The Satanic Verses

by Salman Rushdie

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The Satanic Verses Analysis

  • In The Satanic Verses, Gibreel’s religious visions are given considerable space in the novel and comprise some of the most interesting and controversial passages. Rushdie’s depiction of the prophet Muhammad has often been called blasphemous.
  • In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie for blasphemy. This fatwa was later lifted by the new Iranian government in 1998, ten years after the novel’s publication.
  • The novel contains many elements of magical realism, especially in Gibreel and Saladin’s angel- and devil-like characteristics. These elements help to emphasize their connections to good and evil.

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Analysis

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While The Satanic Verses received only the customary mix of enthusiastic and tepid reviews after its British publication in 1988, the American issue in early 1989 created an international cause celebre. Some rumbles, it is true, had been heard earlier, when the book was banned in various Islamic countries, but in February of 1989 Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini of Iran sentenced Salman Rushdie to death for blasphemy and urged faithful Muslims to execute him. This announcement and its aftermath dominated news accounts the world over. Thus a novel, which few had read, and its author, whose name not many would have recognized earlier, set astir a controversy often more characterized by political and religious implications than literary ones. Muslims at home and abroad staged demonstrations that too often turned into riots and brought about deaths. Copies of the book were burned, American and British publishers and bookstores intimidated, diplomatic relations shaken. Rushdie went into hiding. Major world writers and others, appalled by such a threat, staged readings of the novel, wrote endless articles, and formed counterdemonstrations. All the while demand for The Satanic Verses soared.

Although public interest in the affair gradually diminished, the eventual fate of the book—and its author—may not be settled for some time to come. The yet-to-be-commuted sentence of death will certainly continue to haunt Rushdie, who was at the height of his literary career when The Satanic Verses appeared. Moreover, such furor cannot but obfuscate critical judgment on the book’s artistic qualities, for will it be possible ever to divorce the fiction from the reality that now colors it? As well, the non-Islamic reader should remain sensitive to how the novelistic handling of the Prophet and the Koran must have affected devout Muslims when they read the book—or even those who merely heard about the offending passages, or perhaps read them out of context. Schooled in freedom of expression and benumbed by literary Christ figures along with irreverent allusions to Christian theology, those outside Islamic belief find it difficult to comprehend so much power being invested in the word.

These extrinsic considerations notwithstanding, The Satanic Verses, when viewed as it was intended, as a work of fiction, is an impressive achievement: complex in its plot and original in its characterization, fantastic in the telling, rich in texture and style, and essentially religious in its treatment of spiritual desolation. Rushdie’s novel was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the Best Books of 1989. Critics have observed correctly that The Satanic Verses is not easy to read, and would never on its own have gained popular success. This is not to say that the work’s intricate design and elaborate execution of that plan fail, but it does demand much from the reader.

Conceived in absurdity, the action gets under way when the two major characters, Gibreel and Saladin, fall from an exploding airplane that had been hijacked earlier. After cavorting through the heavens, they land in a remote part of England. Once safe on the ground, Gibreel, a noted screen star from Bombay, discovers that a halo has formed above his head. At this point, he starts to assume an air of holiness and to think of himself as a latter- day archangel Gabriel, charged to save humankind from its sinful folly. In contrast, his companion Saladin gradually turns into a hairy, hoofed, and horned monster. An Indian immigrant long resident in England, Saladin specializes in behind-the-scenes narration for London broadcasting studios. Neither a man with his own identity—one an actor who had made his name playing Hindu holy figures, the other...

(This entire section contains 1871 words.)

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an unseen imitator of foreign voices—the two survivors engage in a series of adventures, some on a seemingly realistic level, others merging into fantasy and dream states. Their past lives also unfold, including their mutual experience aboard the hijacked jet. At times their paths intersect as they move back and forth between India and England. Throughout they encounter a wide spectrum of characters—Britons, Indians, immigrants in London—who represent all conditions of modern men and women, even while they emerge as clearly defined characters in their own right.

Within this intricately constructed tale of contemporary life, Gibreel dreams stories set in ancient times, some of which seem to suggest aspects of Islamic theology and history. It is these passages that, justifiably or not, many Muslim readers consider blasphemous. For one thing, Mahound, a businessman turned prophet, plays an active role in Gibreel’s fitful sleep; and this dream character bears an uncanny and perverse resemblance to the Prophet Mohammed. The fictional treatment of the Prophet’s twelve wives has also displeased some. Further, the novel takes its title from one of Gibreel’s dreams about the writing of the Koran, when a scribe named Salman inserts spurious items into the Prophet’s dictation; his unnoticed additions become “the Satanic verses” within a book considered the absolute word of God.

