I recently checked out Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, and I have really been enjoying it. In fact, I know I will seek out other stuff by Rushdie now. It’s a shame that all most people know about this book is that Rushdie had a death sentence pronounced on him because of it, because it’s really a beautiful, surreal, and funny book, and it’s obvious that Rushdie actually has a lot of respect for all religion (even though I suspect he doesn’t actually believe in any organized religion).
I’m only halfway through, but here’s a brief synopsis of what’s going on. Two entertainers from India, both raised Muslim but neither very religious, are on a plain that is hijacked, and eventually blows up over the London Channel (this is not a huge spoiler, it happens right before the novel starts). One of them is a big movie star, and is known for playing gods in theological movies, and the other is a voice actor, who tries to be very British. On the fall down the movie start develops a halo and the voice actor grows horns and eventualy mutates into a satyr-like creature. Both land unharmed, and the satyr is picked up by immigration, humiliated by the police until they realize he is a British citizen, when he’s put in a hospital with a lot of other mutants. He escapes and ends up living with the family of the guy who was sleeping with his wife, and his daughters are beginning to worship him. Meanwhile, the other guy keeps having visions where he is travelling through space and time and appears to people as the angel Gabriel (or Gilbreel), including Muhammed and a poor epileptic girl who lives in a small village in India, who starts a pilgrimage to Mecca and tells her followers that the ocean will part for them…
Anyway, it’s one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. I’m damning the fatwah because I’d like to take it to work, but I have a lot of Muslim co-workers, and I’m afraid all that some of them may know about the book is that it’s blasphemous (and it is, but not particularly so). Don’t want to catch any flak like that time the Y.E.C. fundamentalist noticed my copy of ‘The Dinosaur Heresies’ and made fun of me for believing the world was more than 6000 years old.
You ought to give your co-workers some credit. Maybe they will pleasantly surprise you. Few muslims are actually aware of the (thousands?) of fatwas (which pretty much anyone can issue) in existence, and even fewer care. I certainly don’t. In any case, what’s the worse that could happen? They’re not going to lynch you are they? And in any case, you can always tell them you didn’t know it was blasphemous.
There’s an odd connection here. Rushdie has written about seeing the well-known Creationist Duane Gish give a lecture. Not only was he not impressed, IIRC, he inserts a passing reference at the start of The Satanic Verses to a well-known Creationist being on the plane. While I don’t have a cite, I have seen Rushdie state that he specifically had Gish in mind when he included this.
Needless to say, the fictional well-known Creationist doesn’t survive the explosion.
(Incidentally, I particularly recommend Midnight’s Children.)
I read * the Satanic Verses* a few months ago, and could actually see why many Muslims were angered by it. The chapters dealing with Mahound (Muhammed) pretty much made the creation of Islam seem like a farce.
The prostitutes imitating the wives of Muhammed was the main reason for the fatwah I believe, but one thing that seemed particularly crude to me was a short part where a scribe is writing up things that Mahound is speaking about. The things the scribe writes are most of the time the opposite of what the prophet just said. Then the scribe reads the text to Mahound, and the prophet doesn’t notice that the scribe has written things that he just made up.
Of course Rushdie shouldn’t have been sentenced to death for writing this kind of stuff, but it seemed to me like an unnecessarily strong badmouthing of Islam that was in a contrast with the rest of the novel which wasn’t as direct and assaulting.
I’m almost through The Satanic Verses for the second time–the first time I read it, I was a sophmore in high school, and my parents (well, mostly my mom) freaked out. Because of the title. At one point, my mom actually said “that’s the book that serial killers carry around with them”. Right, ma. :rolleyes: *
Meanwhile, it’s every bit as beautiful as I remember. I’m an absolute Rushdie groupie, he’s speaking at my school next year. Unfortunately, by that time, I’ll be living in another state–but I’m buying tickets the day they go on sale, and will roadtrip back out purely to see him.
Incidentally, for a quick read as a follow up to The Satanic Verses, one of my all time favorite books is a childrens’ story he wrote, to explain the fatwa situation to his young son. It’s called Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
And if you need anything else on your reading list, another one of my favorite authors is Gabriel Garcia Marquez–a bit similar to Rushdie’s style in that they’re both hip on the surrealism, and both tell a lovely story. Anything written by Marquez is quality, but Cien Anos de Soledad,–One Hundred Years of Solitude is… a remarkable book. Everyone go read it, right now.
Peace,
~mixie
*Amusing side note: SisterArmadillo’s favorite book at the time (she was about thirteen) was Catcher in the Rye. My mom saw no problem with this.