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Just finished Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.... umm.

Locut0s

Locut0s

Lifer
Not sure what to think of that book. Had some really brilliant parts that I loved but also seemed to be out of control too much of the time. It's an extremely dense book and really very difficult to read at times.

Mini Review:

There's some amazing pros to be found here! Absolutely brilliant style through many parts of the book. It's thick with allusions to Indian culture, history, religion, pop culture, classical literature and more. 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 [Who's 100 Years of Solitude is my all time fav book]). However at times I feel the author gets carries away with himself a bit. 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.
 
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Cyco said:
I've always been curious about that book. I shall read it sometime.
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It's 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 very well educated person as he seems to effortlessly quote from and make references to classical and modern works of art, history and modern events and peoples. The pros is at times extremely brilliant! 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 bit too heavy. For one thing you should be comfortable with reading classical literature, this isn't classical literature but it certainly is reminiscent of many classical authors. I'm going to have to read a few reviews of the book to know exactly what the theme of the book was. Well the broad themes of alienation and culture shock are obvious but there are many metaphors, symbols and allusions that went over my head.
 
You are the great satan!
khomeini.jpeg
 
Cyco said:
This...

or not....

But I always wondered what the big hubub was about.
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Well religious people like to get their panties in a knot when it comes to being insulted. The book certainly does paint religion in a bad light, as it should, but religion in the end is more of a backdrop to the story. The book playfully retells some of the events in the history of Islam and plays with names, characters, events till it becomes more of a fairytale version of events. Mohamed is a character in several dream sequence chapters for example. Only he's called Mahound which if you look in wikipedia turns out to be "contemptuous name for Mohammad ...... came to be strongly associated with anti-Muslim attitudes in Western Christendom". He also certainly doesn't come accross as the most decisive of characters and the religion he preaches, never named Islam, doesn't exactly come across as inviting seeming. There is another dream sequence which depicts Iatola Khamenei, again not so named, in rather bad light. But again the novel really isn't about these incidents really. They are the mad dreamings of a non religious man, who plays religious character in movies, who is descending into paranoid schizophrenia. The book is really much more about needing to find acceptance in the world. It's about racism, cruelty and the need for love.
 
Locut0s said:
Not sure what to think of that book. Had some really brilliant parts that I loved but also seemed to be out of control too much of the time. It's an extremely dense book and really very difficult to read at times.

Mini Review:

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 [Who's 100 Years of Solitude is my all time fav book]). 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.
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to balance it out, you might want to read the Jewish Talmud.

an old Jewish book that says it's morally OK for Jewish people to steal from non-Jewish people (is this what the banksters were going by ?), to rape non-Jewish people (Roman Polanski ring a bell ?), and to kill non-Jewish people (Israel's foreign policy in 10 words or less.)

for an explanation, since the Talmud was written over 2000 years ago, there is Carrington's book - "Synagogue of Satan".
http://iamthewitness.com/books/index.php?dir=Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/Synagogue.of.Satan
 
wwswimming said:
to balance it out, you might want to read the Jewish Talmud.

an old Jewish book that says it's morally OK for Jewish people to steal from non-Jewish people (is this what the banksters were going by ?), to rape non-Jewish people (Roman Polanski ring a bell ?), and to kill non-Jewish people (Israel's foreign policy in 10 words or less.)

for an explanation, since the Talmud was written over 2000 years ago, there is Carrington's book - "Synagogue of Satan".
http://iamthewitness.com/books/index.php?dir=Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/Synagogue.of.Satan
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lol, olay, I'm supposed to believe Polanski raped that little girl because she is non-jewish and he was a follower of the Talmud, or that Isreal is going around killing non-Jewish people because of the Talmud? Please, come up with better examples in your criticism of jews.
 
wwswimming said:
to balance it out, you might want to read the Jewish Talmud.

an old Jewish book that says it's morally OK for Jewish people to steal from non-Jewish people (is this what the banksters were going by ?), to rape non-Jewish people (Roman Polanski ring a bell ?), and to kill non-Jewish people (Israel's foreign policy in 10 words or less.)

for an explanation, since the Talmud was written over 2000 years ago, there is Carrington's book - "Synagogue of Satan".
http://iamthewitness.com/books/index.php?dir=Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/Synagogue.of.Satan
Click to expand...

Wir müssen die Jüden ausrotten, richtig?
 
wwswimming said:
to balance it out, you might want to read the Jewish Talmud.

an old Jewish book that says it's morally OK for Jewish people to steal from non-Jewish people (is this what the banksters were going by ?), to rape non-Jewish people (Roman Polanski ring a bell ?), and to kill non-Jewish people (Israel's foreign policy in 10 words or less.)

for an explanation, since the Talmud was written over 2000 years ago, there is Carrington's book - "Synagogue of Satan".
http://iamthewitness.com/books/index.php?dir=Andrew.Carrington.Hitchcock/Synagogue.of.Satan
Click to expand...

So it was the Jews who were responsible for 9-11, it's all so clear now.
 
Locut0s said:
Not sure what to think of that book. Had some really brilliant parts that I loved but also seemed to be out of control too much of the time. It's an extremely dense book and really very difficult to read at times.

Mini Review:
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I haven't read this particular book but I've read quite a bit of his essays and shorter fiction. I'm no book snob by any means, but from my experience and what I've read from reviews about his work, he seems to be very much the linguistic artist.

Often when I'm reading certain passages of his work I know that I don't have the literary or worldly background to properly comprehend what he's trying to communicate. Literature, at the level he writes, really inspires me to broaden my horizons.
 
I would have never read that book, so thanks for your rewiew. Now for a critique of your review:

I found Locut0s's review of Salmon Rusdies book, The Satanic Verses, to be rather dense. Confusing and rambling at times, he did at least try to get his point across, but because of his density, I had to push myself to try and comprehend his last 50 words. Overall it was rather dense. Did I mention it was dense?

😉
 
FelixDeKat said:
I would have never read that book, so thanks for your rewiew. Now for a critique of your review:

I found Locut0s's review of Salmon Rusdies book, The Satanic Verses, to be rather dense. Confusing and rambling at times, he did at least try to get his point across, but because of his density, I had to push myself to try and comprehend his last 50 words. Overall it was rather dense. Did I mention it was dense?

😉
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Yeah I cut and pasted the "mini review" after posting the first part. Reads like a high-school essay. lol. Let me remove a few of those "dense"s.
 
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