Yet, when the novel is approached as work of the imagination, its characters appear neither blasphemous nor real. Instead, in their absurdity, they serve as reluctant pilgrims, constantly in motion. They fly from India to England, then back again; and they wander about London or Bombay aimlessly; they flee to refuges that fail them; or, as in the case of Alleluia Cone, they climb mountains. The narrative, then, scatters in all directions, moves forward, turns back on itself circles, dissolves, retraces its steps, so that the form the text takes is inseparable from that which it signifies: the chaos and dispossession that mark modern life.

Rushdie has framed his multiple quest for meaning within garlands of flamboyant language that create a luxuriant texture and heighten both setting and person. Although from the first line to the last, this texture dominates, one scene that illustrates it dramatically occurs near the end of the novel, when Gibreel, dreaming that he is the Archangel, descends on London like an Old Testament prophet. Streams of fire emerge from the mouth of the golden trumpet he carries, as he proclaims, “This is the judgment of God in his wrath.” He walks through low- cost high-rise housing,” built on stilts under whichthere is the howling of a perpetual wind, and the eddying of debris: derelict kitchen units, deflated bicycle tires, shards of broken doors, dolls’ legs, fast-food packets, rolling cans, shattered job prospects, abandoned hopes, lost illusions, expended angers, accumulated bitterness, vomited fear, and a rusting bath.

Gibreel wanders on through the garish streets, until he enters a burning restaurant and rescues an old enemy. The narrator then interrupts to ask: “What does this mean?”

Well might the reader pose the same question from time to time. In an article, “My Book Speaks for Itself,” Rushdie explained that The Satanic Verses is “about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay.” All of this sounds rather literal, and leads to the conclusion that the novel encompasses much more. Yet in one respect Rushdie has provided a list of the metaphors on which he has draped his extraordinary search for some understanding of modern humankind’s spiritual plight.

After all, migration is quite real to Rushdie, who was born in Bombay of Muslim parents at the very moment of the 1947 Partition when Pakistan, intended as the home for Muslims, was carved out of India, which was to remain a Hindu country. Living for a while in Pakistan, then in England, where he eventually became a citizen, Rushdie wrote an allegorical account of Partition and its aftermath in his first successful novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), for which he received the prestigious British literary award, the Booker Prize. His next novel, Shame (1983), recorded Pakistan’s early history. Neither could be called historical, for they took the actual events, turned them inside out, then addressed universal questions, the same ones that pervade The Satanic Verses. For here Rushdie has simply continued his series of inverted postcolonial histories, this time focusing on the former subjects of Empire who have come Home: that is to say, to England. In order to do so, however, they must undergo a metamorphosis, symbolized in particular by Saladin, who has become more self-consciously British than the average Briton. Always their selves are divided, neither Asian nor British. They are as much at home and afloat in London, the one-time seat of the Empire, as they are in Bombay—the “Gateway to India,” as the British-built arch dominating the city’s shoreline proclaims. This theme of divided selves has been developed variously by other Asian writers, such as Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who in Three Continents (1987) expanded the scene to include the United States, and Anita Desai whose Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988) reverses the story by tracing the life of a Jewish refugee who migrated to India. Rushdie shares this preoccupation as well with the Caribbean-born V. S. Naipaul, who, in his novel The Enigma of Arrival (1987), records yet another version of the journey so many have made from one place to another.

The Satanic Verses does indeed cover “migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, London and Bombay”; and it serves these matters effectively. At the same time, though, the work reaches toward other extremes—“love, death,” for example, as Rushdie explains. Above all, though, it addresses the greatest dichotomy: good and evil. That purpose becomes abundantly evident on the book’s first page when Gibreel and Saladin descend from the heavens like falling angels, one to develop a halo, the other to acquire horns and hooves. The stage so clearly set, these two characters on their endless journeys, and those they encounter en route, search for their salvation in ways yet untried. Systems of religious belief have traditionally provided a framework in which to understand the mystery of good and evil, but in Rushdie’s fictional world such explanations fail the migrating, transformed, divided selves who alone must answer the question, “What does it mean?” Certainly, two other major world religions, Hinduism and Christianity, could be said to fare as poorly under Rushdie’s satire as does Islam. But to attack established theology is not at all the intent of the work. Rather, it sets out to unmask hypocrisy, to question blind adherence to tradition, to condemn religious tyranny born of ignorance.

