The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie
Viking Press, 1988
The main character of Satanic Verses is Saladin Chamcha, whose real name is Salahuddin Chamchawala (shortened to live in the West). The author makes constant parodies of his characters' names, thus Saladin is variously called "Sally," "Salad baba," and even "Spoono, old Chumch." He is the son of a rich Bombay merchant, but rejects his origins to live in England and become an actor. He hates India and wants to forget everything Indian.
The second character is an Indian movie star, Gibreel Farishta, who worked his way up from poverty in the streets of Bombay. The two actors meet in a fateful airline hijacking and explosion that sends both of them plunging into the English channel. They survive the fall, but fate dictates more trauma for both men. The actors assume opposing poles of human nature, Saladin the horns and cloven hooves of a devil; Gibreel a glowing halo and delusions of himself as a divine messenger of God.
The story separately traces their sagas in England for about a year. Finally Saladin, trapped inside his devilish centaur's body, lets out a scream of anger and despair at Gibreel, whom he imagines to be more fortunate than himself. At this release of anger, Saladin regains his human form.
The narrator reveals that Gibreel is suffering his own unhappiness. Even before the airplane explosion, he had been having serial nightmares that started each night where they left off the night before. In the dreams he becomes the archangel Gabriel, the divine guide of the prophet Mohammed. Gibreel, dreading the recurring dreams, struggles to stay awake, but invariably slips into several-day-long slumbers. Whole chapters are devoted to his dream worlds--encounters with the Muslim prophet, named in his dreams, Mohound; second, a twentieth century pilgrimage to Mecca, led by a girl wearing a blanket of live butterflies.
The dream life and the waking life merge for Gibreel as he goes insane. In England, Gibreel and Saladin meet again and become entangled in contempt and rivalry, one saving the other's life, despite their mutual vindictiveness.
In the end, Saladin returns to Bombay to be at the bedside of his dying father. The father-son reunion cleanses Saladin of all resentments and reinstates his normal life. But then a crazed Gibreel surfaces in Bombay. Saladin learns from newspaper headlines that the actor is implicated in the murder of his former girlfriend and former producer. Thus Saladin prepares to meet the phantom and suffer for all the wrong he has inflicted on his parallel self. At the end Gibreel manifests a gun from Saladin's childhood magic lantern, but instead of turning it on Saladin, he turns it on himself and ends his life.
Salman Rushdie, due to his writing skill, was able to break all the rules of novel-writing. He gives various characters the same name (there are two women named Hind; two women named Mishal; two women named Ayesha) and gives many characters similar-sounding foreign names. He also uses Indian words without defining them. Readers familiar with Indian culture could relish some of the descriptions, i.e., that the moon is like a "warm chappati dripping with butter" (chappati is a round, flat Indian bread). There were other aspects of Muslim culture, however, that may not be familiar to many readers. Therefore, much goes over the reader's head.
The narration was dominant in the storytelling. Most of the dialogue is contained within the narration, rather than acted out. There are few passages where characters speak more than one or two lines to each other. Usually, the narrator simply cites dialogue within parentheses or between double dashes to illustrate his point. Or, in one paragraph, he explains: he said this, then she said that, then he replied this, etc. The narrator is unquestionably there, telling the story as he observed it. Nevertheless, dramatic scenes come across with striking clarity.
On a few occasions, the unnamed omniscient narrator even intrudes into the story to give a quick observation or bit of advice to the reader. Of his character Gibreel he says,
"Is he to be the agent of God's wrath? Or of his love? Is he vengeance or forgiveness? Should the fatal trumpet remain in his pocket, or should he take it out and blow? (I'm giving him no instructions. I, too, am interested in his choices--in the result of his wrestling match. Character vs destiny: a free-style bout. Two falls, two submissions or a knockout will decide.) Wrestling, through his many stories, he proceeds." (pp. 457)
The author also breaks the "show, don't tell" rule. When the envious Saladin finally meets the successful Gibreel face-to-face at a London party, the narrator says,
"O God, the cruelty of it, that he, Saladin, whose goal and crusade it was to make this town his own, should have to see it kneeling before his contemptuous rival! --so there is also this: that Chamcha longs to stand in Farishta's shoes, while his own footwear is of no interest whatsoever to Gibreel. What is unforgivable?" (pp. 426)
Rushdie simply spelled it all out--how Saladin reacts to Gibreel--even though the reader could deduce the situation for himself just as well. Every writing teacher and book about writing says over and over, "Show don't tell," but it seems Rushdie successfully skips this formality to deliver a satisfying clue to the plot.
In the final chapters the narrator spells out the theme in plain words. The thoughts of the main character, reflecting on the many selves he and Gibreel had become:
"O, the dissociations of which the human mind is capable, marvelled Saladin gloomily. O, the conflicting selves jostling and joggling within these bags of skin. No wonder we are unable to remain focused on anything for very long; no wonder we invent remote-control channel-hopping devices. If we turned these instruments upon ourselves we'd discover more channels than a cable or satellite mogul ever dreamed of." (pp. 519)
The author Tells of the turmoil still burning,
"It seemed Gibreel had not managed to escape from his inner demons. He, Salahuddin, had believed--naively, it now turned out--that the events of the Brickhall fire, when Gibreel saved his life, had in some way cleansed them both, had driven those devils out into the consuming flames; that, in fact, love had shown that it could exert a humanizing power as great as that of hatred; that virtue could transform men as well as vice. But nothing was forever; no cure, it appeared, was complete." (pp. 540)
And again, the narrator Tells one of the truths he sets out to prove in his novel through the thoughts of Saladin:
"Death brought out the best in people; it was good to be shown--Salahuddin realized--that this, too, was what human beings were like: considerate, loving, even noble. We are still capable of exaltation, he thought in celebratory mood; in spite of everything, we can still transcend." (pp. 527)
The book is written in a surrealistic, stream of consciousness style. Rushdie's sentences are long, punctuated with multiple unorthodox colons, semicolons, ellipses, and double dashes; he makes up his own words by stringing words together. His style is appealing and fellow writers might wonder if they could ever duplicate it. Rushdie's ability to build and interweave plots is genius; his descriptions are hilarious and memorable.
The book is about religion (he despises organized religion), truth (which seems to exist despite religion), and human nature (his characters are religious fanatics and atheists). His parodies of his own religion--which caused the late Ayatolla Khomeni to condemn the book--are outrageous satire. Britain's Sunday Times called Satanic Verses "a masterpiece," and many would agree.
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