1
Table
of Contents
Notes
for Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses
Paul
Brians
Professor of English,
brians@wsu.edu
Version of February 13, 2004
For more about Salman
Rushdie and other South Asian writers, see Paul Brians’ Modern South Asian
Literature in English .
Introduction
2
List
of Principal Characters 8
Chapter
I: The Angel Gibreel 10
Chapter
II: Mahound 30
Chapter
III: Ellowen Deeowen 36
Chapter
IV: Ayesha 45
Chapter
V: A City Visible but Unseen 49
Chapter
VI: Return to Jahilia 66
Chapter
VII: The Angel Azraeel 71
Chapter
VIII: 81
Chapter
IX: The Wonderful Lamp 84
The
Unity of The Satanic Verses 87
Selected
Sources 90
2
This study guide was
prepared to help people read and study
Salman Rushdie’s novel.
It contains explanations for many of its
allusions and
non-English words and phrases and aims as well
at providing a thorough
explication of the novel which will help
the interested reader
but not substitute for a reading of the book
itself. Many links are
provided to other sites on the Web where
further information can
be found.
The
“Rushdie Affair”
This is not a site for
polemics about the novel or the “Rushdie
Affair”. To many Western1 readers The Satanic Verses appears
as a brilliant attack on
religious bigotry. To many Muslims, East
and West, it appears as
a vicious series of insults to many of their
most cherished beliefs.
There are other positions: liberal and
conservative non-Muslims
deplore his irreverence, and liberal
Muslims deplore the
fatwa against Rushdie and support his right
to publish, or even
admire his work; some American and British
non-Muslim critics have
been critical of him. But the important
debate, the one that
makes a difference in the real world, is the
one between the
extremes, and between those extremes there
remains a seemingly
unbridgeable gulf. It is not my desire to
exacerbate the tensions
surrounding this novel, nor to delve in
any depth into the
controversy. That has been done, exhaustively,
by many others. I
recommend especially Michael Hanne’s
“Salman Rushdie: ‘The
Satanic Verses’ (1988)“ as a thoughtful
overview of the “affair”
and Joel Kuortti’s Place of the Sacred:
The Rhetoric of the Satanic Verses Affair (1997). But one cannot
entirely ignore the
controversy.
Perhaps the contribution
I can most usefully make is to discuss
the differences in
perspective of the antagonists in the affair
toward the modern novel
as a form. Islam is a religious tradition
which in many infl
uential quarters is self-consciously seeking
to purify itself from
modernizing, liberal tendencies. Although
Islamic tales both short
and long abound, and there are many
authors of fi ction who
are highly honored, the modern novel as
such is not a
comfortable form in the Muslim world. Often it
is identifi ed with the
West, with mere entertainment, with lax
morals. In addition,
Muslim writers who write novels are often
critical of tradition.
The 1994 near-fatal assault on the Egyptian
Nobel Prizewinner Naguib
Mahfouz illustrates the perils that
even the most acclaimed
of novelists may encounter in an era
of religious
polarization. To be sure, most Muslims abhor such
assaults; but the
feelings which cause them are all too familiar in
such countries as Egypt,
Iran, Pakistan, and even Turkey.
To a conservative
Muslim, Islam is not just a religion in the
sense that most
Westerners use the term, a private faith which
provides hope and
consolation within a secular world. Islam is a
way of life, a body of
law, an all-embracing cultural framework
within which novels are
distinctly unimportant and potentially
troublesome. That a mere
novelist should dare to satirize
fundamental religious
beliefs is intolerable.
In the Western European
tradition, novels are viewed very
differently. Following
the devastatingly successful assaults of the
Eighteenth Century
Enlightenment upon Christianity, intellectuals
in the West largely
abandoned the Christian framework as an
explanatory world view.
Indeed, religion became for many the
enemy: the suppressor of
free thought, the enemy of science
and progress. When the
freethinking Thomas Jefferson ran for
President of the young
United States his opponents accused him
of intending to suppress
Christianity and arrest its adherents.
Although liberal and
even politically radical forms of Christianity
(the Catholic Worker
movement, liberation theology) were to
emerge from time to
time, the general attitude toward religion
among that class of
people who value serious fi ction has been
negative.
Pious bigots were the
objects of scorn by such popular
Nineteenth-Century authors
as Charles Dickens and Mark
Twain. Twentieth-Century
writers as different as James Joyce
and Margaret Atwood have
vividly depicted in novels the threats
posed by conservative
religious beliefs. So-called “Catholic”
authors such as T. S.
Eliot and Graham Greene routinely explore
doubt more than faith;
and even the greatest of all Christian
novels, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov is so
harrowing in its
investigation of the challenges of faith that it has
probably swayed more
people away from religion than toward it.
Furthermore, from the
time of Matthew Arnold onward, it
has been frequently
claimed that serious fi ction and art could
largely fi ll the gap
left by the collapse of the cultural infl uence
of traditional religion.
The claims to the importance of high
seriousness in fi ction
have been under assault by the most
recent generation of
critics for some time; but the justifi cation
for studying novels in
an academic setting ultimately rests on
the very claims of
cultural signifi cance that these critics attack.
Fiction has not just
been an irritant to religion in the West; it has
posed itself as an
alternative to it.
Rushdie’s own claims for
the importance of the novel are only
slightly less exalted in
his essay, “Is Nothing Sacred“. Although
at its end he rejects
the claims of the novel to be able to replace
religion, he makes some
strong claims for it:
Between religion and
literature, as between politics and
literature, there is a
linguistically based dispute. But it is
not a dispute of simple
opposites. Because whereas religion
seeks to privilege one
language above all others, the novel
has always been about the way in which different
languages,
values and narratives quarrel,
and about the shifting relations
between them, which are
relations of power. The novel does
not seek to establish a
privileged language, but it insists upon
the freedom to portray and
analyse the struggle between the
different contestants for such
privileges.
Carlos Fuentes has called the
novel “a privileged arena”.
By this he does not mean that
it is the kind of holy space
which one must put off oneʼs shoes
to enter; it is not an arena
to revere; it claims no
special rights except the right to be
the stage upon which the great
debates of society can be
conducted.(420)
3
. . . while the novel answers
our need for wonderment and
understanding, it brings us
harsh and unpalatable news as
well.
It tells us there are no
rules. It hands down no
commandments. We have to make
up our own rules as best
we can, make them up as we go
along.
And it tells us there are no
answers; or rather, it tells us
that answers are easier to
come by, and less reliable, than
questions. If religion is an
answer, if political ideology is
an answer, then literature is
an inquiry; great literature, by
asking extraordinary
questions, opens new doors in our
minds. (423)
. . . literature is, of all
the arts, the one best suited to
challenging absolutes of all
kinds; and, because it is in its
origin the schismatic Other of
the sacred (and authorless)
text, so it is also the art
most likely to fi ll our god-shaped
holes. (424)
In the Twentieth Century the
novel came to be viewed as
primarily oppositional,
critical of the culture which produced it.
Rather than providing values,
it challenges them. Modern novels
are praised for their courage
in exposing hypocrisy, challenging
tradition, exploring forbidden
themes. If blasphemy is not the
most common of techniques in
Western fi ction it is because
so few writers take religion
seriously enough to feel it worth
attacking. Popular religious
books are generally excluded from
the New York Times best seller list as unworthy
of notice, no
matter how well they sell. The
writer who does not challenge the
beliefs and prejudices of the
reader is generally viewed by the
literary establishment as dull
if not cowardly.
To complicate matters,
the Enlightenment ideals of freedom
of speech and press have
an almost religious signifi cance in
the West. A typical
response to the fatwa is Silvia Albertazzi‘s
statement that “Freedom
of expression is more important than
any offence any book might cause,” a
statement which would be
unthinkable in any
profoundly religious culture. Albertazzi’s own
Catholic ancestors would
certainly have disagreed.
Rushdie came from a
liberal Westernized family which had no
great fervor for
religious tradition:
My relationship with
formal religious belief has been
somewhat chequered. I
was brought up in an Indian Muslim
household, but while
both my parents were believers neither
was insistent or
doctrinaire. Two or three times a year, at
the big Eid festivals, I
would wake up to fi nd new clothes at
the foot of my bed,
dress and go with my father to the great
prayer-maidan outside the Friday Mosque in Bombay, and
rise and fall with the
multitude, mumbling my way through
the uncomprehended
Arabic much as Catholic children
do—or used to do—with
Latin. The rest of the year religion
took a back seat. I had
a Christian ayah (nanny), for whom at
Christmas we would put
up a tree and sing carols about baby
Jesus without feeling in
the least ill-at-ease. My friends were
Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis,
and none of this struck me as being
particularly
important.(Rushdie: “In God We Trust” 376-377)
At the time of the
writing of the novel he evidently did not even
consider himself a Muslim
(see below, note on p. 29). Certainly
he was never an adherent
of that sort of Islam which believes
that apostasy is a
capital offense. He was steeped from an early
period in fi ction, both
Eastern and Western; and as a writer
seems to have accepted
the High Modern view that the writing of
outspoken controversial
fi ction is a calling, perhaps even a duty.
All of his works contain
controversial themes; and beginning
with Midnight’s Children in 1981 he took on South Asian politics
in a way that earned him
denunciations and bans as well as praise
for his courage. He has
often expressed his opposition to the
religious extremism that
informs modern Pakistani and Indian
politics, and The Satanic Verses is another stage in a consistent
critique of such
extremism. What makes it different, however,
is that in it he chose
to criticize not only modern religious
fi gures such as the
Ayatollah Khomeni, but dared to question
the authority of the
very root of Islam: the inspired nature of the
Qur’an and the authority of the Prophet Muhammad.
