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The Satanic Verses: A Novel

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Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$16.00~~
Buy Used: $5.90
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New (42) Used (40) Collectible (9) from $5.90

Seller: Samson17
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

232 reviews
Sales Rank: 10,582

Media: Paperback
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 1.3

ISBN: 0812976711
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780812976717
ASIN: 0812976711

Publication Date: March 11, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Features:

•	ISBN13: 9780812976717
•	Condition: NEW
•	Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Also Available In:

•	Paperback - The Satanic Verses: A Novel (Bestselling Backlist)
•	School & Library Binding - Satanic Verses (Bestselling Backlist)
•	Hardcover - The Satanic Verses
•	Hardcover - The Satanic Verses
•	Audio CD - The Satanic Verses
•	Unknown Binding - Collection law in Missouri
•	Library Binding - Satanic Verses
•	Hardcover - The Satanic Verses
•	Paperback - The Satanic Verses
•	Paperback - The Satanic Verses
•	Hardcover - The Satanic Verses
•	Paperback - The Satanic Verses

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
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.

Product Description
One of the most controversial and acclaimed novels ever written, The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie’s best-known and most galvanizing book. Set in a modern world filled with both mayhem and miracles, the story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times.

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 232

1 2 3 4 5 6 ...47 Next »

great post-modern book February 19, 2010
Lance Green
This book is amazing. The insanity and chaos within is all for a reason. You are meant to be confused... I almost think you're never to really understand. If you're mind is open, you'll often find that certain themes rings true and strike you on an existential level.
I'm the T.A. in a post-modern lit class and we're using this as one of our readings. Within our group are conservative evangelicals, atheist, post-modern lutherans, and even buddhist... everyone, somehow, connects deeply to different messages of the book.

There are many reviews giving this book 1 star. Those people do not understand the significance of the book, the revolutionary writing, and cultural intelligence within the concepts.

5 out of 5 stars

There can be no fatwas against truth February 12, 2010
Steve Reina (Troy Michigan)
Satanic Verses is brilliant. It's provocative. It's heretical but perhaps most importantly it's very idiosyncratic.

In reading this book I was reminded of those other heretical books, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and James Joyce's Ulysses.

Like Dialogue and Ulysses this book's heresy is lost on those not familiar with the minutae of dogma.

Therefore, if you don't know India and you don't know your Islam you will lose sight of "what all the fuss was about."

But maybe that was the point of Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie in the first place. For all the things Khomeini can rightly be accused of, unfamiliarity with dogma is definately NOT one of them.

Make no mistake: This review is intended to bury intollerance and not praise it. No mere human agency can make something that isn't the genuine article become the word of God and if it is the word of God, no human agency can ultimately suppress it.

And so there can be no fatwas against truth. Nor can it even be placed under house arrest or banned from publication.

In that sense, like Ulysses and more so than with Dialogue, this book's main significance is probably honestly not so much in what the book itself had to say as what the book came to stand for as a result of its treatment by a religious leadership.

So yes, by all means, read the book, but be realistic in what you expect to find.

4 out of 5 stars

Satanic Verses February 11, 2010
L. Hackney
Came on time but packaging broke down in transit and the book fell out. Probably the mail's fault!

4 out of 5 stars

The Satanic Verses January 29, 2010
tim Hough (Canada)
I would not have read this book had it not been for the cartoon riots in 2006. This book is not an easy read, and it took me about a year to read it, but it was well worth it. It is beautifully written, poetic and surreal and dreamlike, a tale of the clash of cultures between east and west from the point of view of two Bollywood star expatriates living in England, Gibreel Farishta (a reference to the Archangel Gabriel) and Saladin Chamcha. Though the cultural reference points are a bit obscure, it is both prophetic and amusing. The two main characters are on a plane traveling across the English Channel when a terrorist's bomb blows up the plane. The two characters miraculously survive, floating to the ground, one transforms into an angel of light, the other into a cloven-hoofed devil. It is difficult to see this book as anything else but clever satire, and the controversy surrounding only proves the point that Muslims have no sense of humour. I loved the liberties Salman Rushdie takes with the English language, and his clever takes on a culture that most of us know very little about.

5 out of 5 stars

Review by www.cymlowell.blogspot.com January 10, 2010
Cym H. Lowell (Dallas, TX USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have wanted to read and think about this insightful book for many years. It caused an uproar in the Islamic world, including a fatwa death sentence for the author. I always wondered why? How can a story about other prophets cause an uproar amongst their followers?

To me, the story line essentially chronicles the journey of the prophet in the walk around world. In many senses, The Satanic Verses is similar in nature to other journey books which seem intended to allow the reader (and the author, of course) to explore the conscious and subconscious of the heroes. I enjoyed reading Siddhartha by Herman Hess, The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, The Iliyad and the Odyssey by Homer, and many others. In each, the hero embarks upon a journey of self-discovery, danger, ecstacy, and fate. Often the results of the journey, successful or otherwise, seem to me to largely be a matter of serendipity. In Siddhartha, the rich Indian boy found his peace in ferrying pilgrims across the river close to his original home. In The Alchemist, the shepard boy found his treasure in Fatima at the oasis. How can one account for the joy these young men ultimately found in simplicity?

It is up to the reader to find meaning in any story, including especially its meaning in his or her own life.

I think such stories are successful if they trigger introspection in the reader. How is my life or journey similar to the hero's? What can I learn from this hero's journey to guide me in my life. If there is deep religious connotation, or comment, do I agree with the views communicated by the author and the protagonists?

The Satanic Verses is at once allegorical, satirical, whimsical, and oftentimes, to me, far less penetrable in any conventional sense than most of the books we read on a day-to-day basis. Like reading James Joyce, the twists and turns of the narrative require focus and abstract thought. In this regard, I was reminded of my long read of Raintree County by Ross Lockridge, Jr., an allegorical story of my childhood home in Indiana. It took me awhile to get through the 1,500 pages. When I was done I had discovered what I was looking for in those pages. Frankly, I enjoyed the introspection.

In the case of Satanic Verses, my wait was worthwhile. Mr. Rushdie has a wonderful capacity for inducing self-examination. His fine work has earned the rave reviews that it has gotten for the many years since its original publication. It is far more complex than such stories as The Alchemist, yet it is the complexity that provides such rich texture.

From a cultural perspective, I found it a far more difficult struggle to engage the hero in The Satanic Verses, than in Siddhartha written by a German or The Alchemist written by a Latin.

As with any great book, the re-reading after a passage of time will bring even greater insight. I look forward to that time as well.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 232

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