Anyone else read The Satanic Verses? + Discuss other books you love!

[Locut0s]

By Salman Rushdie of course.

I'm about 100 pages in so far. The magic realism reminds me a bit of Gabriel García Márquez and my favourit book of all time 100 years of solitude. If you haven't read 100 years by all means read it NOW! This has some similar moments of brilliance but I'm finding it a difficult book to get through both on a simple literary level and thematically. There are a couple of scenes that I'll have to mull over for a while! Just curious who else has read it here and what their opinions were.

I'm more than something of a literature noob in many ways but I've taken to reading and loving some of the classic and contemporary great works. Even if I at time struggle I still find myself often overwhelmed by the shear brilliance so many of these authors manage to wield with such grace.

Over favorite of mine include Moby Dick, Under the Volcano, The grapes of Wrath, The Stone Diaries , and Middlesex.

[Tobin S.]

1. I've read the Satanic Bible by Anton Levay. Is that close enough?

It reads like a Libertarian's Christmas wish list. I wouldn't recommend it. :)

I've heard that Rushdie has a bounty on his head in some Muslim countries. If you can do it without giving too much away, what makes The Satanic Verses so controversial, besides the name of the book?

[Locut0s]

2. What makes it controversial is just stupid. The book twists many aspects of reality....

Into a fanciful dream like state. Aspects of magic and fantasy are woven in with the real until it's difficult to tell what's what. Characters break out into song, transform into angels and daemons and the boundaries between religion, reality and science are blurred beyond recognition. If you have read any manic realism you will know what I mean. Rushdie also adds many humorous elements and plays quite freely with both Hindu and Islam as religions. I understand that later in the book there are re tellings of religious events in his own magi realism style. I understand that some of this is seen as an affront to Islam, making fun of Islam. So at the time of it's publication a fatwa was placed on his head. This isn't just in Muslim countries but applies world wide, all Muslims are called upon to kill him. After living some years under witness protection he now lives out in the open even though the fatwa was never lifted.

[hippywife]

3. But it was lifted over ten years ago.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989262,00.html

We have pretty good book forums here at DU, too. Many people here don't know about them. :hi:

Fiction:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=208

Non-fiction:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=209

[Locut0s]

4. Thanks for that. Can a MOD move my post to the fiction forum!?...

Or you can lock this one and I can repost it there.

[hippywife]

5. You need to be a donor

to post in the other forums. All ya gotta do is $5, tho, if you have it.