To a secularized
European, his critique of Islam in the novel
seems very mild and
tentative; but there has never been anything
like it in the Muslim
world. Scoffers and libertines there have
been; but they were
fundamentally unserious. Rushdie seems to
have been trying to
become the Muslim Voltaire; but Islam has
never undergone an
equivalent to the European Enlightenment,
let alone the
development of a “higher criticism” such as the West
has subjected the Bible
to for the past two centuries. (But see
Saadi A. Simawe’s “
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Heretical
Literature in Islam“ for
a thorough discussion of Islamic
scepticism in relation
to the novel and Feroza Jussawalla’s
“Rushdie’s Dastan-e-Dilruba: The Satanic Verses as Rushdie’s
Love Letter to Islam,”
for an interesting exploration of Islamic
revisionism in Muslim
India.)
In the secularized West
his critique seems routine; in much of
the Islamic East, it is
unspeakable. The modernist assumptions
it springs from are
irrelevant, hardly understood. Many Muslim
critics have asserted
that equivalent blasphemy against Christian
beliefs would never be
tolerated, whereas in fact a wildly anti-
Catholic comedy like “Sister
Mary Ignatius Explains It All for
You” can have a long,
profi table run without any encountering
any physical or even
legal threat. Obscenity is taken much more
seriously in the West
than blasphemy. Rushdie tried to bridge the
gulf between East and
West and instead fell into the void. No one
can reconcile these two
views with each other because they are
rooted in basically
incompatible, even hostile world views.
Many of his Muslim
critics have argued that The Satanic Verses,
besides being offensive,
is bad fi ction. Non-Muslim views have
been distinctly mixed,
the most common criticism being that
the novel does not “hold
together” in a disciplined fashion. But
that is true of many fi
ne novels, including many of Rushdie’s
favorites. In a 1983
interview with Una Chaudhuri on the
infl uences on Midnight’s Children he commented on his penchant
for
unconventionally-shaped fi ctions:
As for other infl
uences, well, there’s Joyce, for a start. And
Swift, and Stern. I’m
very keen on the eighteenth century in
general, not just in
literature. I think the eighteenth century
was the great century. Well,
take Fielding; the thing that’s
very impressive about
Tom Jones is the plot, that you have
this enormous edifi ce
which seems to be so freewheeling,
rambling — and actually
everything is there for a purpose.
4
It’s the most extraordinary
piece of organization which at
the same time seems
quite relaxed and not straitjacketed
by its plot. I think
that’s why the book is so wonderful. So,
yes, I would have
thought the eighteenth-century novel had
something to do with
mine. And Joyce, because Joyce shows
you that you can do
anything if you do it properly.
“Imaginative Maps,”
Turnstile, p. 37.
Unfortunately, many of
his most ardent defenders defend him
out of ignorance, for
they have not managed to read past the fi rst
few chapters of this dense
postmodern, intertextual, multicultural
work. Nevertheless, the
book continues to draw admirers, many
of whom now consider The Satanic Verses Rushdie’s fi nest work.
When I fi rst opened its
pages I was introduced into one of the
most intoxicating, thoughtful,
and hilarious works I had ever
read. It is a playground
for literate readers, fi lled with allusions
and symbols of all
kinds, which delight by their incongruity or
their aptness. It is
also a highly interesting attempt at establishing
a middle ground between
Western and Eastern chauvinisms,
asserting that the
immigrant has a uniquely valuable perspective.
Rather than being
outsiders, exiles, the immigrants create a
unique perspective that
allows them to comment insightfully
on both East and West. (But
see also Feroza Jussawalla on this
subject.)
The mixture of cultural
infl uences, or what Rushdie calls the
“chutneyfi cation” of
culture, is one of the most enlivening aspects
of his work. He throws
off phrases in Hindi, Arabic, and Urdu
which are bound to make
the Western reader feel something of
an outsider. He delights
in playing with those aspects of Indian
and Arabic culture which
have been trivialized in the West in
what Edward Said calls “orientalism,”
satirizing the failure of
Europeans to grasp what
they persistently exoticize. Indeed the
work is largely a
critique of Western racism, of anti-immigrant
prejudice, and a defense
of the richness and worth of South Asian
and Middle Eastern
culture. But because it is a contemporary
critique, it is not
one-sided. His Indians are no angels—even
if they sometimes take
on the form of angels. Nevertheless
he exuberantly
celebrates Indian literature, music, fi lm, and
food; portraying the
South Asian immigrants as providing an
enlivening spice in
dull, overcast London.
No one has better
described this aspect of the novel than Rushdie
himself:
If The Satanic Verses is anything, it is a migrant’s-eye
view of the world. It is
written from the very experience of
uprooting, disjuncture
and metamorphosis (slow or rapid,
painful or pleasurable)
that is the migrant condition, and
from which, I believe,
can be derived a metaphor for all
humanity.
Standing at the centre
of the novel is a group of characters
most of whom are British
Muslims, or not particularly
religious persons of
Muslim background, struggling with
just the sort of great
problems that have arisen to surround
the book, problems of
hybridization and ghettoization,
of reconciling the old
and the new. Those who oppose
the novel most
vociferously today are of the opinion that
intermingling with a
different culture will inevitably weaken
and ruin their own. I am
of the opposite opinion. The
Satanic Verses celebrates hybridity, impurity,
intermingling,
the transformation that
comes of new and unexpected
combinations of human
beings, cultures, ideas, politics,
movies, songs. It
rejoices in mongrelization and fears the
absolutism of the Pure. Mélange, hotchpotch, a bit of this
and a bit of that is how newness enters the world. It is the
great possibility that
mass migration gives the world, and I
have tried to embrace
it. The Satanic Verses is for changeby-
fusion,
change-by-conjoining. It is a love-song to our
mongrel selves.
(“In Good Faith“ 394)
After Khomeni condemned
Rushdie to death, it became
impossible to experience
this light-hearted, playful side of the
novel in the way he
surely intended. Yet to be fair to the book we
should try to read it
without letting the fatwa obscure its merits.
Between its hostile
critics who refuse to read it and its supporters
who fail to read it, The Satanic Verses must be one of the most
widely-unread best
sellers in the history of publishing. Rushdie’s
allusiveness is much
more transparent than that of James Joyce,
one of his main infl
uences; but it still provides a major obstacle to
many readers. In the “Acknowledgements”
to the novel, Rushdie
lists only a few
sources, while stating, “The identities of many of
the authors from whom I’ve
learned will, I hope, be clear from
the text. . . .” But
much of the effect of his allusions has been lost
on readers curious about
this controversial work. These notes
are an attempt to gather
together the ideas of many different
scholars who have
contributed to understanding the text, adding
my own notions and
insights to the mix. Many consultants,
both within India and
abroad, have contributed to these notes,
but requested that they
remain anonymous, Such is the fear of
Rushdie’s enemies. Yet I
hope that even they will read these notes
as they are intended:
not as a brief on behalf of the novel or an
indictment of it, but as
a guide to understanding it—for whether
one views it as a
postmodern masterpiece or decadent desecration
of all that is sacred,
it is incumbent on the reader to understand
what is on the page.
I have not assumed that
Rushdie’s allusions to traditional icons of
Western culture are
universally understood either, and have taken
some pains to explicate
for Americans the numerous Britishisms
in novel which are
easily comprehensible to English readers. My
experience with students
reading the work leads me to believe
that over-explanation is
less harmful in this case than underexplanation.
Rushdie clearly never
envisioned the kind of annotation I am
providing here. After
all, part of his style is meant to startle the
Western reader into
realizing he/she is not the center of all stories.
In an interview with Salon magazine, he commented on his use of
words unfamiliar to many
of his readers:
. . . I use them as fl
avoring. I mean, I can read books from
America and I don’t
always get the slang. American writers
always assume that the
whole world speaks American, but
actually the whole world
does not speak American. And
American Jewish writers
put lots of Yiddish in their books
and sometimes I don’t
know what they’re saying. I’ve read
books by writers like
Philip Roth with people getting hit in
5
the kishkes and I think,
“What?!’’
It’s fun to read things
when you don’t know all the words.
Even children love it.
One of the things any great children’s
writer will tell you is
that children like it if in books designed
for their age group
there is a vocabulary just slightly bigger
than theirs. So they
come up against weird words, and
the weird words excite
them. If you describe a small girl
in a story as “loquacious,”
it works so much better than
“talkative.” And then
some little girl will read the book and
her sister will be
shooting her mouth off and she will say
to her sister, “Don’t be
so loquacious.” It is a whole new
weapon in her arsenal.
The interview from which
this quotation comes.
However, on May 3, 1999,
Melinda Penkava interviewed Salman
Rushdie about his new
novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
on the National Public
Radio phone-in talk show, “Talk of the
Nation.” Asked about the
possibility of “Cliff’s Notes” to his
writings, Rushdie
answered that although he didn’t expect readers
to get all the allusions
in his works, he didn’t think such notes
would detract from the
reading of them: “James Joyce once said
after he had published Ulysses that he had given the professors
work for many years to
come; and I’m always looking for ways
of employing professors,
so I hope to have given them some
work too.”
The problem with The Satanic Verses, is that many readers have
found themselves so
disoriented that they have never fi nished the
book. If you want to
savor the text the way Rushdie originally
intended, try reading it
without the notes; but when you come to
a term or reference that
just begs to checked out, you can search
for it here.
