My exposure to Salman Rushdie began in my senior year of high school when I read his infamous novel, The Satanic Verses. At the time of the book’s publication in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini, the then-Iranian supreme leader, issued a fatwa ordering death sentences for Rushdie and the people involved in the publication of the book. Honestly, I started reading the book out of pure curiosity as to what he could have written to elicit such an extreme and violent response from much of the Islamic world. Upon completion, however, something unforeseen happened… I completely fell in love with Rushdie’s writing. It was at this point that I felt my passion for reading as a hobby to be rekindled, and this book remains my favorite piece of literature to this day.
I must admit, every time someone asks me what my favorite book is, I hesitate to say The Satanic Verses, as I would rather not come off as some demonic satan worshiper, especially given how sensitive a topic religion has become. (Really, some of the weird looks I’ve received have made me question if I accidentally said, Mein Kampf). To be fair, most people in my environment, especially in my generation, are not familiar with Rushdie’s works, and many of those who do know him are only familiar with the controversy surrounding his book. It’s quite frustrating to see his work tainted by all these allegations and misunderstandings by those who, many of whom, have not even read the book. I mean, I think it says enough that the man who attacked and almost managed to murder Rushdie, 33 years after the fatwa, had only read a couple of pages of the book himself. As someone who has read his works, it’s unfortunate that these preconceived notions have sidelined the merit and sheer beauty of his writing.
Rushdie has a very distinct style of writing. His knowledge about the world is extremely apparent in how his fictional works are packed with information, especially various religious and historical allusions, which can be overwhelming to some readers. What is especially brilliant about Rushdie’s work is how he writes stories of characters that, not only live in a certain time period, but are actually intertwined with historical events. It is not just history affecting the characters’ lives, but the characters influencing history as well. Rushdie’s writing made me realize that you can learn so much about the world through fiction, sometimes even more than you would through non-fictional writing. His portrayal of complex situations goes beyond the usual black and white pictures drawn in many historical textbooks. Instead, he conveys the complexities and nuances of various perspectives through such creative means. I must also note that, though his humor may not be for everyone, I personally find myself laughing at his witty remarks. At times, Rushdie can be difficult to read, especially in the beginning, due to the density of information, non-linear narration, etc. I had to put in work and research before reading certain books to ensure that I understood his references, and even then, I am sure I missed many details. That being said, I cannot stress just how rewarding it is, making the tradeoff undoubtedly worth it.
Of the five books that I have read, I would recommend three in particular. I provided some quotes and a very limited one-sentence summary of each book because I believe that books are far more enjoyable and impactful when read blind.
The Satanic Verses engages with the history of Islamic faith and its contested narratives, exploring themes of religious blasphemy, colonial and post-colonialism, and challenges of the immigrant identity.
“Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself is a kind of belief. Doubt.”
“Study history, Alleluia. In this century history stopped paying attention to the old psychological orientation of reality. I mean, these days, character isn’t destiny any more. Economics is destiny. Ideology is destiny. Bombs are destiny. What does a famine, a gas chamber, a grenade care how you lived your life? Crisis comes, death comes, and your pathetic individual self doesn’t have a thing to do with it, only to suffer the effects.
“It isn’t easy to be a brilliant, successful woman in a city where the gods are female but the females are merely goods.”
“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”
“What kind of idea are you? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accommodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world.”
“A people that has remained convinced of its greatness and invulnerability, that has chosen to believe such a myth in the face of all the evidence, is a people in the grip of a kind of sleep, or madness.”
Midnight’s Children uses the magical lives of the Midnight’s Children to explore the transformation and trauma of a divided nation that arises from the history of India’s independence and partition.
“Memory’s truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else’s version more than his own.”
“To understand just one life you have to swallow the world”
“I fell victim to the temptation of every autobiographer, to the illusion that since the past exists only in one’s memories and the words which strive vainly to encapsulate them, it is possible to create past events simply by saying they occurred.”
Shalimar the Clown explores the impact of the violent political history between India and Pakistan and religious extremism on Kashmiri lives.
“The inevitable triumph of illusion over reality that was the single most obvious truth about the history of the human race.”
“The loss of one man’s dream, one family’s home, one people’s rights, one woman’s life, is the loss of all our freedoms: of every life, every home, every hope. Each tragedy belongs to itself and at the same time to everyone else. What diminishes any of us diminishes us all.”
“When you pray for what you most want in the world, its opposite comes along with it. I was given a woman whom I truly loved and who truly loved me. The opposite side of such a love is the pain of its loss. I can only feel such pain today because until yesterday I knew that love.”