The Satanic Verses: A Novel

Two men falling from a exploded 747 somehow survive the ordeal but continue their lives in strange and mystical ways. One of the men discovers he has become the embodiment of Satan but still tries to continue his life as it was before the bombing. The story is rooted in religious traditions and has offended some people of faith, some so deeply that a fatwa was issued against the author by Ayatollah Khomeini. Attempts on the author's life lead to him being blinded in one eye a few years ago.

I finished this a couple months ago and still find myself contemplating it often. It's an unbelievable accomplishment, exposing vulnerability masked by cockiness of both the subject matter, characters, and author. This is a book that doesn't leave you.

I finally got around to The Satanic Verses. You just have to read a book which got a death sentence for the author. Really, after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa calling for Salmon Rushdie's death, Rushdie's Japanese translator was killed, his Italian translator and his Norwegian publisher were both stabbed (didn't die) and his Turkish translator ducked, but the miscreants burned down his hotel and killed 37 non-fatwa folks. So I sort of had to see what it was all about. I assumed it was culturally rich and I attended two lecture series on Islam to help me catch at least some of the obscurities. I'm sure I missed a bunch, though. It is culturally rich, alright, but more in Indian culture than Islamic and I did not attend any Indian lectures.There are two major characters in the book: Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha. Both are more or less self made guys who have each attained some success in entertainment fields. Gibreel in movies, a regular heartthrob, and Saladin in voiceover work where his speciality is upper class English diction. Saladin hates being Indian and has decided that his heart belongs to England and to his ultimately and callously unfaithful wife, wait for it, Pamela (is that English or what?). The two (Saladin and Gibreel) find themselves on a flight from India to England which is first hijacked and then blown up at cruising altitude where the two, during the long trip to Earth, have a discussion which is interrupted by, of all things, their survival from the fall (it is instructive to note that during the plummet, Saladin chooses to use up some of his apparently limited time by singing Rule Britannia). Things change, one might say.Fourteen or so centuries earlier we are introduced to Mahound (I am given to understand that referring to The Prophet Muhammed in that fashion is disrespectful) who is in the process of attempting to convert the polytheistic Arabs of Jahilia. What? I thought it was Mecca. Well, it's deep, see? Jahilia is apparently an Arabic term meaning "ignorance of the will of God", which describes the pre conversion state of the Meccans, I assume. Things are not going well. Muhammed is in the process of receiving the Holy Quran from God through the angel Gabriel (Arabic "Gibreel". See where this is going?), while at the same time preaching monotheism with only limited success. Temptation arises when the head Sultan (or something) asks Muhammed to just spare a few, only three, of the three hundred sixty gods to please the ruler's wife whose family is in charge of the temples of the three female gods and gets money during the pilgrimages. Muhammed goes to the mountain cave, enters his trance and comes back down the hill and permits the three female gods to be honored. There is a hoo-hah among the followers of Muhammed because they have bought into monotheism and are disappointed. Muhammed goes back up the mountain, into the cave, back down the mountain into Jahilia and announces that the verses allowing the three gods were from Satan, not God, and withdraws them. Get it? The Satanic Verses. They're the real deal, actually existing in some ancient Islamic texts, but fervently denied currently.That's it. That's the story which got people stabbed and burned up. Muhammed was misled by Satan, caught on, rectified the mistake and continued to receive valid revelation from God through Gabriel so that ultimately the Quran was the direct and pure word of God. I don't get it. Seems to me like the God who created the entire Cosmos would have enough horsepower to deal with an errant author on His own. It even seems to me that it wasn't all that nasty in the first place - most Muslims assiduously avoid deification of Muhammed. I think they are just grouchy. I oversimplify somewhat. It can be said that the general tone of the episodes concerning the revelations to the Prophet can fairly be said to call into question whether maybe some of the revelations were Muhammed dealing with ad hoc situations in his personal life. Was there a disagreement with his favorite wife? Up comes a revelation setting her straight on the issue. So some Muslims got angry with Salmon.Here I must digress and impose a hiatus while I read Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ, a book which had a similar effect in the Christian community, although I do not think anyone was stabbed or burned. Also, not atypically, the reaction was not to the book, which is sort of fat and not likely to be read by our Christian lot, but rather to the movie made from the book. I shall choose the book as the basis for my comparison knowing full well that I am opting for twelve hours or so as opposed to two, a significant sacrifice to the blogger's muse.I will get back to this when I complete Last Temptation and can think more clearly about the rather common, but to me inexplicable, violent response to perceived blasphemy.Okay, now I am better informed. The Last Temptation of Christ is a book from the 1950's and is afflicted with theology even older than that. I suspect that Kazantzakis wrote it as a sort of Midrash, a riff on Jesus' humanity, which seems a legitimate and loyal-Christian kind of thing to do. There are distractions, of course, which seize the attention (Mary Magdalene is nowhere in the Bible described as a whore), but all in all the attempt is nicely done to make the point, which seems to be that Jesus is an example of how the most attractive and intense temptations of life can be overcome. The point is made with rather extreme examples: Jesus waiting in line at a whorehouse, Jesus sucking up to Romans by making crosses for their executions, Jesus trying to make God hate Jesus so that the load of Messiah-ship may be taken off, but it all comes out alright in the end, good triumphs, evil is defeated. So what's wrong with that? What on Earth about the book prompted such vituperative rants from offended believers?It's fundamentalism, that's what it is. Not exactly a spoiler. Those who struggle with a subconsciously held worry that their beliefs are fragile, puny, ephemeral and subject to destruction by countervailing views will always react with violence to any description of their orthodoxy which strays from the company line. And so it is with Satanic Verses. The true believer must leap to the defense of God, who by reason of frailty one supposes, is insufficiently strong to handle the defense himself. Apparently God exhausts himself with the first iteration of the revelation and must rely on believers to keep the revelation pure and unsullied by those who would vary the storyline. It's sort of silly, although the silliness is somewhat blunted by the firebombs and terrorism with which believers often make their point.The Satanic Verses is beautifully written, funny and marvelously inventive. Saladin, for instance, does not quite get the angelic treatment of Gibreel in that Saladin morphs into a faun, Pan, some sort of goat-legged horned-head Priapic sulfur stinking denizen of Hell with the personality of a complete sissy. It is a delightful read, and I wholeheartedly recommend it - just don't read it looking for some hardcore blasphemy. Beats me if it's in there anywhere.