Biography
Much of the following is based on Ian Hamilton’s article, “The
First Life of Salman Rushdie,” which is the most systematic and
thorough treatment thus far of the author’s life. Rushdie himself is
reportedly working on an autobiography.
Rushdie was born to
liberal, prosperous Muslim parents in
Bombay June 19,
divided itself from
India as part of an agreement ending the
period of British
colonialism in South Asia. The result was a
chaotic and extremely
violent period as 6,000,000 Muslims
moved north to the
newly-established Islamic state and 8,000,000
Hindus and Sikhs moved
south fl eeing it. Rushdie’s parents,
however, remained in
Bombay while Rushdie was growing up,
so that he never
identifi ed with the strongly pro-Islamic stance
of many Pakistanis. In
1961, when he was 13, he was sent to
England to study at
Rugby School. In 1962, his family followed
him to England, became
naturalized British citizens, and lived
for two years in
Kensington, which features as a locale in The
Satanic Verses. When his father decided to move the
family to
Karachi, Pakistan, a
country that Rushdie detested, he felt as if
his homeland had been
taken away from him.
In 1965 he went on to
study history at Kings College, Cambridge,
where his father Anis
Ahmed Rushdie had also studied. In
his senior year Rushdie
investigated the origins of Islam and
encountered for the fi
rst time the story of the “satanic verses.”
He also pursued his
interest in movies and became involved in
the theater as an actor.
When he graduated in 1968 his father
tried to persuade him to
take over the new towel factory he had
established in Karachi,
and their already strained relationship
worsened.
Venturing into
television production and publishing, he
encountered instances of
censorship which persuaded him
that he belonged back in
London, where he lived for a time on
welfare and occasionally
acted, enjoying being young in London
during the height of the
sixties. However he eventually went to
work writing ads for a
fi rm called Sharp MacManus. In 1971
he fi nished a novel
entitled The Book of the Pir (a term which
occurs as well in The Satanic Verses), but it was rejected and
never published. He
returned to advertising, preparing television
commercials for Ogilvy
& Mather. The character of Hal Valance
in the novel is based
partly on bigoted advertising executives he
met during this period
in his life.
In 1970 he met Clarissa
Luard, the model for Pamela Lovelace
in The Satanic Verses and they began living together two years
later. In 1976 they
married. In 1971 he had written his fi rst
published novel, Grimus, a bizarre science-fi ction/fantasy novel
with few ties to the
South Asian material which was going to
inform his best fi
ction. His experiences in 1977 working with a
project to assist
immigrants from Bangladesh convinced him that
racism permeated British
society. He himself, with light skin and
English accent, was
better accepted.
He comments:
The phrase that really
gets me angry is this thing
about being “more
English than the English.” It is used as if
it should be offensive. I
point out to these people that if there
was an English person
living in India who adopted Indian
dress, who had learnt to
speak Urdu or Hindi or Bengali
fl uently without an
accent, nobody would accuse him of
having lost his culture.
They would be fl attered and pleased
that the language had
been acquired so effi ciently. And
they would see it as a
compliment to themselves. But they
wouldn’t accuse him of
having betrayed his origins.
(Quoted in Hamilton
102.)
Although the Anglophile
Saladin Chamcha is portrayed as more
than a bit of a fool in
the novel, his rejection of Zeeny Vakil’s
accusations that he has
betrayed his Indian roots may refl ect
Rushdie’s own struggles
with this issue.
In 1980 Rushdie
published Midnight’s Children, the novel that
catapulted him to fame.
It is a brilliant and searing satire on the
history of modern India,
with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
as one of its main
targets. It gained lavish praise in the West
and won the famous
Booker Prize for fi ction, and was also
well received in South
Asia, But not by everyone. His relatives
were offended when they
recognized unfl attering portraits of
themselves in the novel.
One of its prime targets, Mrs. Gandhi,
sued for libel and won
her case demanding an expurgated,
revised version shortly
before she was assassinated (it was never
published).
6
Like The Satanic Verses, Midnight’s
Children combines
fantasy
and magic with political
satire in a manner strongly reminiscent
of Gabriel García Márquez’s
One Hundred Years of Solitude,
though he has preferred
to claim Günter Grass as a greater
infl uence. Like García
Márquez he integrates fantastic elements
into everyday life, and
routinely refers to events to come as if
they were already known,
techniques which he were to be a
hallmark of his later fi
ction as well. Another García Márquez
pattern which recurs in
Rushdie’s fi ction is the doomed love
affair which is at fi
rst resisted by the female partner, then burns
wildly and destructively
in an outburst of almost supernatural
eroticism.
His next novel was Shame, a 1983 critique of the Zia ul-Haq
regime and of Benazir
Bhutto which was effective enough to earn
its banning in Pakistan.
After falling in love with author Robyn
Davidson on a tour of
Australia, he ended his marriage to Luard
by moving in with her
for what was to be an extremely stormy
relationship, resulting,
suggests Ian Hamilton, in the portrait
of Alleluia Cone in The Satanic Verses. His portraits of both
characters based on
Clarissa and Robyn in The Satanic Verses are
rather sympathetic, with
Rushdie apparently casting himself in
the rather unsympathetic
Saladin Chamcha role (Hamilton 106).
A 1986 trip to Nicaragua
under the Sandinistas led to the
nonfi ction book, The Jaguar Smile, much criticized as
simplistically partisan,
but refl ecting the constant interest in
politics which runs
through his fi ction. In 1986 Rushdie met the
American writer Marianne
Wiggins, whom he married two years
later. (Their
relationship was a diffi cult one as well; they were to
stay together longer
than they might have when he was forced
underground by Khomeni’s
fatwa, but ultimately they were to be
divorced.) In 1987 he
returned to India to make a fi lm just in time
to encounter the
outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence resulting
from the tearing down of
the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya,
a confl ict which was to
have a major infl uence on the writing of
The Moor’s Last Sigh.
Back in London to edit
the fi lm, he was suddenly summoned to
his father’s deathbed
where he achieved a reconciliation with the
old man which is refl
ected in the novel in the fi nal reconciliation
between Saladin and
Changez.
On September 26, 1988,
Viking Penguin published his longawaited
novel, The Satanic Verses. Although the book was
generally praised in
Europe and America, it was viewed by some
as undisciplined and by
others as baffl ing. Few Western readers
understood much of what
was to be so offensive to Muslim
readers. A Muslim
Minister of Parliament in India attacked
the novel, and it was
quickly banned there. Photocopies of the
pages considered most
offensive were circulated among various
Islamic organizations
and to the embassies of Islamic nations in
London. On October
denounced Rushdie, and
various threats and complaints followed;
but it was only in
January of 1989 that the protests burst into full
public consciousness.
The book was burned before the television
cameras in England, in
Iran fi ve members of a mob attacking the
American Culture Center
in Islamabad in protest were shot to
death, and in Kashmir,
sixty were injured in another protest and
one person died.
Rushdie responded to the
book burning in January with a bold
defense in which he
said, in part:
Nowadays . . . a
powerful tribe of clerics has taken
over Islam. These are
the contemporary Thought Police.
They have turned
Muhammad into a perfect being, his life
into a perfect life, his
revelation into the unambiguous,
clear event it
originally was not. Powerful taboos have been
erected. One may not
discuss Muhammad as if he were
human, with human
virtues and weaknesses. One may not
discuss the growth of
Islam as a historical phenomenon,
as an ideology born out
of its time. These are the taboos
against which The Satanic Verses has transgressed (these
and one other: I also tried
to write about the place of women
in Islamic society, and
in the Koran). It is for this breach
of taboo that the novel
is being anathematized, fulminated
against, and set alight.
. . .
The Satanic Verses is not, in my view, an antireligious
novel. It is, however,
an attempt to write about migration,
its stresses and
transformations, from the point of view of
migrants from the Indian
subcontinent to Britain. This is, for
me, the saddest irony of
all; that after working for fi ve years
to give voice and fi
ctional fl esh to the immigrant culture of
which I am myself a
member, I should see my book burned,
largely unread, by the
people it’s about, people who might
fi nd some pleasure and
much recognition in its pages. I
tried to write against
stereotypes; the zealot protests serve to
confi rm, in the Western
mind, all the worst stereotypes of the
Muslim world. “The Book
Burning,“ p. 26.
The Ayatollah Khomeni,
leader of the Iranian revolution and the
target of a fi ercely
satirical portrait in the novel, responded by
issuing a denunciation
of Rushdie called a fatwa:
I inform all zealous
Muslims of the world that the author
of the book entitled The Satanic Verses—which has been
compiled, printed and
published in opposition to Islam,
the Prophet, and the Qur’an—and
all those involved in its
publication who were
aware of its content, are sentenced to
death.
I call on all zealous
Muslims to execute them quickly,
wherever they may be
found, so that no one else will dare to
insult the Muslim
sanctities. God Willing, whoever is killed
on this path is a
martyr. (Quoted in Hamilton 113.)
Many Muslims have since
criticized the fatwa, and denied
Khomeni’s authority to
issue it; but it has had an immediate and
lasting effect on
Rushdie’s life.
Shortly afterward he
went into hiding, guarded by British
policemen who have been
his constant companions ever since.
