Just finished Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. Mini Review

[Locut0s]

There's some amazing pros to be found here! Absolutely brilliant style through many parts of the book. But it's also a really dense book. The allusions to Indian culture, history, religion, pop culture, classical literature and more are really dense. Salman Rushdie is obviously an extremely well read and highly educated individual as he seems to effortlessly quote from and make references to classical and modern works of art and history in one breath then modern events and people in the next. He makes extensive use of Magic Realism (though not as affectively as the master Gabriel García Márquez ). However I also feel the book suffers from being a bit too dense. A few too many characters, a few too many story lines for it's own good. Rushdie's sense of humour pervades almost every page and while often times is brilliantly funny at other times is sadly corny. I don't pretend to now 1/4 of the literary and historical allusions he makes in the book and I will have to read some literary criticism of this work before I fully understand it. The broad themes of immigrant alienation (and alienation in general), racism, religious extremism, love and the longing to be loved are obvious. However just what for example his two protagonists/antagonists really stand for is more vague to me at this point.

In the end I found it a frustrating book to read. At times it reminded me much of 100 years of solitude and that wondrous style. At other times I really had to push myself to get through the next 50 pages or so before the brilliance picked up again.

[aquart]

1. Versus what?

[Locut0s]

2. Thanks for the quick catch. I guess....

Satan vs Jesus of course. It's a fight to the death. Who will be victorious!!!!??? ;)

[Meeker Morgan]

3. I read it when it first came out ...

... because of the controversy.

Then I looked him up in the public library and read Midnight's Children.

Can't get enough of Rushdie ever since.

[Locut0s]

4. Midnight's Children is on my to read list now but....

I'm going to take a break from Rushdie for a while. For one thing I need to let this book mull over for a while and for another I have other books I want to finish first.

Like I was saying I found myself conflicted reading Satanic Versus, at times enthralled by the language, at times having to push myself to continue.

[InkAddict]

5. He is my favorite author.

I have been soooooo spoiled by this author's storytelling and relevant contemporary political commentary sometimes hidden so skillfully between the lines or, at other times, right there in one's face. His books seem to me to be a complete literary feast, vegan or not. His writing, at least for me, has raised the bar so much that others' stories sometimes just don't seem as compelling.

[Locut0s]

8. Please say you have read 100 years of Solitude....

If not please do!!

[Locut0s]

6. Shit how many times did I use the word dense there!! LOL nt

[iris27]

7. It was too smart for me.

I gave it about 150 pages before I admitted defeat; too much of it was going over my head. Beautiful prose, though.

[Bucky]

9. He's writing for a very different culture set. I read it 20 years ago and had the same troubles.

But he's challenging his readers, not playing to our comfort zones. I don't think he wants you to enjoy the book; he wants you to come away feeling a little disturbed. Not so disturbed that you'd kill him, of course, but then who are we to judge how some Iranian critics choose to express their disappointment?