I had read midnight's children as a teenager years ago and had tried reading The Satanic Verses then but had found the book quite impenetrable. Last month with time in hand, I took to the book again attracted by the controversy it generated and was left with memories of a fascinating story. Before you read this book you should adept yourself with some knowledge of Islam and life of Prophet Mohammed (which basically boils down to reading the wikipedia pages on Prophet Mohammed, Islam and the Holy Quran).Satanic Verses is a complex satire of two Indian actors Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta. The alter-egos undergo mutation after the bombing of their boarded plane where Saladin takes the satanic form and Farishtaa an incarnation of Archangel Gabriel. It is not clear why each get their form - one may view them to be a result of perception - Farishtaa made fame playing Indian deities in Bollywood while Saladin, an immigrant in London is a voiceover artist mostly doing voiceover for consumer products. There is nothing demonic about Saladin and Farishta is anything but an angel.The story begins and ends with Bombay but a lot of Satanic verses is about London and life of an immigrant in the vibrant city. Most of the cast are first or second generation south asian immigrants in London . Rushdie devotes a lot of pages on their character development. Saladin and Farishta are pursuing reconciliation with their love interests ( who live in London) after the events of their mutation.Farishta's dream sequences form the sub-plot of the story. The dreams involve the city of Mecca during the time of revelations , after Prophet's return to the city after the exile and a sequence during the Prophets death. A short dream sequence involves an Imam in exile ( possibly Khomeni) and his attempt to overthrow the empress of the country of his origin. The last dream sequence is about a butterfly eating teenager who takes an entire Indian village onto a fatal pilgrimage. Each of these are captivating , follow a chronicle order and you are left with three or four different stories somehow kept loosely connected by Farishta. It is these dream sequences where the controversy stems from.There are some who suggest that in reality the book does not have a lot of scandalous elements , and they are wrong. The dream questions the authenticity of the revelations that the Prophet received and how they suit the worldly conveniences. The twelve prostitutes in Mecca each take the names of the Prophet's twelve wives in order to attract business. The venture is successful. Finally, the death of the Prophet is shown as a result of Al-Lat's vendetta. Al-Lat is one of the pre-Islamic Meccan Goddesses , who were all declared false in the earliest of Prophet's revelations. Ayatollah Khomeini who issued the original fatwa may also have been offended by the comic elements surrounding his dream sequence.What is Satanic Verses about philosophically? - It depends on the interpretation of the reader. It can be viewed as the clash of faith vs doubt or that of a life of an immigrant , or the role of a satirist in a society etc. While Midnight's children was a literary marvel , Satanic Verses is a fascinating story and makes Rushdie a great story teller.