The Satanic Verses: A Novel (Bestselling Backlist) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die..." (more)
Key Phrases: Mirza Saeed, Saladin Chamcha, Gibreel Farishta (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which earned its author a death sentence. Furor aside, it is a marvelously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers, and a rollicking comic fable. The book begins with two Indians, Gibreel Farishta ("for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies") and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. Rushdie's powers of invention are astonishing in this Whitbread Prize winner. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Banned in India before publication, this immense novel by Booker Prize-winner Rushdie ( Midnight's Children ) pits Good against Evil in a whimsical and fantastic tale. Two actors from India, "prancing" Gibreel Farishta and "buttony, pursed" Saladin Chamcha, are flying across the English Channel when the first of many implausible events occurs: the jet explodes. As the two men plummet to the earth, "like titbits of tobacco from a broken old cigar," they argue, sing and are transformed. When they are found on an English beach, the only survivors of the blast, Gibreel has sprouted a halo while Saladin has developed hooves, hairy legs and the beginnings of what seem like horns. What follows is a series of allegorical tales that challenges assumptions about both human and divine nature. Rushdie's fanciful language is as concentrated and overwhelming as a paisley pattern. Angels are demonic and demons are angelic as we are propelled through one illuminating episode after another. The narrative is somewhat burdened by self-consciousness that borders on preciosity, but for Rushdie fans this is a splendid feast. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; first serial to Harper's; BOMC alternate; QPBC alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st Picador USA Ed edition (December 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312270828
• ISBN-13: 978-0312270827
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (226 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #126,536 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

870 of 891 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, but knowledge of Islam and India is crucial, July 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Satanic Verses (Paperback)

Being a Moslem, and having recently returned from an extended stay in India, I read The Satanic Verses with keen interest and found that both of these experiences contributed immensely to my enjoyment of this complex work. It was a clever showcase of Rushdie's typically brilliant prose, and a thoroughly compelling read. But be warned: many of the jokes and references probably would escape the average Western reader (by average, I mean one not familiar with Islam or Indian culture).

That being said, I noticed that many reviewers here say they do not find the book offensive to Moslems, while simultaneously admitting their own lack of knowledge regarding Islam. As a fairly well-versed Moslem, I can impartially state that Rushdie repeatedly criticizes, and even ridicules, the Islamic faith, in ways both subtle and overt, throughout this entire book.

Did Rushie's criticism bother me? Not at all. Did it justify a Fatwa by the Ayatollah? Of course not. But can the book be reasonably interpreted as being offensive to some Moslems? Those who know the Islamic faith would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.

Nevertheless, realizing that this is just a work of fiction by a gifted novelist, I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it to all my friends.

441 of 481 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wrestling with God, November 3, 2001

By	Peter Wang (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

On the evening of September 10, 2001, the acclaimed, or is it notorious, British-Indian author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, came to Houston to read from his latest work. A small crowd of Ayatollah-following extremist protesters picketed outside the Alley Theater. If that is all they're up to now, I thought, perhaps we've heard the last of the jihad, the fatwa and the Islamic crazies. Little did I know what outrage awaited the next day.

When I found The Satanic Verses in the book store, I thought, If this is a war of ideas, a war for the mind, then my own little personal protest will be to read what my enemy does not want anyone to read. It had not occurred to me before, because the fervor of the fatwa led me to believe Salman Rushdie's book was some sort of religious tract or angry political protest against Muslim fundamentalism, not a novel of brilliant imagination, sensual metaphor and lyrical poetry.

It is a story of India and Britain, and the inevitable clashes between, brought on by their long, and turbulent history together. It is a story about personal identity, racial identity and religious identity. It is a story of damnation and redemption, love and betrayal, betrayal and forgiveness. But most of all, it is a story about people. Deep, colorful and live, full of passion, humor and questions for the Almighty. It is, in short, a human story, so well crafted, that anyone, even someone like me who has little experience with India or Islam, can relate to its message.

Perhaps this accessibility is just what worried the Ayatollah Khomeni. By issuing his death sentence upon Salman Rushdie's head, he drew widespread attention and sympathy for a talented writer who might otherwise have gone unnoticed outside his own circle of interest. Khomeni also demonstrated what power mere words could hold over those who rule by the absolutism of ideas.

