Zany, Brazen, Unapologetic and Fantastical, This Is Maybe The Most Controversial Novel of All Time
I know the phrase “of all time” can be overused (especially by me, who loves a good superlative) but sometimes its use is valid. My above usage, I believe, is one of those cases, because people actually have died because of the controversy surrounding this book. Like dozens of people. There have been bombings, arson, shootings, and stabbings in response to the book, including of the author, Salman Rushdie, himself, who survived being stabbed 15 times in 2022, losing use of one of his hands and one of his eyes. (But goddammit, the man still tours and speaks publicly to honor freedom of speech, including at the Sun Valley Writers Conference where I saw him last year — what an absolute badass.)
Ironically, all of this controversy and violence was done in the name of radical devotion to religion, as “Verses,” the story of a pair of British-Indian actors empowered with godlike abilities, was met with vitriol by the radical Islamic community, with the Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa (a religiously-sanctioned assassination) against Rushdie, urging all Muslims to kill him. It’s ironic because that type of blind, black and white devotion to an organized religion is exactly what Rushdie is satirizing in the novel, and the retaliation only goes to prove his point.
By intermingling the eponymous chapter (albeit a chapter denied by Muslim’s as not a true aspect of their religion’s canon) of Islam with his narrative, along with several other fantastical stories, some connected, some not, that portray a community’s response, use, and denial of religion, Rushdie is assessing all of the good, bad, unexplained, and unattributable aspects of how one has faith. He also explores this notion by having both of the novels’ main characters, the arrogant Gibreel Farishta and cynical Saladin Chamcha, literally turning into an angel and a demon. Or are they just losing their minds and hallucinating? It’s a question that Rushdie doesn’t answer definitively one way or another, but regardless, his use of Islam, and even the Prophet Muhammad, in the plot and subplot pissed off a lot of people, regardless of his goals or thematic aspirations.
But “The Satanic Verses” deserves to be known for far more than just the controversy surrounding it. Rushdie is an absolute wizard with the English language while still being just so damn funny and raunchy. “Verses” is loquacious but bawdy, elegant but juvenile, highbrow and lowbrow. And, similar to my experience when I read Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” (MY FAVORITE BOOK EVER), I had NO idea where the book was going. The plot is so fantastical in its magical realism that it’s completely unpredictable in the most fresh way.
Whether he’s hitting on the immigration experience, the other massive theme of the novel, and what it’s like for immigrants essentially having two identities, one in their native land and one in the new, skewering blind and fanatical and senseless religious devotion, or making a crass sex innuendo, Rushdie is an author like none other, and you’ve never read a book like this in your life, I guarantee it.
