Satanic Verses

Woke up earlier than normal,spilled coffee on my pants.Lecturer talked more about interest rates,my enthusiasm went in and out the door like a gratuitous party guest.I had this crazy schedule planned for the day,the line broken with the spilled coffee for which I had to walk back home for.A huge black folder shielding the crotch,I looked like a 5th grader trying to conceal a hard-on so to avoid social contact I took to faraway lanes and alleys so shady only pimps and perverts would use them.

I'm not exactly done with the book (a small pinch left),its one of those books that completely lose steam towards the end and become deliberately slow-paced and hard to finish.The problem is this-the book's not complicated,if you have the time and patience its a straightforward ride.Its stuffed.To me at least,it felt like the author had several ideas and many different stories (all turning out quite magnificent,well-written individually) but he chose to squeeze them all under one umbrella.So what you have,is alternating stories that seem inconsequential to one another-the two main stories (first the story of Gibreel and Chamcha,the other the story of Mahound and his youngest wife Ayesha with her Islamic pilgrimage) are tied together loosely but each are dealt with at length.And there are these little stories that spawn from the main branch-of characters whose personal histories are dedicated many pages for,but don't appear significant and mostly just die.But the story does have many strong moments-the story of Bilal in disguise at the whorehouse and the prostitutes adopting the personalities of Mahound's wivesfor business,the part about the terrifying Imam and his use of Gibreel as a warrior,and the depiction of Ayesha with her many butterflies.

As for the apparent controversy surrounding the book (you can read about that here),I don't have any comment.I don't take fiction novels as textbooks,maybe the other way around.

There is a place that I have seen
Somewhere between waking and sleeping

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