Reviews - The Satanic Verses

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1.16k reviews for:

The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie

3.7 AVERAGE

sjreep's review against another edition

3.0

challenging funny reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

sleighwhite's review against another edition

2.0

2.5

alison_kinney's review against another edition

5.0

More Rushdie brilliance. I don't always enjoy all his projects throughout a novel, but that's kind of the point. They're always good for me: they shake me up, force me to rethink things, and sure as hell make me go running to a dictionary (and for other Goodreads readers who are having a hard time, that is exactly what you must do. If you don't look up every little reference, his artful jumblings will appear awkwardly jumbled, because context happens on the level of vocabulary). I'm starting to come around to enjoying his onslaughts of verbiage. Even when they feel a bit muchmuch, they're always carefully executed, even or especially when at first glance they seem out of control. Any given paragraph is a full immersion in hybridity: hydbrid languages, cultures, peoples, and grammars. It's taken me till now, my third Rushdie novel, to figure out just how much that impression of hybridity--and of immersion--matters to understanding and enjoying his work. Hybridity can be confusing; immersion doesn't = ease or pleasure; and Rushdie's language can mediate those impressions or bring them full on smack in the face.

I don't know if I'd keep reading him, though, for all the amazing verbal things he can teach me, if he weren't also a genius at writing the Devastating Climactic Moment of Beauty/ Love/ Heartbreak/ Global Significance. Every time I encounter one, I just get shattered and think, "Wow, that was worth the admission price." Admission price being the 200-odd pages leading up to that moment.

It's also possible that this is the best written of the books of his that I've read. But I won't know that till I go back and reread.

shadylane00's review

2.0

challenging dark slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

delekelll's review against another edition

4.5

Took me a long time to get through so minus one half star for not being Uber compelling, but the ending and the decline of Gibreel Farishta finally brought it back for me.

nicholascap's review against another edition

2.5

reflective slow-paced

Loveable characters: No

Talented writer, confusing and unfocused plot. The bits that got the author fatwa'd were the best parts of the novel. The fatwa contrevsory around the novel was probably the most interesting thing associated with this read.