Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1229 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which earned its author a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollahs decreeing his death. Furore aside, it is a marvellously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers and a rollicking comic fable. The book begins with two Indians, Gibreel Farishta ("for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies") and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. Rushdie's astonishing powers of invention are at their best in this Whitbread Prize winner.

Synopsis
No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses", which earned its author a death sentence. Furor aside, it is a marvelously erudite study of good and evil, a feast of language served up by a writer at the height of his powers, and a rollicking comic fable. The book begins with two Indians, Gibreel Farishta ("for fifteen years the biggest star in the history of the Indian movies") and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate returning from his first visit to his homeland in 15 years, plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations. Rushdie's powers of invention are astonishing in this Whitbread Prize winner.

From the Publisher
'A great novelist, a master of perpetual storytelling' V.S.Pritchett

Customer Reviews

Wonderfully written and a joy to read
Over the English Channel, a hi-jacked airliner explodes leaving two survivors clinging to each other as they fall. One gains a halo while the other grows horns and goat legs, acting out the ancient battle between good and evil again; but which is which?

This is a very complex book, with many interwoven themes: love, belonging and betrayal being the central ones. Different people will get many different things out of it, but what struck a chord with me was the issues of belonging, and the difficulties of standing between cultures, since this is something I feel on a day-to-day basis.

I also loved the language of the book. Rushdie has a wonderful gift for words and it was a pleasure to let the words drift over you. It also captured, for me, the voice of Indian literature. It does sound like an authentic mix of cosmopolitan English and Hindi; while Rushdie wasn't the first Indian writer to write in English and add a twist of Indian colloquialism, he has certainly mastered the art. Like its predecessor, Midnight's Children, I can't recommend this book enough.

Disappointed... :(
I bought The Satanic Verses for many different reasons.... the main one being to see why there was so much contorversy surrounding the book....

Even though the book in my opinion was very cleverly written with highly intriguing characters, I don't know, I just didn't enjoy the book. Whilst reading the book I was disappointed as I thought it would offer me more than what it did, which was hardly anything. As a Muslim, I wasn't as offended as others because I thought the book was a higly imaginative work of fiction. I found the characters in the book very intriguing and completely fell in love with the characters of the young teenage girls as I thought they were hilarious and correctly portrayed young teenagers. I liked the cross of cultures and the surreality of certain aspects of the text. I thought the idea of good and bad, and what is really good and bad very intelligent and also thought provoking. But even then, I just didn't enjoy the book. Maybe it was because the text was so small... maybe because there was too much imagery, maybe because it just didn't have that little something in it for me.

I see a lot of mixed reaction to this book, which is good as not everyones opinion is the same, but for me: the book was very intelligent but I just didn't enjoy it.

I do recommend it however, to most people. As its one of those books that everyone should read and draw their own opinions of. I need to read his other books to compare them against this one.

Not very helpful as a review I know. Sorry. I'm just torn bewteen my opinions of this book.

ENTERTAINING, MEMORABLE AND WELL WORTH THE EFFORT
Definitely hard-going - after reading `The Angel Gibreel', I returned straight to the beginning and re-read so as to truly feel I was in the story - but, ultimately, worth the effort. This is a book that requires active engagement with its material and, that being the case, will leave images and thoughts in your mind long after the final page is read.

The dream sequences, while entertaining as (almost) stand-alone pieces, are woven into a similarly entertaining and dream-like narrative. Each section entertains and provokes, and each section has its own story to tell. Piece those elements together and you have very good, almost great, novel.

`Almost' due to the pace and/or length of `Ellowen Deeowen'. However, that leaves another eight sections that more than make up for that draggy third section so, if you're thinking of reading it - which is probably why you're reading these reviews - then all I can say is `highly recommended'.

NB: Don't read it if you're looking for an overt diss on Islam or religion in general though. It's a meditative piece that highlights a number of issues relating to conflict between the secular and the religious. It's about identity and not about insult.