Rushdie attempted a
reconciliation with his enemies by meeting
with a number of
prominent Muslim clerics and declaring
himself Muslim, at least
in a cultural sense; but the détente he
had attempted to achieve
came to nothing, and he has since
resolutely defended
himself. Rather unfairly, a number of smug
academics safe in their
offi ces have blamed this gregarious,
energetic man for this
early attempt to fi nd a way out of his
life of enforced
solitude and mortal peril. (The essay “In Good
Faith“ incorporates his
earliest and fullest defence of the novel
7
and critique of his
attackers.) He has become an international
celebrity in the cause
of freedom of speech, a target for would-be
assassins, and the
subject of endless discussion over the merits
and infl uence of the
novel that began it all: The Satanic Verses.
Because the story of his
subsequent struggles and triumphs since
is readily available
from other sources and not really relevant to
understanding The Satanic Verses, it will not be repeated here. He
remains under the threat
of the fatwa, which has been renewed
several times by the
successors of Khomeni now governing Iran;
but in recent years he
has ventured out in public more and more
for surprise speeches
and other appearances.
About a year after the
issuing of the fatwa, a fi lm portraying
a successful attack on
the author was released but not widely
viewed. In a March 1996
interview with the Gleaner, an
electronic publication
of Gleebooks in Sydney, Australia, Rushdie
commented on the fi lm:
When, within a year or
so after the Fatwah, there was a
movie made in Pakistan
called International Guerillas in
which I was portrayed
rather unpleasantly as somebody
wearing a rather ugly
range of pastel safari suits and also
behaving as a drunkard,
a torturer, and indeed a murderer.
And in the end— and the
heroes of this fi lm were the
international terrorists
they sent to hunt me down and in the
end I did indeed get
killed.
There was one—I have to
say to in parentheses—one scene
of rather good
unintentional comedy which I hope you’ll
appreciate when the kind
of— the “me” character has had
his fi ll of lashing and
slashing at one of the international
terrorists who’d been
imprisoned for his pleasure by what
looks like the Israeli
Army, when he has fi nished having his
fun, he says—he orders
the Israeli Army to take this fellow
away to some dungeon and
spend all night reading him The
Satanic Verses. Whereupon this man completely crumples,
and says, “Not that,
anything but that, etc.” That was a good
scene. But many of the
other scenes of the fi lm were less
good.
Anyway the fi lm got to
England and was refused a certifi cate
by the British Board of
Film Classifi cation largely because
the Board correctly saw
the fi lm was extremely defamatory,
that I would have a very
straight-forward case in law, it
would be able— if they
gave it a certifi cate to sue not only
the fi lm makers but
also them. So the fi lm got banned. And
so I found myself in the
extraordinary position of having to
write to the Board,
waiving my legal rights, promising that I
would not sue and
saying, “Would you please give this fi lm a
licence,” because I did
not want to be defended by an act of
censorship.
And the thing turned
into a rather shapely parable of the free
speech position. Because
if this fi lm had been banned, if it
had not been given a
certifi cate it would have become a very
hot number indeed. The
illicit videos of this fi lm would have
circulated in their
goodness knows how many thousands and
it would have become
glamorous as an object. And instead it
got its certifi cate and
the producers of the certifi cate booked
a very large cinema in
Bradford in the North of England
which is where the
largest Muslim Community in England
lives, and nobody went.
You know. The fi lm got taken off
after one showing
because it was playing to an empty house.
It just goes that
actually if you do let people make up their
minds they can tell the
difference between rubbish and what
is not rubbish. And
nobody wants to pay money to see a bad
movie in the end.
According to Sara Suleri
(“Whither Rushdie“ 199), popular
hostility to the author
was so strong that the actor who played
Rushdie in the fi lm
himself received several death threats.
Rushdie has also replied
to those who argue that novels such
as his deserve
condemnation because they do not respect the
religious sensibilities
of some believers:
Religious extremists,
these days, demand “respect” for their
attitudes with growing
stridency. Few people would object
to the idea that people’s
rights to religious belief must be
respected—after all, the
First Amendment defends those
rights as unequivocally
as it defends free speech—but now
we are asked to agree
that to dissent from those beliefs, to
hold that they are
suspect or antiquated or wrong, that in fact
they are arguable, is incompatible with the idea of respect.
When criticism is placed
off-limits as “disrepectful,” and
therefore offensive,
something strange is happening to the
concept of respect. Yet
in recent times both the American
N.E.A. and the very
British BBC have announced that they
will employ this new
perversion of “respect” as a touchstone
for their funding and
programming decisions.
Other minority groups—racial,
sexual, social—have also
demanded that they be
accorded this new form of respect. To
“respect” Louis
Farrakhan, we must understand, is simply to
agree with him. To “dis”
him is, equally simply, to disagree.
But if dissent is also
to be thought a form of “dissing,” then
we have indeed succumbed
to the thought police.
I want to suggest that
citizens of free societies do not
preserve their freedom
by pussyfooting around their fellow
citizens’ opinions, even
their most cherished beliefs.
“How News Becomes Opinion,
And Opinion Off-Limits“,
p.20.
The
Title
Rushdie writes of the
title:
You call us devils? it
seems to ask. Very well, then, here
is the devil’s version
of the world, of “your” world, the
version written from the experience of those who have been
demonized by virtue of
their otherness. Just as the Asian kids
in the novel wear toy
devil-horns proudly, as an assertion of
pride in identity, so
the novel proudly wears its demonic title.
The purpose is not to
suggest that the Qur’an is written by
the devil; it is to
attempt the sort of act of affi rmation that,
in the United States,
transformed the word black from the
standard term of racist
abuse into a “beautiful” expression of
cultural pride.
(“In Good Faith“ 403)
8
List
of Principal Characters
Gibreel Farishta, born Ismail Najmuddin
Indian fi lm star,
specializing in playing Hindu gods, though he
himself is a Muslim,
takes the form of an angel. Rushdie has said
of Gibreel:
the character of Gibreel
himself is a mixture of two or three
types of Indian movie
star. There was in the forties a Muslim
actor, a very big star
at the time, who did somehow get away
with playing major Hindu
divinities and because he was so
popular it was not a
problem. And it was interesting to me
that mega-stardom
allowed you to cross those otherwise
quite fraught religious
frontiers. So there was a bit of that
in Gibreel. And then
there was an element of the big South
Indian movie stars, a
bit of Rama Rao. And fi nally there
was a large bit of the
biggest movie star in India for the last
fi fteen or twenty
years, Amitabh Bachchan.
Rushdie: “Interview,” p.
52.
(See also Brennan 155,
Ruthven, Aravamudan: “‘Being God’s
Postman is No Fun, Yaar’“
9 and Jussawalla 231).
Raj Kapoor has also been
mentioned as a model (Fischer 122).
The name means “Gabriel
Angel” in Urdu and Persian.
Saladin Chamcha
Born Salahuddin
Chamchawala, a voice impersonator,
“Chumch,” “Spoono”
(because “chamcha” is Hindi for “spoon,”
see p. 83). Takes the
form of a devil. His original name is
comical because it
combines a heroic fi rst name (Saladin—the
great Muslim hero of the
Crusades) and the term “spoon-seller.”
Chamcha also means yes-man:
A chamcha is a very
humble, everyday object. It
is, in fact, a spoon. The
word is Urdu; and it also has a
second meaning. Colloquially
a chamcha is a person who
sucks up to a powerful
people, a yes-man, a sycophant. The
British Empire would not
have lasted a week without such
collaborators among its
colonized peoples. You could say
that the Raj grew fat by
being spoon-fed.
(Rushdie, “Empire” 8).
Feroza Jussawalla says
that the name echoes a Bombay street
slang insult—”salah chamcha”—”bastard homosexual”
(“Resurrecting“ 107).
Pamela Lovelace
Saladin’s wife, leftist.
Her name combines those of the heroine
in Samuel Richardson’s
novel Pamela and of the villain in his
Clarissa;thus the name may be a subtle allusion to the given
name of Rushdie’s fi rst
wife, Clarissa Luard..However, the name
is almost certainly also
meant to refer to the sixties porn star of
Deep Throat, Linda Lovelace.
Mahound
The prophet featured in
the Satanic Verses plot. His name is
taken from a relatively
obscure insulting European name for
Muhammad, most likely
borrowed by Rushdie from Edmund
Spenser’s Faerie Queene (VI, vii; see Jussawalla: “Resurrecting”
108).
Zeeny “Zeeny” Vakil
Doctor at Breach Candy
Hospital, art critic and political activist,
lover of Saladin.
Mimi Mamoulian
Female partner of
Saladin in the voice impersonation business,
later companion of Billy
Battuta. Her name may be suggestive
of mammalian breasts,
though Yasmine Gooneratne suggests
the name means something
like “worthlessness” in Hindi. On p.
274, the newspapers say
her name is Mildred, so “Mimi” may be
merely a nickname, or
the papers have got it wrong.
Rekha Merchant
Wife of a businessman,
lover of Gibreel. Commits suicide with
her three children by
jumping off the roof of Everest Vilas and
then haunts Gibreel
throughout much of the novel. Her fi rst name
calls to mind the
brilliant actress (renowned for her beauty and
brilliant dancing) of
the same name. The actress was much talked
about in the gossip rags
of Bombay in the seventies, her name
being linked to the
megastar Amitabh Bachchan (whose injury
during the shooting of a
fi ght scene in “Coolie,” and the lifethreatening
infection that subsequently
developed, mirrors what
happens to Gibreel. The
1981 movie Silsila was partly based on
the Amitabh/Rekha
affair. (David Windsor) “Merchant” may be
an allusion to the
famous Indian fi lmmaker Ismail Merchant, the
model for S. S. Sisodia.
