the satanic verses, anyone want to read along? Options

[shahpar]

nothing new to add about the book at this point in my current re-reading, but i just wanted to repeat that of all rushdie's novels this is the one that for me gets better with every re-reading; "midnight's children", on the other hand, i tire of earlier and earlier at every re-read.

since you mentioned re-reading the SV, i thought i'd ask you something thats struck me as a first time reader of the book: how coloured do you think your reading is by the controversy, now that the hoopla has died down considerably from the early days? is your current reading of the novel different in terms of its literary merits of rushdies's writing and treatment of islamic characters?

(i find myself hesitating in discussing the book fully for fear of pissing off fatwa-happy readers. so if you'd rather not get into it either, i'd totally understand.)
-shahpar

[arnab]

oh, i don't care. i don't remember how exactly i reacted when i first read it in 1993 (right after arriving in the u.s). i think i was scandalized a little by the mahound sections, though i didn't know a whole lot about the quran or the history of islam. but i'd read "the last temptation of christ", and "the great indian novel", and the idea of novelists playing with holy books was not in itself strange to me.

the reason i love the book has very little to do with all that. i think it is wonderfully written--a lot of what stands out about his other famous books is the verbal gymnastics and cleverness, but in "sv" there are passages whose descriptive beauty just knock my socks off--for example, the description of alleluia cone's ascent of everest. and i think it is unique among almost all his books in having such a strong emotional core. gibreel, and particularly saladin breathe for me in a way that saleem sinai does not. saleem is an idea, saladin feels emotionally real. these are just prejudices, of course.

[shahpar]

the reason i love the book has very little to do with all that. i think it is wonderfully written--a lot of what stands out about his other famous books is the verbal gymnastics and cleverness, but in "sv" there are passages whose descriptive beauty just knock my socks off--for example, the description of alleluia cone's ascent of everest. and i think it is unique among almost all his books in having such a strong emotional core. gibreel, and particularly saladin breathe for me in a way that saleem sinai does not. saleem is an idea, saladin feels emotionally real. these are just prejudices, of course.

some part of me is annoyed with rushdie for playing around with islamic sensibilities and for his consequent smug statements etc., but i cant ignore the quality of writing - it is very very good, the non-stop reference dropping and all that. his sense of humour is unmissable and sharp (and sometimes a bit too knowing, which is what i suspect started this spot of bother in the first place). in a recent interview on uk tv, he got in depth about how personal SV was to him and how much of himself he has put into a novel, something that till then, he hadnt done. he also talked about his own bad experiences fitting into uk society and it sounded a little similar to what chamcha felt before, you know, the bostan exploded and he became a goat. he also talked a lot about coming back to bombay from boarding school and finding the city and his people a little bit different each time -- which again, resonates with chamcha's tour of bombay.

it feels sad that to so many people rushdie begins and ends with the SV, and they will not go past the controversy to pick up anything else by him. its like an enforced silence on a writer who is very much talked about.

-shahpar

[arnab]

well, i think if people had to read one novel by rushdie, this should be it. so nothing wrong with getting stuck on "satanic verses" in my opinion. but i suspect it is a book more talked about and owned than read.

[Mamallan]

i am re-reading the book after many years and find myself nodding at many of CJ's points. the mahound and the rosa diamond sections are especially hard for me to read especially because i am totally unfamiliar with the early history of islam and also british history. CJ's WSU link is incredibly helpful. like her, i am not reading SV with an academic's eye, but feel pleasure in being swept away by rushdie's narrative beauty. but i have to say it is tough going. i don't remember what i felt when i read it the first time more out of curiosity. i have enjoyed reading MC and haroun previously and so the phantasmagoria is not so distracting but the historic and literary references are and there are heaps and heaps of them. i don't think it is possible to get them all in one sitting. but i am also enjoying reading this old discussion as i plough through the text.

[shahpar]

a friend and i are re-reading SV again together from today (jan 1). he's supposed to write something on the 20th anniversary of the fatwa (which falls on feb 14th). we will be reading it with very different perspectives, especially after the surreal roller coaster that we went through in 2008. it will be great fun exchanging our ideas and hopefully getting into a fight or two along the way. i love that this book can give so much pleasure to its readers 20 years on. i had planned to re-read a suitable boy and ghore baire by myself this month, but reading SV to swap notes will be more fun.
-shahpar

[Mamallan]

finished the book after some pretty single-minded reading sessions. some rather disorganized thoughts and opinions having just reread the book follow:

the sections i found unyielding were rushdie's own philosophical digressions. i can still not figure out the purpose of these tangential flights. i was wondering why arnab found the book scandalous until i got to the return to jahilia chapter. wow! yes they were scandalous, not to mention somewhat titillating, but i can imagine how someone of the faith could get exercised about it. the best section of the book that made my hair stand on end literally as i read it, and had my eyes clouding over at the end - gibreel walking the streets of london with azraeel, destroying the pimps and saving the whores in the process and creating his fiery floral gardens. this section to me exemplifies rushdie at his phantasmagoric best; what a thrilling rush! and the most moving end to that section - farishta walking out of the burning wreckage of the shaandar cafe with chamcha on his shoulders. i love rushdie's exuberant comic ability and wordplay, but this kind of narrative imagery is to die for. ooparvala-neechayvala slyly plugging himself into the story every now and then in the first person narrative i thought was an incredibly clever device. i liked the end too - it is possible to return home and be given second chances. i am left with a feeling of heavy sadness after a sumptuous read. i don't remember feeling like this after MC, haroun, or more recently, the enchantress. i agree with arnab - if one reads only one of SR's works, this has got to be it.

eta: in the final passages of the book there is a reference to a poem about a temple town written by a character in the story - a bhupen gandhi. i thought this might have been a reference to kolatkar's jejuri. can someone else who has read the book confirm?

