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| No, really. |
And yet it is probably the single novel published within my lifetime that has altered history the most — largely by people who haven’t read so much as one bloody word of it.
Bruce Fudge, over at Aeon, presents a terrific overview of the novel, the “affair” and subsequent cultural outcomes.
2 comments:
Funny you should post it. I was just last week thinking about this book. I had a conversation with someone about magic realism, which caused me to think about reading this book again (It's been on my "to read" list for years, but I've never picked it up). I did, however, spend some time re-reading some of the controversy around it.
My high school teacher used to tell us about this book. He said it was really terribly written, and the metaphors were way too obvious. But apparently when the controversy hit, bookstores couldn't keep it stocked. He described a scene in which a new box of books was brought into the store, and the bookstore clerks would just open the box and hand the books out to the waiting customers on the spot.
On a different note, since I'm in the habit of reviewing everything I read, I have to admit I'd almost be afraid to review the book on any sort of public forum.
"Terribly written" -- yikes. I would not commit to that. I think Rushdie's talent is evident, but his voice is uniformly imperious, so I've not finished much of his fiction (probably only Haroun, now that I think of it, which I didn't much like). I enjoyed his essays when I was in my 20s, but I haven't returned to them since, so my tastes may have changed there also.
When I worked the bookstore in the 90s, Penguin Canada was in conniptions about publishing Satanic Verses, and justifiably so. They had the rights, they promised to get to it, but they dragged their feet on it for years. So we ordered the book from Britain, and kept it in stock that way.
We were one of the few stores in the city to have it, so it remained a fairly popular title for quite some length of time. I think by the time Penguin Canada rolled it out, it was largely met with a shrug. We who were selling it, and thus had access to its contents, could not believe this book was generating such insane furor. We figured most readers were like us -- they'd quickly get bored with it and move on to flashier material (perplexed customers who'd bought the book and came back wondering what all the fuss was about were usually redirected to Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- The General In His Labyrinth, fabulously translated by Edith Grossman).
Anyway, it was very evident the furor was not about the book's actual contents, but about the very idea of it. Which seemed to me a really stupid, shitty thing to kill/die over. Still does, but people are dying all the time over stupider stuff. That's humanity for ya.
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