Alleluia Cone
Allie Cone (originally
Cohen). Tender-footed climber of Mount
Everest. Her name may
also allude to that of the goddess Al-Lat
(Seminck 17).
Karim Abu Simbel
Ruler of Jahilia. The
last two parts of his name refer to the
location of the gigantic
sculptures of the Egyptian Pharaoh
Ramses II (r.
c.1304-1237 BC); probably intended to suggest his
imposing, grandiose
manner. However, his name is probably also
linked to that of Abu
Sufyan, an opponent of Muhammad who
was married to one Hind
(see below).
Jamshed” Jumpy” Joshi
Lover of Pamela Chamcha,
Saladin’s wife. Like Baal, he is a
poet.
Muhammad Sufyan
Proprietor of the
Shaandaar Café, father of two daughters: Mishal
and Anahita.
S. S. Sisodia
Indian fi lmmaker living
and working in London. His name not
only mocks his
stuttering, but inspires the punning nickname
“Whisky” (“whisky and
soda”).
Mirza Saeed Akhtar
The zamindar of
Titlipur, whose wife, dying of cancer, follows
the mysterious Ayesha to
the sea in search of a miracle.
9
Characters
who share a name
One of the techniques used by Rushdie to knit this multifaceted
work together is to assign the same names to certain characters
in different plots of the novel. (It is worth noting that García
Márquez also repeats the names of characters in One Hundred
Years of Solitude, but to very different effect.)
Ayesha
The cruel ruler of Desh
in the Imam plot (playing the role
of the former Shah of
Iran); the fanatical girl who leads to
the march to Mecca in
the Titlipur plot; and the name of the
youngest and favorite
wife of Mahound and of the historical
Muhammad, whom he
married when she was only eleven and
about whom several
stories are told which indicate she was rather
independent-minded and
occasionally critical of the Prophet (see
Netton: Text, pp. 30-31; Haykal 139, 183-184, 331-333). Her
name also alludes to
Queen Ayesha of H. Rider Haggard’s She,
pale, long-haired queen
of an Arabic-speaking people in Africa
(Seminck 24).
Bilal
A follower of Mahound;
follower of the Imam. See below, note
on p. 101. The historical
Bilal was a former black slave who
converted to Islam and
was made the fi rst muezzin (the offi cial
who calls the faithful
to prayer).
Hind
The grasping wife of
Muhammad Sufyan in the main plot; the
cruel, lascivious wife
of Abu Simbel in the “satanic verses” plot.
Named after the
seventh-century Hind bint ‘Utba, wife of Abu
Sufyan (see above),
powerful local leader in Mecca and custodian
of the temple (Parekh
30). She is famous for her ferocity during
the Battle of Uhud in
625 when she tore open the chest of
Muhammad’s uncle, Hamzah
ibn ‘abd al Muttalib, and bit into
his liver. She was also
the mother of one of Muhammad’s wives
(Fischer 131-132; see
also Haykal 267-268). Hind also shares a
characteristic with
another fi ctional character, H. Rider Haggard’s
Ayesha (see above, note
on “Ayesha.”)
Khalid
Follower of Mahound;
follower of the Imam.
Mishal
Mishal Sufyan is the
older daughter of Muhammad Sufyan and
lover of Hanif Johnson
in the main plot; Mishal Akhtar is the
dying wife of Mirza
Saeed Akhbar in the Titlipur plot. “Hanif”
is the fi rst name of
Anglo-Pakistani novelist and fi lm director
Hanif Kureshi and
historically is a term referring to pre-Islamic
monotheists (Haykal
601). His last name is used for the minor
character of Mrs.
Qureishi (Nazareth 171). The Qureishi (or
Quraysh) were the tribe
of which Muhammad was a member and
whose name means “shark”.
Bilal, Khalid and Salman
Followers of Mahound,
and of the Imam. The guard outside
the Imam’s room on p.
210 is Salman Farsi (“Farsi” is
a term designating a
follower of the Persian religion of
Zarathustrianism);
Salman the Persian is a follower of Mahound
who ultimately loses his
faith in him in the “satanic verses” plot;
and of course it is the
fi rst name of the author.
The notes to each chapter
are on a different page. Since the notes
are quite detailed, this
means that some pages are quite long. I
cannot break these notes
up into smaller pieces without making
them much more diffi
cult to manage. Having a limited number of
pages also allows you to
search through them for the passage you
are interested in with a
minimum of trouble.
Note: In the following
annotations, the page numbers refer to
the hardbound fi rst
edition and to the fi rst paperback edition of
The Satanic Verses published by “The Consortium.” Where the
pagination of the Holt
Owl paperback edition differs, its page
numbers are given in
[square brackets].
(Notesh)
1 The terms “East” & “West”
as used in this introduction are an
unsatisfactory sort of
shorthand for the two extremes which the
“Rushdie Affair” has
tended to produce. “East” means something
like “those critics of
Rushdie who are Muslims and who live
in predominantly Muslim
countries, the majority of which are
in the Middle East and
South and Southeast Asia,” though it is
also meant to cover
people whose cultural heritage is rooted in
these countries and who
still identify with it. “West” here stands
for the predominantly
non-Muslim secular cultures from which
much of Rushdie’s
support has come, principally Europe and
the Americas, where the
tradition of freedom of press is often
valorized over religious
faith.
I am aware that by using
these terms I risk “Orientalizing,”
reinforcing prejudices
about the cultures comprehended under
the term “East;” but
that is not my intention. I cannot stress
strongly enough that
there are many liberal Muslim critics who
have spoken out in
support of Rushdie, and there are others who
feel deep confl icts
between their religion and their loyalty to free
expression. There is a
whole spectrum of attitudes in the “West”
as well. For instance,
some extremely conservative Christians
reacted against Rushdie’s
work as “blasphemous” even though
they reject the religion
they say is being blasphemed.
But this debate has
polarized discussion in many quarters. There
are discernibly
different operating assumptions between the
two extremes which it is
important to understand in order to
be able to follow the
debate. Attempts to mediate between the
fatwa -issuers and the civil libertarians have been, by and
large,
abject failures because
the fundamental assumptions of the two
sides are incompatible.
It is important to be clear about this
incompatibility.
I needed some kind of
easily comprehensible terms to use in this
discussion. I tried
various descriptive phrases, but they were all
hopelessly cumbersome.
If anyone has an alternative wording
which could allow me to
still express my thesis, I would welcome
suggestions.
10
Chapter
I: The Angel Gibreel
Plot
Summary for Chapter I
This chapter is preceded
by an epigraph from Book I, Chapter
VI of Daniel Defoe’s The Political History of the Devil as well
Ancient as Modern (London: T. Warner, 1726), p. 81. Defoe’s
location of Satan’s
abode as the air is of course highly appropriate
for this novel in which
the demonic falls from the air. But more
importantly, the Devil
is a wanderer, an image of the rootless
immigrant.1
The novel opens with the
two main characters, Gibreel Farishta
and Saladin Chamcha,
falling to earth because the plane they
have been fl ying in has
just been blown up by the terrorists who
have hijacked it. We are
then told a good deal of detail about their
backgrounds, their
occupations, their love affairs, and how they
happened to fi nd
themselves together on the plane. Then the story
of the hijacking is
told, leading up to the moment of explosion
which began the novel.
Page
3
Notes
for Chapter I
Why do you think the novel begins the way it does?
Ta-taa! Takathun!
Syllables used in
teaching traditional rhythms.
Baba
A common meaning is “old
holy man,” but Rushdie points
out that in this context
it “means ‘young fellow,’ or even in
certain contexts “mister”
or “sir.” (Hindi, Urdu) (personal
communication from
Salman Rushdie).
If you want to get born again . . .
. . . fi rst you have to
die. See note below, p. 85 [86], note on
Gramsci
twenty-nine thousand and two feet
The height of Mount
Everest, to which the height of the fall is
compared on the next
page. Falling is a major motif throughout
the novel (Seminck 35).
See, for instance, note below on p. 133
[137].
‘I tell you, you must die, I tell you, I tell you,’
Refrain from “The Whisky
Song” from Bertolt Brecht and
Kurt Weill’s The Decline and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
(1930) memorably
recorded by Jim Morrison as “Alabama Song
(Whisky Bar)” on the
album The Doors.
gazal
A classical Persian
poetic form. More commonly ghazal (also
Urdu).
bhai
Brother (Hindi).
yaar
Friend (Hindi).
Dharraaammm
Sound of the impact of
something that has fallen (Hindi).
Page
4
big bang
Refers to the explosion
which astrophysicists posit began the
universe.
Bostan
One of the traditional
heavens of Islam, another being Gulistan
(Farsi). Two famous
13th-century Persian didactic classics by
Sadi are titled Bostan and Gulistan (Mojtabai 3). See pp.
31, 364
[376] & 512 [526].
Flight AI-420, blew apart without any warning
This incident seems to
be a confl ation of elements based on two
different events. On
June 14,
by a band of Shiite
terrorists, from Athens to a series of airports,
ending in Beiruit, where
the plane sat on the runway until July
1, with people being
released at various intervals. On June
23, 1985, Air India (AI)
Flight 182, en route from Canada via
London to India, crashed
into the ocean
Ireland, killing all on
board. Sikh separatists were suspected of
having planted a bomb
(see Jiwa). After the publication of the
novel, on December 21,
1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was blown
up by a terrorist bomb
over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all on
board in a manner
strikingly reminiscent of the Flight A I-420
explosion. The fl ight
number has negative associations discussed
in the second note on p.
