Reviews

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

elizabethbunston's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

3.0

savaging's review against another edition

5.0

"The arrival of a fully developed devil, a horned goat-man, was, in the light of the foregoing, something very like the last, or at any rate the penultimate, straw."

chitownjr's review against another edition

challenging funny informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Brilliant writing and ultimately satisfying but also a very difficult read. Rushdie is so smart and has so many ideas but I can't say if I truly understood what he was trying to to say. 

tophe2t's review against another edition

3.0

Wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It was a challenging read, and it took me a while to get into it - Rusdhie has a very interesting style of prose, to say the least. Unfortunately, I think many of the cultural and theological references were lost on me - and I spent copious amounts of time looking many of them up - but it picked up for me in the second half, and I'm glad I checked it off the list.

readordie6's review against another edition

challenging dark funny lighthearted reflective

5.0

bwood95's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

trudy1963's review against another edition

1.0

From the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

patiolinguist's review against another edition

1.0

Ok, I gave up on this book at page 18.. and I rarely put down a book so early, but I couldn't really imagine that it would get better - I don't know whether it was the magical realism, the unnecessarily lengthy descriptions, or my lacking knowledge of the cultural context, but I found it unreadable. Definitely not for me, at least not now.

kdawn999's review against another edition

2.0

This is a highly accomplished, imaginative work, but it is too long, and it didn’t win me over emotionally at the conclusion. I feel quite a bit about this book the way I feel about Beatty’s The Sellout—there are very clever political and literary references, but because the main mood of the book is satirical/whimsical humor and characters are thoroughly and ridiculously flawed, it’s hard to latch on to a takeaway. I think this kind of philosophical play might be more appetizing in a short story collection peering into facets of the themes of racism, faith, and homeland rather than the roiling, fractured format of a single novel. I feel strong echos of the magical realism of The Master and Margarita (though I liked that work better). In the end, I don’t think I can recommend this book to the average reader—or anyone I know, really. However, I’d be curious to hear classroom discussions over it. I’d read more by the author if there is a work of his that avoids what I feel to be tedious here.

matthew_pawlyszyn's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0