Words from Satanic Verses

Just finished reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, one of the most controversial novels to come out in the last 20 or so years. Rushdie has a death sentence on him from Islamic leaders and he's been banished from India because of it. Having read it, I'd say it's worth the controversy - he definitely has no problem throwing Mohammed under the bus. Ultimately, it's an interesting read if you've got some time and don't mind 4 separate plots and a schizophrenic main character who's dreams may or may not be dreams.


Either way, Rushdie certainly is a talented wordsmith who composes several memorable lines in this piece. I intend to share my thoughts regarding some of them in the next few posts. For this one, however, I'll just pull a few lines about human nature and let them speak for themselves:

• "The effect of all this box-watching was to put a severe dent in what remained of his idea of the normal, average quality of the real. . ."
• "The universe was a place of wonders, and only habituation, the anaesthesia of the everyday, dulled our sight."
• ‘Anybody ever tries to tell you how this most beautiful and most evil of planets is somehow homogeneous, composed only of reconcilable elements, that it all adds up, you get on the phone to the straitjacket tailor,’ he advised her, managing to give the impression of having visited more planets than one before coming to his conclusions. ‘The world is incompatible, just never forget it; gage. Ghosts, Nazis, saints, all alive at the same time; in one spot, blissful happiness, while down the road, the inferno. You can’t ask for a wilder place.’
• 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. . .

Let me know what you think. . .