The Satanic Verses

Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: I defend Rushdie's right to write anything he wants, even if it is complete and utter rubbish. There's no denying that the man has a finely-honed gift with a sharpened pencil, it's just a pity he can't use that gift for something more than writing an indigestible tome that nearly ends up getting him killed, and costs the British taxpayers millions of pounds a year so he can have his own private protection squad and a lot of free publicity. It wouldn't be so bad if the blessed thing was readable but, as other reviewers have pointed out, The Satanic Verses means nothing to those who aren't either Muslim or Indian or both. Okay, fine, I have no issue with that, but at least put a Surgeon General's warning on the cover. When you buy a ready meal, it's obligatory to list the contents on the packet. The same should be true for Rushdie books. They don't deliver what they promise.

I guess the Ayatollah was having a bad beard day when he issued his Fatwa against Salman because, bad though it is, The Satanic Verses doesn't exactly deserve a death sentence - flogging with a smelly fish would be plenty good enough. On the other hand, it's joined one other book I am unfortunate enough to possess that only gives pleasure to me when I use it to keep the door wedged open in summer.

Rating:
Summary: Awsome Book
Review: This was a really good book. Any book against the Mullahs is a great book to me, but this tops them all. I enjoyed if very much. Well maybe they should issue a FATWA against me too. HAHA

Rating:
Summary: Deviating
Review: I am a student and I had to read the book that enraged many of my fellow Muslims. I give two thumps up to Mr. Rushdie for his beautiful sentence structure and language. This book might have literary significance but in reality this book is full of nonsense. A writer in the East can only get "recognition" from the West if he or she writes something like this (The satanic verses). Not to mention all the uproar the book had in the early eighties. Khomeni, Gaddafi, and "the satanic verses" collided and had a tremendous impact throughout the Western societies that still present to this day and sadly will remain intact in the near future. The impact certainly helped our media's propaganda to establish Muslims as "terrorist" and "fundamentalist." For Americans, the only truth they know that has been feed in their pristine minds by our propagandist media. Sad isn't it! Perhaps, only for the Muslim community. Mr. Rushdie would be kidding himself and God if he thinks he is a "Muslim."

Second of, To understand Mr. Rushdie's dirty, low, and cheap jokes about Muslim in general in his satanic verses, you have to be a Muslims. It will be really hard for a westerner to comprehend most of his dirty jokes. It's not surprising to see many people confused. People often understand the "big deal" surrounding this book. I don't have the time to explain everything but it is rational to study a culture thoroughly before making judgements.

Now about the present decay of society, Today most societies have become tolerant of sick humor. Say for instance, don't we find movies like, "Something about marry," "American pie" or "Scary Movies" really "humorous" and "entertaining." Moreover, the monologue of Jay Leno and the parodies of SNL about our president George W are even funnier. I doubt this book would create such uproar as it did in the eighties, if it was publish now a days. I think Mr. Rushdie's writing concept is poor, and shallow.

I am a reader myself I love great books like, "Pride and Prejudice," "Crime and punishment," and " Of Human Bondage." "The Satanic Verses" certainly wasn't the book to for me!. My bad..

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but knowledge of Islam and India is crucial
Review: 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.

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Summary: Gibreel - SUPERSTAR #1 CHARACTER IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
Review: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief, but doubt. That is (among other things) the premise of this book, in some ways, and it is from this question that much of the "blasphemy" charges come from. The main thing I liked about this book more than any other Rushdie books was his ability to keep his humour from getting too goofy, as he does in all his books, including Midnight's Children. There is something incredibly odd and eerie and visually comprehendable about Chamcha sitting in the attick of the indian restaurant, stinking, with goat's legs and horns, and it still doesn't just turn me away the way club-handed, fast aging Moor, or even big nose from Midnight did. The scenes in the dessert, and the way Gibreel imagines himself as the archangel without any answers are great. Rushdie weaves the mythical into the real world with the best of ability and seamlessness in this book. Gibreel is among the greatest characters in all english literature, I would not hesitate to say. Up there with Leopold Bloom and anyone else you might want to think of. He works his way through reality and hallucination and dream and real placement in mythical/real times, plus of course, he is a movie actor that acts like gods. Yet through all his trials, he is very real, and his beginnings are very real. I love this character. He keeps a steadiness forever throughout the book, though he swings from "good" to "evil" sometimes. This is my favorite Rushdie book.

Rating:
Summary: At least I can say that I have read it...
Review: They say that no book in modern times has matched the uproar this book sparked... Honestly - I don't get it.

Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" was a book that came highly recommended from my friend (He has it on his Top 3 list) so I was absolute certain that this was a book that I would enjoy. I started reading it, and to my surprise - I did not understand a thing!! I started over again four or five times just to make sure that I did not miss anything. I struggled through every page. Although I truly enjoyed Rushdie's lyrical writing style (the best I've ever read) I often felt that I did not get the big picture.

Both the culture gap and the lack of knowledge of the Koran/Islam made me miss out on a lot while reading this book. On a more personal more, not being Muslim, I was not offended and I also failed to see where the book could be offensive at all.

I suppose that if I read the book again, I might change my opinion about it..

Rating:
Summary: The worst book ever
Review: The "Satanic Verses" is a boring waste of time. This book is filled with uniteresting writtings which bore the reader and complicate the story. I found this book to be a waste of money and time. The characters are not well developed and the story line has no basis or distinction. I would not recommened this book to anyone, not even to the author Salman Rushdie.

Rating:
Summary: What kind of idea is this?
Review: This work of Salman Rushdie has inflamed many tempers, but what is this book really about? It's not just about Islam, but faith and doubt in any religion... Moreover, it is not that simple; there is no single continuous theme. It is as multi-thematic as it is ambiguous and borderless. Metamorphoses and grotesque transformations, the confusion of good and evil, religious fanaticism, multiculturalism, migration and displacement... all these ideas appear in the book in some form or other while the reader follows the adventures of Gibreel Farishta (the angel, but not) and Saladin Chamcha (the devil, but not) from their descent from an exploded plane to London, through their absurd, mythic misadventures, to their final reunion.

Gibreel upon his landing from the fall finds himself slowly transformed into the Angel Gibreel, complete with halo. Saladin, by contrast, grows horns, inherits bad breath, and a donkey-like lower body. However it is unclear why these two are chosen the way they are since their roles do not parallel their personalities. Gibreel is always rather selfish, and he hardly does much good, though usually gets away with anything. Saladin is deliberate and insecure, trying to connect to a nation that is not natively his. Gibreel has dreams of being the Archangel, engaging in the events of the Koran, yet these dreams seem to be a result of his diagnosed mental illness. Saladin is beaten by the police, cuckolded, forced to stay in a room as a hideous monster and what has he done wrong? And their stories go on for 547 splendid pages.

This is a truly ambitious work of fiction (with much historical basis, according to Rushdie). As such, it is fantastically imaginative, and the prose is as musical as Nabokov's. The fragmentation of events and lives, the disillusion with the sacred, the severing of one's past versus the search for personal history, and cultural distrust and misunderstanding reflect the 20th century (Western?) world with all its doubts and insecurities. Morality is ambiguous, life is uncertain and the book keeps changing, escaping our desire to comprehend fully all its interweaving patterns.

The persecution of Rushdie, though unfortunate, is disturbingly fitting. The resulting outcry to ban his book only serves to confirm the necessity of his words. Those who are sensitive and fearful of blasphemy should perhaps leave this on the shelves. But then again, its purpose is to emphasize the question which repeats itself several times in the book: What kind of idea is this? If answers do not precede questions, then can belief exist without doubt? Maybe the questions too are sacred, and the censorship of them is a sin.

Rating:
Summary: A project aiming at polemics
Review: Satanic verces thogh famous for entirely other reasons than literary,is a toure de force of rushdie.Author comes at his characteristic own in delineating a decadent picture of present day pakistan.

Rating:
Summary: Good vs. Evil
Review: Provocative imagination plus stupendous use of language equals one of the most controversial pieces of literature of our times. When this book was first published, I was still in India and recall clearly what a controversy it had caused. It was immediately banned to avoid religious disturbances, as it was very offending to the Islam following sect of the country.

Reason for controversy: book included phrases that made fun of Prophet Mohammed. Result: death sentence for the author imposed by Muslim fundamentalists and curiosity in public making this book one of the most popular literature works. Many have claimed that was it not for this controversy, this book may not have achieved the status it enjoys today. I agree to some extent.

As I see it, this book is Rushdie's perception of the world, man, notions of good and evil, religion, politics, sexual tensions, marriage-extra marital affairs,...A complete book. During the course of the book, reader goes through several transformations of characters - from Angel to Devil to Human.... Characters jump from dream sequences into reality so frequently that the reader feels like they are on a ride in a time machine.

Much has been written to summarize the plot in the other reviews therefore I wont do so but I just want to emphasize the fact that the knowledge of the Islam religion would make this book a much more easier read. This is an incredible work of imagination tying in myths, history with fiction.