This post has been edited by Mamallan: Jan 5 2009, 09:08 AM

[arnab]

eta: in the final passages of the book there is a reference to a poem about a temple town written by a character in the story - a bhupen gandhi. i thought this might have been a reference to kolatkar's jejuri. can someone else who has read the book confirm?

this is confirmed by rushdie himself, perhaps even in the notes at the end of the book (my copy is not to hand).

[Mamallan]

this is confirmed by rushdie himself, perhaps even in the notes at the end of the book (my copy is not to hand).

yes arnab thanks. the copy i have doesn't have a "notes" section as such, but the acknowledgment does mention it.

[Mamallan]

i realize there has been no discussion whatsoever of the controversy that followed the publication. here's a series of videos i found of a talk by sheikh ahmed deedat. i found it pretty hilarious, but your mileage may vary. i'll refrain for now from saying anything else.

[arnab]

nothing new to add about the controversy, but i wanted to mention that one of my favourite scenes in "the satanic verses" became even more fabulous when i read the novel it was referencing (which in turn further layered my reading of "the satanic verses" as a whole). i'm referring to the dickens themed gala that the characters are at late in the novel, and to dickens' last finished novel, "our mutual friend". i knew that he was invoking that novel but not having read it at the first or second time that i read rushdie's novel i'd thought it was merely a clever device, but, of course, dickens' novel shares many of the same themes of identity and destructive, obsessive love. the wonderful thing, as i said, is that "the satanic verses" works so well even without knowledge of all these references and parallels but then keeps expanding, often serendipitiously, as we encounter those references on our own.

This post has been edited by arnab: Jan 8 2009, 06:42 AM

[Mamallan]

wish i had known about this a few days ago arnab. my semester is about to start and i am burning with curiosity, now that you've mentioned this dickens novel. it's instantaneously on my reading list now that i know its relationship to SV. thankfully, it's available as a gutenberg e-text.

[arnab]

it's a LARGE book, mamallan, but do read it. it is an amazing novel.

[Mamallan]

it's a LARGE book, mamallan, but do read it. it is an amazing novel.

it is also on librivox; so librivox -> ipod -> commute.

[arnab]

do these books on tape abridge? if so, please read the whole book. you won't regret it, it is really amazing (and about 800 pages...).

[arnab]

re-reading "midnight's children" for the umpteenth time (i am teaching it again this term) my eyes stopped on a parenthetical aside rendered rather darkly comic by subsequent history. this is in the chapter "accident in a washing chest", the one in which saleem discovers the voices in his head (page 185 in the penguin usa edition of 1991):

muhammad (on whose name be peace, let me add; i don't want to offend anyone) heard a voice saying, "recite!" and thought he was going mad

[Mamallan]

do these books on tape abridge? if so, please read the whole book. you won't regret it, it is really amazing (and about 800 pages...).

the librivox recordings are all unabridged.

[Ana Paula]

Hushed into Silence.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...kenan&sid=1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/1...-satanic-verses

http://www.kenanmalik.com/lectures/rushdie_boi.html


i have not read "Santanic Verses "yet . and just start reading 'Midnight's Children".


This post has been edited by Ana Paula: Jan 12 2009, 12:32 AM

[Mamallan]

ana paula: thanks for posting these articles. it's a sad time we live in when american scholars are in the ranks of people who want to suppress free speech.

[noblekinsman]

Is there a thread on Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses?" Can this be it? I'm interested in whether Rushdie's Bombay english in first part is new, something like what Desani does in Hatterr but with more skill and perhaps more depth? And then how it was received in England - were protesters aware of quranic partiuclars and the meaning of the heresy to which they were objecting? Was it more a way for a minority that often gets bullied to be visible in UK? "White Teeth" (Zadie Smith) and "Black Album" (Kureishi) respond to protests in their books. Where else are interesting stuff about how the book was received? Who wrote intertesting critical stuff about this book? What do people think of the criticisim on it? Far less interesting question but not entirely uninteresting is - is it the controversy and fatwah far more than any of his books themselves that have made S. Rushdie an international "intellectual" where he could have just been a clever booksmith?

[arnab]

are you asking about bombay english in particular or more generally the "indianization" of english? if the latter, then rao's "kanthapura" is a sustained example, even before desani's. i don't know if i would describe it as "bombay english" though; i don't think anyone actually speaks that english. it seems to me to be an aesthetic creation that estranges english as she is spoke away from englishness.

as for your last question, no, i don't think the fatwa is all there is to rushdie's fame. from "midnight's children" through "haroun" he is clearly one of THE major writers of the second half of the 20th century. he'd already won major awards, sold a lot of books, and had already published many essays (and a couple of essay collections)--so it's not as though his "intellectual" avatar followed the fatwa notoriety. in fact i don't think he was particularly visible in the first decade after the fatwa; my sense is that it is really after 9/11 that his current public intellectual phase got under way.

[frangipani]

Who wrote intertesting critical stuff about this book? What do people think of the criticisim on it?

Timothy Brennan has written a whole lot on Rushdie, the SV and the fatwa... read some of it waaay back in grad school..