Frederick's Reviews > The Satanic Verses

I read this book starting last August (in 2021) and finished it in about three weeks. I'm pleased to say I did this. When it came out in 1988, I read about ten pages and decided I'd continue at some point. It's been thirty-three years, but I finally caught up to my brother, who, indeed, did read the whole thing in 1988.
I won't summarize the book. Goodreads' thumbnail description, which, I find, duplicates the text of the folding flap of the first US printing, is as succinct a description as you can find. (I suspect Rushdie wrote it, because the phrase "self-made self", a pretty humorous phrase, is in it.) In any case, I will make a few observations: This is a very entertaining book, but you must pay close attention. It rewards close reading. Salman Rushdie is a solid storyteller. If you are bamboozled by juxtapositions of time, place and point of view, stick with it and you'll find parallels throughout the telling. It is, above all, a truthful representation of human behavior.
A lot of THE SATANIC VERSES is reminiscent of Saul Bellow, in particular the sections dealing with Alleluia Cone and her parents. She even drives a Citroen, which is a car which figures prominently in Bellow's HUMBOLDT'S GIFT. Bellow's way of summarizing, in a paragraph, an entire life and the lives that life intersects, is frequently reflected in THE SATANIC VERSES. A lot of writers from the mid-to-late 20th century have a similar tone, but Rushdie absolutely replicates Bellow's syntax, especially in the characterizations of three or four grifters who pop up every so often in this book. This is all to the good.
Do read this novel.