Finally, The Satanic Verses might simply be described as a novel conceived and executed on an immense scale that defies all fictional conventions, but one which in so doing cannily creates its own. The narrator intervenes to explain the workings of his art and to question what he has set in motion, but he does not grow tiresome. The conception of the myriad characters borders on absurdity, yet never crosses into ridiculousness. The language is verbose and overwrought, ornate and laden with puns, but all of that creates a rich resonance. Set in two opposing worlds—the Asian and the Western—it draws from the sensibilities of both. Just when the story verges on tedium, it turns to soar with narrative power. The novel is both funny and sad, obvious and obscure, both humane and bitterly satirical in its record of human foibles. Granted, to some it might seem blasphemous. For others, though, The Satanic Verses emerges as a testament to humankind’s enduring quest.

Even-numbered (early seventh century) chapters

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Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel (ah-BEWSIHM-behl), the leader of the seventh century Jahilia (pre-Islamic Arabia), who appears to Farishta in a dream in which Abu attempts to bargain with Mahound, offering to accept the new monotheism if Mahound will grant divine status to three local goddesses.

Mahound

Mahound (mah-HEWND), a pejorative Christian variation of Mohammad, who appears in Farishta’s dream in which Farishta, disguised as an angel, counsels him to accept Abu Simbel’s offer. Mahound finally concludes, however, that the concession is the work of the satanic Shaitan and the revelatory verses are satanic in origin. Mahound completes his conquest of Jahilia, ordering the closing of the brothel and the execution of its prostitutes.

Ayesha

Ayesha (i-EE-shah), a young woman who leads a group of pilgrims to the sea and finally to Mecca. An angel had told her that the sea would part. When it failed to do so, several of the pilgrims drowned.

Places Discussed

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Bostan

Bostan. Fictional Air India flight from Bombay to London that is blown up by Sikh terrorists over the English coastline. This airplane, named after one of the Islamic gardens of paradise, is the novel’s opening setting, acting as a metaphor for the migrants’ movement between cultures. With the onset of the hijacking, the flight gradually loses its empirical reality, launching Gibreel and Chamcha into a world of illusion. The journey initiates their metamorphoses into their angelic and demoniac incarnations, which solidify in the home of Rosa Diamond, an octogenarian Englishwoman who repeatedly sees the specters of Norman invaders from nine hundred years earlier. These two locations mark the main characters’ entry into England in their metamorphosed states as desirable and undesirable immigrants.

*London

*London. Great Britain’s capital city has two distinct faces in the novel. Superficially, it is the capital of British culture and civilization, the dream destination of immigrants from former colonies. As an educated, financially secure immigrant, Chamcha sees London as prosperous and accommodating, a place where he is accepted as a proper Englishman with an English wife, a successful career in television, and a mansion in Notting Hill. This rosy veneer, however, belies the city’s dark underside, characterized by racial discrimination and police brutality.

When Chamcha lands in England following the plane explosion, penniless and unable to prove his British citizenship, he finds the nation transformed into a horrible fantasy, “some counterfeit zone, rotten borough, altered state.” In this negative aspect of London, immigrants are literally transformed into animals and demons, tortured by officials, incarcerated, and forced to flee at night into a hellish underworld. The immigrant community, centered in the racially diverse neighborhood called Brickhall, modeled on the real London suburb of Brixton, lives with fear, intimidation, and poverty. The Shandaar Café in Brickhall, where Chamcha is concealed after his metamorphosis into a devil, symbolizes both the vitality of the immigrant community and its exploitation by outsiders and by its own members. In the Brickhall disco Club Hot Wax, immigrants vent their frustration against their oppressors by melting wax effigies of English politicians, especially Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

While Gibreel does not experience the immigrant’s nightmare version of London, his perception of the city mirrors his disintegrating sense of reality as he struggles with the divine visions that cast him as the archangel in search of his adversary, Shaitan (Satan). In Gibreel’s view, the city becomes a hallucinatory labyrinth that constantly changes shape, a cosmological battlefield populated with ghosts and monstrous creatures. He alters the city’s temperature with his will, turning it into a tropical hothouse primed for racial conflagration.

