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The Satanic Verses
 
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The Satanic Verses (Hardcover)

by Salman Rushdie (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
Price: £17.00 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 560 pages
  • Publisher: Viking; 1st American edition (1 Jan 1989)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0670825379
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670825370
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.8 x 4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 29,198 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #8 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Rushdie, Salman

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
No book in modern times has matched the uproar sparked by Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which earned its author a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollahs decreeing his death. Furore aside, it is a marvellously 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 astonishing powers of invention are at their best in this Whitbread Prize winner. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
When a jumbo jet blows apart above the English Channel, Gabreel and Saladin are two who survive and are washed up on an English beach. However, it soon becomes clear that curious changes have come over them and that they have been chosen as protagonists in the eternal struggle between God and the Devil. Salman Rushdie is the author of "Midnight's Children", winner of the 1981 Booker Prize, and "Shame".

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Customer Reviews

30 Reviews
5 star:
 (13)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (8)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (30 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Controversial but brilliant, 29 Jul 2007
By Sam J. Ruddock (Norwich, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Satanic Verses (Paperback)
Don't you think it's about time you made up your own mind about the most controversial book of the modern era? If nothing else, it will give you an opinion the next time the media gets its knickers in a twist about what is, at the end of the day, a work of fiction

But it will give you so much more than that. There is everything you expect from a Salman Rushdie novel: vast in scope, vivid in portrayal and seriously bizarre. As the author has often pointed out, it is also darkly comic and often hilarious. It is a vastly satirical meditation on the theology of religion, the struggle between human doubt and belief and, above all, the power of stories to change the world. Themes of race and immigration flow through the book alongside the usual contemporary and classical references. Reading a Salman Rushdie book is like reading nothing else, he is wholesomely devious, wonderfully irreverent and completely unique. His is a style of writing brimming with delightful sentences, so beautifully worded as to be like some fabulous cocktail: refreshing and invigorating and with that little kick of something you know is truly special.

The story revolves around the lives of Gibreel Farishta, legend of Bollywood Cinema, and Saladin Chamcha, the voice of radio, the man of a thousand voices. When their plane is blown up by terrorists high above the English Channel they float slowly to earth, as though divinely spared certain death. It soon becomes apparent that there is more to their escape than meets the eye. For while Saladin Chamcha begins to sprout horns, cloven feet and a forked tail, Gibreel Farishta seems to be shrouded by the glow of a halo. Confronted with dreams of past prophets Gibreel sets out to change the world. But as the lives of the two men become increasingly entangled within the social climate of the 1980's the clarity of Gibreel's belief becomes cloudy and we are left questioning where enlightenment ends and madness begins.

Salman Rushdie is a breath of fresh air in this tense and divided world: the antidote to community relations rather than the cause. Read this book, and make up your own mind. Because that is what Rushdie is all about, not dogma, not fear, but making ones own mind up, questioning the world, and being able to laugh at oneself. Rarely has a knighthood been so thoroughly deserved.
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30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Fantasy, 16 Jul 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: The Satanic Verses (Paperback)
This book is exquisite. From start to finish the story wraps itself around you not letting you escape from its grasp. I found myself questioning my life and the kind of person I am throughout the and mulling over its ideas after reading. It was impressive to read a mainstream book (due to the press mainly) actually handle the ideas of Good and Evil as abstracts rather than merely PC right and wrong. The ideas seem to reach many people on many different levels (as all great books should) as everyone I know who has read it was delighted but in different ways. Although the story wavers sometimes and you may get a little bored when hearing of the two main characters love lives and slow mental anguish your perseverance is rewarded.

What can I say? I loved it.

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33 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Not his best but still enjoyable, 22 Oct 2004
This review is from: The Satanic Verses (Paperback)
This book is simply entertaining,although I quite agree to those who find this book hard to read through(however that's maybe because I hardly ever read books in English). It is sort of ascetic practices,once you are through,hopefully there will be some rewards,just like on other acclaimed but to finish it is a struggle kind of books.

In my view,it is advisable to forget about the controversy (it's more than a decade ago) and not to be too concious about religious aspect of the novel;better read it as Rushdie's allegorical autobiography,if you want to enjoy it.

As a matter of fact,The Satanic Verses is the most "personal" piece among the trilogy,with one of the two protagonists being an immigrant from a wealthy family in Bombay,struggling through problems
of identity,east-west,ethics,religion,love,family and so forth, from which the author himself has surely suffered.
I think Rushdie has succeeded in transforming these quite banal and typical themes into an innovative story.Whether you find that story boring or exhilarating is a matter of taste.However,I am convinced it is worth trying.

¡¡

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Incomprehensible Satanic Verses
I had prevously read another book by Rushdie and enjoyed it, but I found this one to be incomprehensible and gave up after a few pages. Read more
Published 3 months ago by B. Quilliam

4.0 out of 5 stars Satanic Verses
Without wishing to become embroiled in the controversy surrounding this book, there is no doubting the quality of the writing. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Spider Monkey

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully written and a joy to read
Over the English Channel, a hi-jacked airliner explodes leaving two survivors clinging to each other as they fall. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mr. R. Bhaskar

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed... :(
I bought The Satanic Verses for many different reasons.... the main one being to see why there was so much contorversy surrounding the book.... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Shanara

4.0 out of 5 stars ENTERTAINING, MEMORABLE AND WELL WORTH THE EFFORT
Definitely hard-going - after reading `The Angel Gibreel', I returned straight to the beginning and re-read so as to truly feel I was in the story - but, ultimately, worth the... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Easily Me

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious Drivel
Well don't believe the hype. This book is the biggest pile of pretentious drivel I have ever read, whole passages are incomprehensible as to what the hell is going on, new... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Mr. R. J. Fairhurst

2.0 out of 5 stars Rushdie and Satan have a lot to answer for
`Once upon a time - it was and it was not so, as the old stories used to say, it happened and it never did - maybe, then, or maybe not...' and so on. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Trevor Coote

3.0 out of 5 stars Still worth reading
Obviously there is a lot of hype around this book. But let let me tell you, it's not mind-blowingly awesome. Read more
Published 19 months ago by an_anonymous_thinker

1.0 out of 5 stars Overrated gibberish
The best thing this book recieved was notoriety in the media. Had it not been for its polemic content I doubt it would have been as widely read as it has. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Max 5

1.0 out of 5 stars Not fit for a bonfire
There are few books which I have started but not finished but this is sadly one of them. The Muslims made a big mistake giving this the publicity they did. Read more
Published 21 months ago by G. J. Weeks

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