5, below. Some Indian readers saw a
parallel of this scene
to a scene in An Evening in Paris (Paris Ki
Ek Shyam, 1967, dir. Shakti Samanta), a Bombay fi lm
in which
Shammi Kapoor descended
from a helicopter singing to a waterskiing
Sharmila Tagore, “Asman se aya farishta” (“An angel has
descended from the sky”)
(Ali 295).
Mahagonny
See above, note for p. 3
Babylon
The capital of the
Neobabylonian ( Chaldean) Empire which
conquered ancient Judea
and took the Jews into exile; in
prophetic writings and
in the book of Revelation a synonym for
decadent apocalyptic
evil; in fi rst century Christian thought a
metaphor for Rome, later
used as a label for any great power seen
as evil; in Jamaican
Rastafarian thought, the capitalist world and
more specifi cally, The
United States.
Alphaville
The weirdly dehumanized
futuristic city of Jean-Luc Godard’s
1965 fi lm by the same
name.
Vilayet
Literally “foreign
country,” used as a name for England (Hindi).
winked blinked nodded
Allusion to the
childhood rhyme by Eugene Field, “Wynken,
Blynken, and Nod.”
11
a quantity of wives . . . a suffi ciency of children
Rushdie would seem to
have forgotten that on p. 79 [80] it is said
that the women and
children were all previously released by the
hijackers.
What aspects of the immigrant experience are alluded to in the
bottom paragraph on this page?
Page
5
English Sleeve
The French name for the
English Channel is
means “the sleeve.”
“Oh, my shoes are Japanese . . .”
The song is “Mera joota
hai japaani” from the 1955 fi lm Shree
420 (Mr. 420), directed by Raj Kapoor, music by Shankar
Jaikishen, lyrics by
Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri:
I’m out on the open road,
proud-chested
Only God knows where all
I might go
I’ll move onward like a
raging fl ood.
My shoes are Japanese,
These pants are English
The red hat on my head
is Russian
Still my heart is
Indian.
(on camel)
Up and down, down and up
moves the wave of life
Those who sit on the
river bank and ask the way home are naïve
Moving on is the story
of life, stopping is the mark of death.
My shoes are Japanese,
These pants are English
The red hat on my head
is Russian
Still my heart is
Indian.
(on elephant)
There may be kings, or
princes, but I am a spoiled prince
And sit on the throne
whenever I desire.
My face is renowned, and
people are amazed.
My shoes are Japanese,
These pants are English
The red hat on my head
is Russian
Still my heart is
Indian.
Based on translations by Nandi Bhatia, by permission of Jennifer
Wenzel, and Poorvi Vora.
Joel Kuortti points out
that Rushdie had already discussed same
song in his essay, “The
Indian Writer in England.”
“
India, suggesting
corruption and other forms of political villainy,
because it alludes the
number of a statute forbidding corrupt
practices. (Aravamudan: “’Being
God’s Postman is No Fun,
Yaar’” 7-8). In Midnight’s Children Rushdie says that the number
symbolizes “fraud and
deception” (193).
[6]
changes took place . . . that would have gladdened the heart of
old Mr Lamarck
Jean Baptiste-Pierre
Antoine de Lamarck (1744-1829) a French
naturalist, developed
the theory that characteristics acquired by
living things during
their lifetimes could be inherited by their
offspring; an idea
rejected by modern genetics.
fl ew too close to the sun
Refers to the classical
myth of Daedalus, who tried to escape his
island prison with his
son Icarus using wings made of feathers
fastened on with wax.
But when Icarus fl ew too close to the sun,
the wax melted and he
plunged to his death in the sea. Daedalus
is also the last name of
the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses,
a work often alluded to
in The Satanic Verses.
What aspects of change are discussed in the paragraph beginning
“Yessir?”
Translation of the song lyrics:
My shoes are Japanese,
These pants are English
The red hat on my head
is Russian
Still my heart is
Indian.
(walking)
12
Page
6
What attitudes characteristic of the two men falling are expressed
by the songs they choose to sing?
lyrics by Mr James Thomson “. . . at Heaven’s command . . . .
From the fi rst verse of
“Rule, Britannia!’
When Britain fi rst, at
heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure
main,
This was the charter of
the land,
And guardian angels sing
their strain--
Rule, Britannia, rule
the waves;
Britons never will be
slaves.
David Windsor points out
that Thomson was a Scot (which
explains why the title
of his song refers to Great Britain rather
than simply England).
Thomson went to England in search of
work and had to take
lessons to change his accent; so he, like so
many others in this
novel, was a colonial immigrant.
[7]
Wonderland
See note below, on
Wonderland, p. 55 [56].
cloudforms, ceaselessly metamorphosing
Alludes to Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1st century BC), which
recounts many examples
of people being transformed into other
beings. Rushdie says of
the Metamorphoses:
It’s one of my favourite
books and after all this
is a novel about
metamorphosis. It’s a novel
in which people change
shape, and which
addresses the great
questions about a change
of shape, about change,
which were posed by
Ovid: about whether a
change in form was a
change in kind. Whether
there is an essence
in us which survives
transmutation, given
that, even if we don’t
change into, you know,
cloven-hoofed creatures,
there is a great deal
of change in everybody’s
life. The question is
whether or not there is
an essential centre. And
whether we are just a
collection of moments, or
whether there is some
kind of defi ning thread.
The book discusses that,
I think, it uses the idea
of physical
metamorphosis in order to discuss
that. And so, of course,
Ovid was important.
Also I thought the book
itself was conceived as one which
constantly metamorphosed.
It keeps turning into another
kind of book. Certainly,
from my point of view, that was
technically one of the
biggest gambles. Because I couldn’t
be sure that the readers
would come along for the ride. It was
something which could be
irritating. Imagine that you’re
reading a certain kind
of book and you’re suddenly stuck
with another kind of
book. Rushdie: “Interview,” p. 58.
Page
7
woman of a certain age
Translation of a
traditional French phrase used to describe a
middle-aged woman.
Bokhara rug
Red rugs and carpets
woven by Turkmen and Uzbeks (Kuortti).
for your eyes only
Security clearance
marking for highly secret data, often
abbreviated “eyes only,”
also used as the title of a James Bond
novel and fi lm.
Why do you think no one can see Rekha but Gibreel?
sour nothings
The opposite of “sweet
nothings:” affectionate comments;
therefore these are
probably curses.
saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing
A formerly popular image
consisted of three monkeys covering,
respectively, their
eyes, ears, and mouth. They were said to be
Chinese, and called “see
no evil,” “hear no evil,” and “speak no
evil.”
[8]
It was you, O moon of my delight, who hid behind a cloud. And I
in darkness, blinded, lost, for love.
This looks like the
lyrics to a song, but the words are original
with Rushdie (personal
communication from Salman Rushdie).
Page
8
Al-Lat
See p. 100 [102].
Page
10
who has the best tunes?
An allusion to a reply
of John Wesley when he was reproached
for setting his hymns to
popular tunes to the effect that the Devil
shouldn’t have all the
best tunes.
Why do you think Rushdie has chosen the Devil as his narrator?
Page
11
the Phantom Bug
This incident is based
on an actual incident in the life of actor
Amitabh Bachchan. Says
Rushdie:
He had an accident on
set and almost died. Well, the whole
country fell into a
state of shock. It was the lead item on
the news for weeks:
bulletins from the hospital on the hour.
Rajiv Gandhi cancelled a
trip abroad, came home to sit by
his bedside, and so on
and so on. This extraordinary event
struck me as being made
for a novel. Something like the
death of a god, almost.
Rushdie: “Interview,” p.
52.
13
D. W. Rama
Depicts a famous Indian
fi lm director under an alias composed
of a typical Indian name
and the fi rst two initials of the famous
Hollywood director of
historical epics, D. W. Griffi th (1875-
1948).
In what sense is reincarnation important to Gibreel?
Page
12
ekdumjaldi
Suddenly, abruptly
(Hindi).
Willingdon Club golf links
This Bombay golf club
would seem to have been named after one
in in Eastbourne, East
Sussex.
maharaj
Great lord or prince. More
commonly encountered in English as
Maharaja (Hindi).
Pimple Billimoria
Billimoria is a familiar
name in Indian fi lm: D. and E. Bilimoria
were popular stars
beginning in the silent era and Fali Billimoria
directed documentaries
in the 1950s. However, her fi rst name
is probably a joking pun
on the name of Bombay star Dimple
Kapadia.
[13]
fl ibberti-gibberti
Derived from “fl
ibbertigibbet,” a foolish or fl ighty woman. This
sort of expression, with
paired words differing only in their
beginnings, is common in
Urdu as well as in English (“higgledypiggledy,”
“mumbo-jumbo”) and is
one of Rushdie’s favorite
linguistic devices. He
uses it throughout Midnight’s Children,
but there are also other
examples in The Satanic Verses: “glum
chum,” “moochy pooch”
(both on p. 249 [257]), and “tarty-farty”
(p. 284). (Joel Kuortti)
temple-dancer
See below, note on
temple-dancing, p. 37.
copulating Tantric fi gures from the Chandela period
Tantrism is a form of
religion popular in Tibet and parts of
northern India which
sometimes involves extensive sexual
imagery. Several temples
at Khajuraho were built under the
Chandela (or Candella)
of Bundelkhand in the 10th and 11th
centuries AD, covered
with detailed carvings of gods, humans,
and animals in all
manner of sexual activities.
beedis
Hand-rolled cigarettes
(Hindi).
ayah
Maid (Hindi).
