

Аутор анализира ислам и долази до закључка да је то религија покоравања, која садржи само оне делове које се Мухамед презентовао својим пратиоцима, у форми у којој му је арханђео Џибрил у пећини рекао. Али да ли управо тако било? Ипак је Божји пророк само човек. Можда су то, ипак, само Мухамедове опсервације? Можда у пећини у коју је повремено одлазио Мухамед сем њега самог није било никог другог? Ипак је Мумадед био трговац, додуше поштен. Са друге стране аутор књиге се са благонаклоношћу односи према женским богињама у исламу, које не заузимају места која би им по значењу припадала, јер им људи нису наклоњени. Сада, када сам прочитао књигу, не чуди ме да је Салмана Руждија ирански верски вођа Хомеини 'осудио на смрт', односно изрекао је фатву, јер је управо ову књигу окарактерисао као дело које говори 'против ислама, Мухамеда и Курана'.

This is controversial book because of the social context rooted in the story. It didn't take me finishing the book to understand why Salman Rushdie was/is a hated man. Having studied extensively Arab/Middle Eastern/Islamic culture and being a former Arabic linguist, I was able to zero-in on what was being written. The controversy of the Satanic Verses from a historical perspective is a whole other discussion. I am not confident to discuss them so I'm sticking to a book review.

The title is taken from the alleged verses (Surah 53:19-20) that were given to the Prophet as divine revelation. The devil tricked Prophet giving extra verbiage for misleading purposes. The author uses them "Have you heard of Lat, and Manat, and Uzza, the Third, the Other? They are exalted Birds...", pg. 385.

The plot is about two Indian actors who fall out of the sky. Their plane explodes during a terrorist hijacking after takeoff and they fall into the English Channel. As they fall, they are transformed: Gibreel becomes an angel-like character closely resembling the angel Gabriel (Jibril) and Saladin transforms into a cloven-hoofed devil. From there is gets confusing.

The controversy from the writing is in Girbreel's dream sequences are the strong references to Islam:

1. The Prophet Muhammed is called 'Mahound', an alternative name for Muhammed sometimes used during the Middle Ages by Christians who considered him a devil.
2. Later, 'The Curtain, hijab, was the name of the most popular brothel in Jahilia" pg. 388, where the wives of Prophet Muhammed work. Literally, he uses their names: Ayesha, Ramlah, Hafsa, Juwairiyah, 'Mary the Copt', Sawdah, etc. "When the news got around Jahilia that the whores of The Curtain had each assumed identity of one of Mahound's wives, the clandestine excitement of the city's males was intense", pg. 393 and "The fifteen-year-old whore 'Ayesha' was the most popular with the paying public", pg. 394.

From a readability standpoint, Salman Rushdie's writing is very disjointed, wordy, and scattered in thought. There were many times when I was lost and felt like giving up. The writing style was tedious because almost all of it mimics conversation.

Overall I did not care for this book. My honest opinion is Salman Rushdie was trying to piss people off but writers do that sometimes. I would recommend 'Shame' and 'Shalimar the Clown' for better examples of his storytelling ability. If you didn't like this book, maybe give his other works a chance. Thanks!