*Bombay

*Bombay (now called Mumbai). Large city on the west coast of India. As it also does in Salman Rushdie’s other works, Bombay in this novel symbolizes both the best and worst of modern Indian society. A creation of British colonial power, the city prides itself on its European sophistication and eclectic multiculturalism. While the city’s diversity is celebrated in the novel, it is also made clear that disasters such as the Assam massacre result from internecine racial and religious tensions. Like London, Bombay in the novel is divided between rich and poor, between the luxurious lifestyles of those at Scandal Point and the high-rise Everest Villas and the poverty of Gibreel’s childhood as a tiffin, or lunch, carrier. Unlike London, Bombay is depicted largely in realistic terms, though it too is suffused with questions of illusion and identity, as suggested by the dominance of the “Bollywood,” or Indian, film industry.

For both Gibreel and Chamcha, Bombay is the home that they are trying to put behind them by going to England. In Gibreel’s case, the city is associated with the Islamic heritage he wants to deny; for Chamcha, it is the crystallization of a culture he deems uncivilized and a father he rejects. At the end of the novel, though, Chamcha’s return trip to Bombay represents his successful integration of his past and present and Indian and English selves.

Jahilia

Jahilia (jah-HEEL-ee-ah). Fictional depiction of the city of Mecca, birthplace of the Islamic religion, in the early seventh century. This city, which appears only in Gibreel’s dream sequences, is presented in somewhat caricatured, ultimately controversial terms, which underscore the novel’s interrogation of the viability of faith based on literal interpretation. Jahilia, which refers to the period of ignorance that preceded the Islamic religion, is also believed to be the name of the desert location where Ibrahim (Abraham) heeded God’s command to abandon his wife Hagar and child Ismail, who were then saved by the archangel Gibreel’s (Gabriel’s) revelation of the Spring of Zamzam. The word thus connotes both devotion and doubt, the latter of which is symbolized by the city’s total construction from sand, “the very stuff of inconstancy.”

With its temples devoted to 360 different deities, Jahilia is a favored destination for pilgrims, and its citizens benefit financially from markets and festivals attended by the faithful. Mahound, the novel’s parodic depiction of the prophet Muhammad, opposes his new religion of submission (Islam), with its one god (Allah), to the city’s polytheistic decadence. On nearby Mount Cone, he wrestles with the archangel Gibreel while receiving the Recitation (the Qur’an), whose divine authority is presented as questionable. Although Mahound is driven out by his enemies, his eventual return marks a new period of austerity in Jahilia, which is temporarily undermined by the creation of a town brothel, The Curtain, in which prostitutes masquerade as the prophet’s twelve wives.

Titlipur

Titlipur. Fictional twentieth century Muslim Indian village. This village, whose name derives from the butterflies that proliferate in the area, serves as the starting point for Gibreel’s second dream sequence, also dealing with questions of absolute faith. The impoverished inhabitants of the village are persuaded by Ayesha, a local girl with miraculous qualities, that the archangel has commanded them to make a foot pilgrimage to Mecca. They are joined by Mishal, the fatally ill wife of the local zamindar, or wealthy landowner, Mirza Saeed, a secularist, who lives nearby in a colonial mansion called Peristan (Fairyland). This test of faith terminates in a parting of the Arabian Sea, perceptible only to believers, which results in the drowning deaths of the pilgrims.

Historical Context

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Britain in the 1980s

Rushdie resided in London while penning The Satanic Verses. The novel's primary historical setting is also 1980s London. During this decade, Margaret Thatcher, a conservative, served as the prime minister of England. Thatcher was noted for her policies that cut government spending on all sectors except defense and for privatizing state-controlled industries. Ideologically, she was similar to the American President Ronald Reagan.

In the early 1980s, England experienced increasing unemployment. Despite this, Thatcher's administration remained popular, largely winning the 1983 election due to Britain's involvement in the Falklands War. Argentina, which had long claimed the British territorial islands off its coast, deployed forces to the islands in 1982. Thatcher responded by dispatching a British naval task force, which successfully defeated the Argentines.

