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“Salman Rushdie: Two Brown Men, Falling Hard”

Leonard’s review of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses or, as he writes, “let’s try to see the book through the bonfires of it’s burning” in reference to the outcry from some corners of the Islamic world.

Leonard describes the book as a “ ‘metafiction'…a grand narrative and Monty Python send-up of history religion and popular culture.” He calls Rushdie a “slyboots Author-God…with a cannibal grin.” Definitely has my attention.

After a long analysis of the text (that would serve as a great teaching aid for a literature class) , Leonard summarizes, “Rushdie lost control of his novel the way I’ve lost control of this review. The Satanic Verses lacks the ravening power, the great gulp, of Midnight’s Children and Shame. It bites off the heads of the heads of its characters instead of digesting their essences.” I will say that Leonard’s synopsis and excerpts from the novel are wild and compelling. Here is Leonard’s dead-pan description of a dram had by the main character, “Ayesha hears voice and, wearing nothing but a cloud of butterflies, leads credulous villagers on a pilgrimage to Mecca that ends in death by drowning.” Crazy.

I think I’ll try Midnight’s Children as my introduction to Rushdie.

Rushdie with his newly published novel in 1988:

New word: Bostan = Farsi for garden

New learning: In his defense against Islamic threats, Rushdie said the novel was “the fictional dream of a fictional character…and one who is losing his mind at that...[the novel] isn’t actually about Islam.” Leonard shows us earlier quotes from Rushdie that contradict this, “Actually, one of my major themes is religion and fanaticism.” Not that this justifies the Ayatollah’s contract on Rushdie, but probably gives us some insight into the meaning of the novel.