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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 01/09/2011 : 06:18:41
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I must admit that I tend to deliberately avoid reading "lit'rary" books. My type of book tends to be of a more popular type. That's my excuse (and a poor one it is) for only just now having read Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses.
I sincerely wish I'd read this novel years ago. Not only is The Satanic Verses good literature, it's also a very "good read."
Most of you will be familiar with the fact that Salman Rushdie is living under a continuing death sentence issued in 1989 by Iran's then supreme theocrat, the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Supposedly, the reason Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death (and a bounty for his assassin), was that The Satanic Verses showed disrespect to the Prophet Muhammad.| This was when he had the idea that destroyed his faith, because he recalled that Mahound himself had been a businessman, and a damned successful one at that, a person to whom organization and rules came naturally, so how excessively convenient it was the he should have come up with such a businesslike archangel, who handed down management decisions of this highly corporate, if non-corporeal, God. |
The novel certainly does show that disrespect, but it also has scenes in which portray a nasty and monomaniacal Imam, exiled in England, who uses the shed blood of countless others to seize power in his native country.Loose-robed, frowning, ominous, awake: this is the Imam.
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For there is an enemy beyond Ayesha, and it is History herself. History is the blood-wine that must no longer be drunk. History is the intoxicant, the creation and possession of the Devil, of the great Shaitan, the greatest of lies -- progress, science, rights -- against which the Imam has set his face. History is a deviation from the Path, knowledge is a delusion, because the sum of knowledge was complete on the day Al-Lah finished his revelation to Mahound. |
It's obvious that the Imam referred to by Rushdie is Khomeini, and the country is Iran. It's also seems very likely to me that the insult to the Imam, as much or more than the insult to the Prophet, was the reason Khomeini wanted Rushdie dead.
As a thoroughgoing skeptic, Rushdie is "one of us."| Unwilling to wholly abandon the project for which his wife had died, unable to maintain any longer the absolute belief which the enterprise required, Muhammad Din entered the station wagon of scepticism. 'My first convert,' Mirza Saeed rejoiced. |
Perhaps the primary point of Verses is to be found Rushdie's questions, "What kind of idea are you?" and "What happens when you win?" I respectfully suggest you read The Satanic Verses to discover what these questions mean.
There are two primary characters, India-born former Muslims who begin the novel by falling from the sky. In plot, the novel is very complex, often seemingly chaotic, but maintains its focus through various story lines and across more than a thousand years of time. The plot never drags, though the narrative does drag the reader along like a passenger who has his coattail caught in the door of a departing taxi. By turns humorous, scary, political, thoughtful and whimsical, The Satanic Verses is worth reading for its high entertainment value alone.
Oh, yeah, it's "literary," too.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 01/09/2011 07:07:35
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 01/09/2011 : 09:03:14 [Permalink]
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Ok, gonna have to read that one, but it'll have to wait until my cataract surgery is done. Right now, I can only read the largest text size on my computer screen and no longer drive after dark. I'm just one step up from Old Pew.
Isn't the bounty on Rushdi something 5 mil?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/09/2011 : 16:50:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Ok, gonna have to read that one, but it'll have to wait until my cataract surgery is done. Right now, I can only read the largest text size on my computer screen and no longer drive after dark. I'm just one step up from Old Pew.
Isn't the bounty on Rushdi something 5 mil?
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The cataract surgery in my right eye 8 years ago was surely a boon to me. In the meantime, have you asked your county library about audio books? |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