Page
13
saturnine
Originally, like the god
Saturn: heavy, gloomy, morose. Here,
perhaps suggestive of Satanic. The irony is of course that the
actor with the name of
an angel has the breath of a devil.
We are creatures of air, Our roots in dreams And clouds, reborn
in fl ight.
This note left behind by
Gibreel is punctuated so that it suggests
an excerpt from a poem,
but it is an original composition by
Rushdie (personal
communication from Salman Rushdie).
How does this note foreshadow what happens to Gibreel in the
opening pages of the novel?
[14]
Everest Vilas skyscraper on Malabar Hill
Named after the world’s
highest mountain, this is located at the
highest point in the
most elegant residential district in Bombay.
The misspelling of “villas”
may satirize the tendency for English
names to be rendered
with a quaint twist in India. The Rushdie
family home in India is
called “Anees Villa Estate.” See below,
note on Solan, p. 514
[527].
Marine Drive
A coastal road running
along the Back Beach of Bombay, from
Malabar Hill to Nariman
Point. (Kuortti).
Scandal Point
Scandal Point is located
on Warden Road, now renamed
Bhulabhai Desai Road
(personal communication from Salman
Rushdie).
Blitz
CinéBlitz, a Bombay fi lm magazine
Busybee
Nickname of Behram
Contractor, editor of
the Bombay Afternoon Despatch and Courier.
Page
14
Reza Pahlevi
The pretentious and
tyrannical Shah of Iran who hosted a lavish
celebration of 3,000
years of Persian history at the ancient capital
of Persepolis shortly
before he was overthrown in the Islamic
revolution which is to
loom large later in the novel.
Doordarshan
The Indian national
government television network.
Colaba
The Colaba Causeway on
the southern part of Bombay Island
contains elegant hotels,
restaurants, and shops. (Kuortti).
klims and kleens
Kilims are a flfl at
woven carpets, thinner than the traditional
knotted sort, whose
Farsi name is usually rendered “gleem”
in the carpet trade. The
implication is that Rekha aspires
to connoisseurship in
using these technical terms, but
mispronounces them, as
she does “antiques” below.
14
How is Rekha characterised in the paragraph beginning, “Who
was she?” What are her main traits, and how are they symbolized
here?
[15]
Lalique crystal
RenÉ Lalique
(1860-1945), French designer of elegant jewelry
and other precious
objects for the rich.
Chola Natraj
A priceless traditional
Hindu sculpture from the period of the
Chola dynasty which
ruled Southern India in the 9th-12th
Centuries, C.E. A Natraj
or Nataraja is a traditional depiction
of a six-armed Shiva
dancing in a ring of fi re. He bears a
crescent moon on his
brow, has serpents entwined around him,
holds a fl ame in the
open palm of one hand, dances on a dwarf
symbolizing ignorance
and beats out a rhythm on a drum. He
both dances the world
into creation and to destruction.
Page
15
Rekha Merchant’s dive
with her children from the Everest Vilas,
imitating literally
Gibreel’s fi gurative “dive underground” on p.
13 [14], may allude to a
moment in the life of Muhammad when
he was tempted to throw
himself down from Mount Hira (Haykal
79). See note below on
Cone Mountain, p. 92 [94]. Compare with
the similar temptation
during Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness
(Luke 4:9).
To be born again, fi rst you have to
See above, note on p. 3.
See p. 84 [86] for the complete phrase,
and below, note on p.
85.
lala
Usually a male who cares
for children, but it can also mean a
clerk (Hindi).
Olympians
Ancient Greek Gods who
dwelled on Mount Olympus, associated
here with Mount Everest,
one of the tallest mountains in the
world, north of India in
the Himalayas, after which the lavish
Everest Vilas where
Rekha Merchant lived was named, and
which Alleluia Cone has
climbed.
Page
16
a star gone supernova
When an old star
explodes it creates a brilliant new point of
light in the sky as
viewed from earth; the largest are known as
supernovae.
theologicals
Rushdie says of these fi
lms:
the kind of religious
movies that Gibreel acts in are not
really called “theologicals”.
They’re actually called
“mythologicals”. But I
just thought I’d make them more
intellectual. Also,
mythological movies have not really been
a Bombay cinema form.
They’ve, more or less exclusively,
been a South Indian form
and it’s Tamil cinema that has
particularly gone in for
them. And they have created at least
one major political fi
gure. The former Chief Minister for
Tamil Nadu [actually Andhra Pradesh, just north--PB], N.
T. Rama Rao started out
as a person who played gods in the
movies. He stood for
election and he won.
For Gibreel I fi rst
transposed the South Indian form to
Bombay. There are movies
in Bombay where you get a deus
ex machina: it is not
uncommon for a god to arrive at an
important moment in the
plot and play a part. But, retelling
the stories of the
Indian tradition is not a Bombay form. So
that’s one, if you like,
fi ctionalisation.
Rushdie: “Interview,” p.
52.
Krishna
When a demon attempted
to suckle the infant Krishna with her
poisonous milk, he
survived miraculously, but turned a deep blue
color.
[17]
gopis
In HIndu myth, the
lover-playmates of Krishna, wives of
cowherds. Their devotion
to him is expressed in highly sexual
terms which are taken
allegorically by Hindus.
Gautama
The historical name of
the fi gure known as the Buddha. Protected
by his parents from
knowledge of death, aging and disease, he
was shocked to discover
at the age of seven that suffering existed
and twenty-nine left his
home to fi nd a way to deal with this
knowledge.
bodhi-tree
An Indian fi g tree
(from the Sanskrit), fi cus religosa, regarded
as sacred by Buddhists
because the Buddha achieved his
enlightenment while
meditating under one. A bodhi tree in
Bodhgaya, Birhar (NE India)
is said to be a descendent of the tree
under which Buddha
meditated (Westphal).
Grand Mughal . . . Akbar and Birbal
The Grand Mughal Akbar
the Magnififi cent (ruler of 16thcentury
India), and his warrior
chieftain/poet/minister who was
famous for his wit. The
Mughal Dynasty of Muslim rulers was
founded when Babur
invaded India in 1526 and governed much
of northern India until
the 18th Century. Much of the art and
architecture we now
associate with India, such as the Taj Mahal,
actually consists of
Persian-infl uenced Mughal-era creations.
Many Hindus, especially
those of lower castes, converted to
Islam during this era,
giving rise to families like that of Gibreel,
and Rushdie himself.
Page 17
jackfruit
Large sweet fruit common
in South and Southeast Asia.
Avatars
Reincarnations of a god
(Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali). Krishna, for
instance, is the eighth
avatar of Vishnu. Reincarnation is basic
to Hinduism, both for
gods and humans, as well as other living
beings.
15
What is the meaning of the contrast made on this page between
divine reincarnation and secular incarnation?
Pune of Rajneesh
A town in Maharashtra,
the home and former operating base of
Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh
(later called ”Osho”) and his cult.
Vadodara
Gujarat town now renamed
Baroda.
Mumbai
The name “Bombay”
probably evolved from the name of a
local earth goddess,
Mumba Devi, or Mumbai. In 1995 the local
government changed the
name of the city to Mumbai.
Ismail after the child involved in the sacrifi ce of Ibrahim
Refers to the Islamic
version of the story contained in Genesis 22
according to which God
commanded Abraham to sacrifi ce his son
Isaac; in this version
it is his brother Ishmael who is involved.
See also p. 95 [97].
[18]
mummyji
Affectionate term for
mother, combining British “Mummy” with
honorifi c Hindi suffi x
“-ji.’
Page
18
tiffi ns
Originally a mid-morning
snack, now any sort of light meal or
snack.
dabbas
Lunchboxes (Hindi),
typically containing hot foods cooked at
home, then delivered to
the workplace by a dabbawalla, a lunchdelivery
person (Kuortti).
the infl ight inevitability of Walter Matthau . . . Goldie Hawn
The movie is Cactus Flower(1969).
Gandhi cap
A soft cloth hat worn by
members of the Congress party, notably
Jawaharlal Nehru, as a
symbol of nonsectarian support for a
unifi ed India.
Santacruz
“Santa Cruz” means “Holy
Cross,” Bombay was under
Portuguese rule before
it was given as a dowry to the British (in
1661)--but many Catholic
place names remained. Both the name
of the airport and the “triumphal
arch” of the gateway mentioned
on p. 39 are reminders
of the colonial past.
Page
19
muqaddam
Leader (Hindi).
Page
20
buddha-fat
The Japanese paunchy fi
gure often called a Buddha is actually
Hotei (Chinese Pu-tai),
and is a deity of good fortune. According
to some beliefs, Maitreya,
the Buddha of the future, will be
incarnated in the form
of Hotei, so that Hotei is often regarded as
a Bodhisattva. See The
Zany Zen: “Hakuin’s Self-Portrait in the
Image of Hotei.”
BTCA
Bombay Tiffi n Carriers
Association (see above, p. 19 [19-20])
Page
22
green-tinged spectacles
In the original L. Frank
Baum novel, The Wizard of Oz, all those
who enter the Emerald
City must wear green glasses, which turns
out to be a ruse by the
wizard to deceive people into thinking
that the city is really
all green. Here the spectacles reveal magic
rather than replacing
it. Rushdie is a serious Oz fan and authored
a tribute to the fi lm (The Wizard of Oz, London: British Film
Institute, 1992).
Rushdie has in common with Baum a taste for
both fantasy and
wordplay.
the Prophet at the time when, having been orphaned . . .