Following the 1983 election, Thatcher's tenure was marked by a series of domestic upheavals, starting with the Miner’s Strike of 1984–85. The strike erupted after the government announced the closure of twenty major mines and unions grew worried about Thatcher’s efforts to diminish their influence. The strike persisted for nearly a year amid police violence and intimidation. Additionally, in the fall of 1985, clashes between white police officers and predominantly black youths erupted in London and Birmingham. These violent confrontations were possibly fueled by harsh economic conditions and the British government's conservatism and intolerance.

India in the 1980s

In 1980, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru (the first prime minister of independent India), and her party were re-elected. Gandhi conducted several important meetings with foreign leaders while managing multiple insurgencies within India. In 1984, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, a retaliation for her decision to storm a sacred Sikh temple in Punjab that was occupied by insurgents. That same year, India witnessed the infamous industrial disaster in Bhopal, where a toxic gas leak from the Union Carbide pesticide plant resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries to hundreds of thousands.

The Satanic Verses

Rushdie's novel is filled with references to historical and modern events, philosophies, and figures. One of the most significant references in the book pertains to several verses that Satan supposedly deceived Muhammad into including in the Qur’an, which Muhammad later removed from the Islamic holy text. The primary source for this controversial tale, which is dismissed by nearly all major Muslim scholars, is a biography of Muhammad by the Arabian historian Ibn Ishaq, composed 120–130 years after the prophet's death. Now only available in a significantly revised version, the biography asserts that Muhammad initially included verses that acknowledged the divinity of three pagan goddesses of Mecca. Pleased by this, the Meccans halted their persecution of Muhammad until the Angel Gabriel appeared to him and revealed that the verses were blasphemous. Muhammad retracted his words, attributing them to Satan's influence, and directed his scribes (Muhammad is believed to have been illiterate) to erase the verses from the Qur’an. This incident remains highly sensitive among Muslims because the belief that the Qur’an is an unerring transcription of God's word is central to the religion.

Literary Style

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Magic Realism

The literary technique known as “magic realism,” which incorporates supernatural elements into an otherwise realistic story, is a key stylistic feature of The Satanic Verses. Examples of this technique include Gibreel turning into an angel and Saladin transforming into a goat-man or devil. Other fantastical events, such as Rekha appearing on a flying carpet and Gibreel wielding a trumpet of fire, also illustrate this device.

Magic realism, favored by Latin American postmodern writers like Gabriel García Márquez, serves several important purposes. It provides the author with significant flexibility to deepen the story’s meaning. For instance, by giving Gibreel and Saladin magical traits, Rushdie can more vividly and tangibly explore their connections to the concepts of good and evil. Additionally, magic realism challenges readers' preconceptions, prompting them to reconsider the themes of the work from fresh perspectives. Moreover, the inclusion of supernatural elements lends the narrative an epic quality, akin to classic and religious epics that often feature otherworldly events and deities. Because it questions readers’ perceptions of conventional reality and resembles classic or religious literature, The Satanic Verses is better equipped to tackle grand themes like human nature, religion, and history.

Narrative Voice

Most of The Satanic Verses is narrated from an omniscient, third-person perspective, where the narrator recounts the story from an all-knowing, external viewpoint. However, in chapter 7, over four hundred pages into the book, the narrator makes a sudden, enigmatic switch to the first person. The narrator asks readers not to expect him/her to “clear things up” and reveals having previously appeared to Gibreel, suggesting that the narrator might be Ooparvala (God), Neechayvala (the devil), or both. This intriguing twist (and joke) implies that God governs the novel’s narrative, tying into Rushdie’s reflections on religion and the nature of good and evil.

Literary Techniques

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In Midnight's Children (1981) and Shame (1983), Rushdie employs a range of narrative techniques to tell his story. Sometimes, he parodies the exaggerated, artificial, melodramatic, and flamboyant elements of popular Indian films. On other occasions, he uses the self-aware strategies typical of metafiction.

In his characteristic style, The Satanic Verses combines straightforward storytelling with authorial commentary. Gibreel's visions are depicted as parables or allegories with a dreamlike quality, while the main plot involving the Indian star and Saladin is portrayed with a blend of fantasy and realism. Readers familiar with Rushdie's earlier works will recognize the same kind of slapstick humor, comic overindulgence, and satirical vigor. However, they might be caught off guard by the novel's simple realistic conclusion and the poignant deathbed scene.

