Volume 36, Number 3 · March 2, 1989
So, and Not So
By D.J. Enright
The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie
Viking, 547 pp., $19.95
Let us begin (although Salman Rushdie doesn't) with the affair of the Satanic verses, revealed in the second part of his new novel, The Satanic Verses. This second part is entitled 'Mahound,' a disrespectful name for Muhammad, found for example in Spenser to signify a heathen idol by whom wicked characters swear, and likewise, though perhaps also as a metrically convenient alternative to 'Makomete,' in Chaucer. The Satanic Verses has been banned in India on the grounds that it is offensive to Muslims, but in fact nobody in it is treated with very much respect; gods, angels, demons, prophets, they are all of them all too human, and most of the time unable to distinguish between good and evil. If they can't, how can we ordinary mortals be expected to?
Review, 3033 words
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