"What does a poet write? Verses. What jingle-jangles in Gibreel's brain? Verses. What broke his heart? Verses and again verses."

Rushdie's criticism for the religion of Islam/Submission, as spread by the Prophet Mohammed/Mahound, is sharp, angry and completely unapologetic. He even goes so far as to suggest that Mahound invented a lot of the "rules" of this religion for the sake of convenience, or compromise, in businesslike fashion,
for the more successful spread and maintenance of power of the Idea and its officials.

Throughout the story, Rushdie asks the question, Where are the words, or verses, attributed to God/Allah really coming from?

"All around him, he thinks as he half-dreams, half-wakes, are people hearing voices, being seduced by words. But not his; never his original material. - Then whose? Who is whispering in their ears, enabling them to move mountains, halt clocks, diagnose disease? He can't work it out."

No wonder Khomeni was afraid.

One amusing thing is that Rushdie was clearly aware of the danger he was creating for himself by writing and publishing his opinions.

"'And now Mahound is coming in triumph; so I shall lose my life after all. And his power has grown too great for me to unmake him now.' Baal asked: 'Why are you sure he will kill you?' Salman the Persian answered: 'It's his Word against mine'."

I did not, however, get the sense that Rushdie was arguing against belief in God or even Allah. The book has too much life-affirming optimism for such a stance. His argument is against God's misuse for the purpose of controlling or subjugating people; that submission is not for normal human beings. Normal
human beings wrestle with God, have doubts, questions, even anger. "What kind of idea are you?" He asks repeatedly throughout the book. "How do you behave when you are weak?" - Bend, compromise, in order to survive? "How do you behave when you are strong?" Hard, unyielding, pure? or Forgiving and merciful?

But even while all these heavy questions are being considered and discussed, Rushdie never loses his sense of humor.

"Gibreel's vision of the Supreme Being was not abstract in the least. He saw, sitting on the bed, a man of about the same age as himself, of medium height, fairly heavily built, with salt-and-pepper beard cropped close to the jaw. What struck him most was that the apparition was balding, seemed to suffer from dandruff and wore glasses."

With his lightning-fast wit and willingness to satire even himself, he reminds us all that, Hey, this is a book, a novel, and its first purpose is to entertain. The Ayatollahs, Imams and religious dictators need to lighten up.

144 of 160 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure magic, February 10, 2000

By	Darren Hughes (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Satanic Verses (Paperback)

The Satanic Verses has been dubbed (amongst many other things!) `the most famous book most people will never read'. If true it's is a real shame, because at the centre of all the extreme opinion that surrounds the book, the condemnation, acclaim and analysis, is an incredible and accessible novel far greater than the sum of its few controversial parts. Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha `crash land' together in England from India and are both profoundly transformed by the experience. Farishta begins to develop an angelic halo, while Chamcha metamorphoses into a cloven-hoofed devil complete with horns and bad breath. Both men suffer, in different ways, the brutality and indignity of their transformations in Rushdie's evocation of a tense and brooding London. Ultimately it is the `demonic' Chamcha who finds fulfilment by returning to India, the `angelic' Farishta is not so fortunate. Merging fantasy and reality, Rushdie uses the subversive excesses of `magical realism' to explore the demands of migration and how those demands can destroy the fragile assurances of identity and belonging most of us take for granted. Farishta is haunted by the nightmares of his lost Muslim faith, Chamcha by the impossible dream of reinventing himself as an Englishman. Through these and the experiences of other often outrageously conceived characters, Rushdie reflects on how people suffer, and are made to suffer, for the sake of a little certainty. If it all sounds a little heavy, don't be put off. Above all this is a great piece of story-telling, funny, extraordinary and completely absorbing. Rushdie works his usual narrative magic, writing on a grand exuberant scale that takes in everything from sex and death to flying carpets and hot wax, but also the delicate intimacies of desire and despair. Poignant and staggeringly imaginative, The Satanic Verses explores continuing cultural obsessions with purity and stability in a world increasingly lacking in either.