Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Books: The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

Wow, I have been procrastinating something fierce with regard to this particular blog entry. I finished this book almost a month ago, and I'm petrified of trying to write about it.

I was warned by a few friends who had read it that when I did, I would be disappointed; I would wonder why it was so very controversial, since it wouldn't seem anything other than tedious and silly.

I was, to a degree, disappointed—magical realism tends to take the edge off of anything potentially incendiary, and as much as I liked Midnight's Children, Rushdie doesn't write like his pal Chris Hitchens (whom the mullahs really ought to be going after.) But mostly, I was confused, and I suppose disappointed in myself for being so. This is one of those books that benefit from group reading and discussion, and without a class or a book club, I felt sort of lost fighting my way through its non-linear, fanciful, magic reality.

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