Once again, Rushdie demonstrates his boundless linguistic creativity. The novel is rich with puns, metaphors, and precise imitations of various voices and dialects. Rushdie seamlessly transitions between Gibreel's visions and the contemporary world with remarkable finesse. Despite this, there are parts of the novel, particularly in the middle when Gibreel and Saladin are trying to find their footing in London, that are less satisfying.

Compare and Contrast

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1980s: Margaret Thatcher, known for her rigid, conservative ideologies, serves as the prime minister of Britain.

Today: Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party who initiated the “New Labour” movement, advocating for some privatization, has been the British prime minister since 1997.

1980s: Militant Islamic fundamentalism is gaining momentum in the Arab world. The U.S. government provides weapons and training to Osama bin Laden and his group of Muslim fighters during the Afghan War against the Soviet Union.

Today: Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Western nations have adopted new foreign policy approaches, partly to combat Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups.

1980s: Jim Henson’s Muppets, which parody politicians and celebrities, are highly popular in Western entertainment. Meanwhile, Bombay’s “Bollywood” film industry enjoys a massive following in India.

Today: Animated satires like The Simpsons are among the most popular television shows in Britain and the United States. Although Western entertainment is now more accessible in India than it was two decades ago, Bollywood remains extremely popular.

1980s: Salman Rushdie goes into hiding after an Iranian fatwa sentences him to death.

Today: Publicly “pardoned” by the Iranian government, Rushdie lives openly and attends many public events, though he still employs bodyguards.

Literary Precedents

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Throughout the novel, Rushdie frequently references numerous fictional works, making the lineage of The Satanic Verses unmistakable. The 9th-century work, The Thousand and One Nights, remains a significant influence, particularly in the portrayal of Gibreel's dreams. The self-aware style of Sterne and the "magical" realism of Garcia Marquez are also evident.

However, some writers are acknowledged as influences for the first time, either implicitly or explicitly. Among them, Dickens stands out prominently, with English critics noting the deliberate invocation of Our Mutual Friend (1865). In his essay for Newsweek, Rushdie also cites Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" (1790) as a key influence in his effort to fictionalize "the inter-penetration of good and evil." Additionally, Rushdie credits Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1967) for inspiring him to write about devilish visitations. The Satanic Verses also shares connections with the stories of Argentina's Jorge Luis Borges. As previously mentioned, Rushdie intentionally emulates the extravagant style of popular Indian cinema.

Lastly, the multiple endings in the Rosa Diamond episode link that section of the novel with the experimental fiction of John Fowles, particularly his acclaimed novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969).

Bibliography and Further Reading

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Sources

Parrinder, Patrick, “Let’s Get the Hell Out of Here,” in London Review of Books, Vol. 10, No. 17, September 29, 1988, pp. 11–13.

Rushdie, Salman, The Satanic Verses, Viking, 1988.

Wallace, Charles P., and Dan Fisher, “Khomeini Says Author of Satanic Verses Should Be Killed,” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1989, p. 13.

Wood, Michael, “The Prophet Motive,” in the New Republic, Vol. 200, No. 10, March 6, 1989, pp. 28–30.

Further Reading

Cavanaugh, Christine, “Auguries of Power: Prophecy and Violence in The Satanic Verses,” in Studies in the Novel, Vol. 36, No. 3, Fall 2004, pp. 393–404.

Cavanaugh’s article explores the theological background of Rushdie’s book and its commentary on the connection between violence and prophecy.

Erickson, John, Islam and Postcolonial Narrative, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 129–60.

The chapter on Salman Rushdie in Erickson’s academic text examines The Satanic Verses in the context of Islam's interaction with Western culture.

Pipes, Daniel, The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West, Carol Publishing Group, 1990.

Pipes offers a comprehensive study of the events surrounding the release of Rushdie’s novel, including an analysis of Rushdie’s motives and the response to the fatwa.

Rushdie, Salman, “In Good Faith,” in Newsweek, Vol. 115, No. 7, February 12, 1990, pp. 52–56.

Rushdie’s significant article about The Satanic Verses defends his work, explains why it should not offend Muslims, and advocates for freedom of expression.

Seminick, Hans, A Novel Visible but Unseen: A Thematic Analysis of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses,” Studia Germanica Gandensia, 1993.

Seminick’s thematic examination of The Satanic Verses provides a valuable deconstruction of the novel's themes.

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