Refers to a period in
the life of the Prophet Muhammed, implying
that he married for
money. The fi rst of many references in
the book which many
Muslims fi nd blasphemous, and which
is labelled as such here
by the author, though the thought is
attributed to Gibreel,
not Rushdie.
Page
21
the fi nal grace
The ultimate goal of
pious Hindus is not reincarnation, which
is technically viewed as
a curse; but stepping off the wheel of
rebirth (samsara) to achieve liberation (moksha). However,
people not ready for moksha often fi nd the prospect of
reincarnation appealing.
phutt, kaput
Fortuitously rhyming
words in (respectively) Hindi and German
implying that something
has ceased. (Americans spell a similar
expression “pfft.”) “Phutt”
originally suggested the sound of
a candle-fl ame going
out, but it can also mean “Gone!” For
instance: “Oh yaar he is
phut” (meaning that he has just suddenly,
dramatically
disappeared). . . (Hussain).
baprebap
A common exclamatory
Hindi phrase, literally meaning “father
of father,” but used to
express a sense of amazement and wonder,
among many other
feelings. A rough English equivalent would be
“O my God!” Often
spelled “bap-re-bap.” (Hussain)
16
The account of his education into the supernatural is strikingly
remiscent of Gabriel García Márquez’s accounts of his
upbringing by a storytelling grandmother who made the
miraculous seem ordinary. One of the defi ning characteristics of
García Márquez’s work is the introduction of fantastic elements
into otherwise realistic narratives in such a way that they are
taken for granted. Compare García Márquez’s technique with
Rushdie’s.
Page
22
How does the young Gibreel learn about Muhammad, and how
does this learning relate to the account of Mahound in the next
chapter?
afreets
Arabic demons (also
spelled “afrits”).
djinns
In Muslim tradition,
powerful spirits which can transform
themselves into various
shapes, also spelled “jinns,” “jinees,” and
“genies” (Arabic).
sari-pallu
The loose end of a sari
which is normally thrown over the
shoulder (Hindi).
Gibreel is imagining
himself as a new bride, with the “sari
pallu” drawn over his
face, about to be married off to Babasaheb
Mhatre. When the new
husband lifts the “sari pallu” off his new
wife’s face
(theoretically seeing her for the fi rst time), it is a very
erotic moment (Windsor).
Page
23
four wilderness years he failed to kiss a single woman on the
mouth.
Alludes to the forty
days of wandering in the wilderness which
Christ underwent before
he started preaching (Matthew 4:1-11)
and to the fact that
until recently it was forbidden in India to
depict kissing on the
screen.
What do the items in the list which begins at the bottom of this
page have to do with this novel?
[24]
avatars of Jupiter
In Greco-Roman mythology
Jupiter (Greek “Zeus” takes on
many different forms,
primarily in order to mate with human
women, using the Indian
term “avatar” (see note above, p. 17).
Several of the subjects
that Gibreel studies are later to become
elements in his dreams.
Page
24
the boy who became a fl ower
The beautiful but vain
Narcissus.
the spider-woman
Arachne, who was turned
into a spider for daring criticize the
gods in a weaving
contest with Athena. The title given her here
is possibly also an
allusion to Manuel Puig’s novel Kiss of the
Spiderwoman, or to the 1985 movie based on it.
Circe
the seductive witch in
Homer’s Odyssey who transforms the crew
of Odysseus into pigs.
Annie Besant
(1836-1901) English
spokeswoman for Theosophy, a mystical
philosophy heavily infl
uenced by Hinduism.
unifi ed fi eld theory
A defi nition from NASA:
“Any theory which attempts to express
gravitational theory and
electromagnetic theory within a single
unifi ed framework;
usually, an attempt to generalize Einstein’s
general theoryof
gravitation alone to a theory of gravitation and
classical
electromagnetism”. Since no one has yet succeeded
in developing such a
theory, it remains as fantastic as the other
elements mentioned in
this list.
incident of the Satanic verses
The fi rst mention of
this theme. See below, Chapter II.
butterfl ies could fl y into young girl’s mouths
See below, note on p.
217 [223].
puranas
Ancient Hindu scriptures
(400 BCE-1400 CE) derived from
oral traditions
surrounding the Vedas and the Mahabharata,
concentrating on tales
of Shiva and Vishnu (Kuortti) (Sanskrit).
Ganesh
The Hindu elephant god
often associated with prosperity.
Sometimes called Ganesha.
[25]
Ganpati Baba
“Lord Ganesh” (Hindi).
Hanuman the monkey king
His adventures, based on
tales in the Ramayana, are extremely
popular in India and
throughout much of the rest of Asia.
Hong Kong
A center of production
for cheap, sensational movies shown all
over Asia.
Page
26
Greta Garbo
Classic fi lm beauty of
the twenties and thirties.
Gracekali
Pun on “Grace Kelly,” a
fifi fties fifi lm beauty, later the Princess
of Monaco, and “Kali,”
the destroyer goddess of Hindu
mythology. Rushdie
notes, however, that this is actually a
three-way pun, alluding
to another sense of “’kali,” “a fl owerbud
. . . so ‘Gracekali’
could also mean ‘Gracebud’” (personal
communication from
Salman Rushdie).
[27]
17
Jaisalmer
A remote town in NW
Rajastan built from sandstone in 1156 by a
Bhatti Rajput prince,
Mahwarawal Jaisal, famous for its exquisite
Jain temples and other
historic buildings, from which these
carved stone lattices
were probably taken.
chhatri
Rounded dome (Hindi).
surely gods should not partake of alcohol
Strict Hindus abstain
from alcohol, as do strict Muslims.
Aga Khan
Notorious playboy of the
royal family of Egypt, fond of both
drink and Hollywood
stars.
Page
27
lafanga
No good bum, vagrant
(Hindi).
haramzada
Literally “bastard,” a
scoundrel: a common term of contempt
(Jussawalla: “Post-Joycean”
228) (Hindi, Urdu).
salah
Literally “wife’s
brother” (Hindi, Urdu) or “brother-in-law,” but
typically used as an
insult, implying “I sleep with your sister.”
Not to be confused with bhaenchud.
[28]
Kanya Kumari . . . Cape Comorin
Cape Comorin is the
southmost point of mainland India in Tamil
Nadu; Kanyakumari (the
more usual spelling) is named after an
incarnation of Parvati;
the place is the destination of pilgrimages
by Hindus (Kuortti).
Page
28
Breach Candy Hospital
Located in the luxurious
Breach Candy district of Bombay.
Movie stars such as
Amitabh Bachchan have often been treated
here.
[29]
lathi-charges
Lathis are the long
wooden sticks used as batons by Indian
police.
The Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi.
Her son the airline pilot
Indira’s son, Rajiv
Gandhi. Rajiv was at school (Doon) with
Amitabh Bachchan, and
went to the hospital when Amitabh was
injured in the real-life
incident that this part of Gibreel’s life-story
is based upon. (David
Windsor)
Page
29
lamb pasandas
Scallops of lamb cooked
Mughal-style in a rich yogurt sauce.
[30]
forbidden foods
Pork is forbidden to
Muslims. This scene has its roots in
Rushdie’s life. He
writes:
God, Satan, Paradise and
Hell all vanished one day in my
fi fteenth year, when I
quite abruptly lost my faith. I recall
it vividly. I was at
school in England by then. The moment
of awakening happened,
in fact, during a Latin lesson,
and afterwards, to prove
my new-found atheism, I bought
myself a rather
tasteless ham sandwich, and so partook
for the fi rst time of
the forbidden fl esh of the swine. No
thunderbolt arrived to
strike me down. I remember feeling
that my survival confi
rmed the correctness of my new
position. I did slightly
regret the loss of Paradise, though.
The Islamic heaven, at
least as I had come to conceive it, had
seemed very appealing to
my adolescent self. I expected to
be provided, for my
personal pleasure, with four beautiful
female spirits, or houris,, untouched by man or djinn. The
joys of the perfumed
garden; it seemed a shame to have to
give them up.
From that day to this, I
have thought of myself as a wholly
secular person, and have
been drawn towards the great
traditions of secular
radicalism--in politics, socialism; in the
arts, modernism and its
offspring--that have been the driving
forces behind much of
the history of the twentieth century.
But perhaps I write, in
part to fi ll up that emptied Godchamber
with other dreams.
Because it is, after all, a room
for dreaming in.
(Rushdie: “In God We
Trust” 377)
Page
30
How did Gibreel lose his faith?
Page
31
yahudan
Jew (Arabic).
brief encounter
Title of a 1945 movie about
a frustrated love affair that develops
when two commuters meet
on a train.
ships that pass
An allusion to the
common expression “ships that pass in the
night,” meaning people
who just barely miss meeting each other
or have only the most fl
eeting of encounters. From Longfellow’s
“Tales of a Wayside Inn”
(1877).
[32]
Bostan
See above, note on
Bostan.
18
Page
33
What characteristics do Saladin and Gibreel have in common?
[34]
a man with a glass skin
First reference to a
repeated image, which may have been
suggested by a passage
in one of Rushdie’s favorite novels,
Laurence Stern’s Tristram Shandy (1760, Vol.1, Chapter 23). See
also below, p. 169
[174].2
Page
34
Achha, means what?
Bombay-talk for “Okay,
what do you want?” (Hindi)
[35]
‘les acteurs ne sont pas des gens”
“Actors aren’t [real]
people.” Quotation from Les enfants du
paradis (The Children of Paradise), a famous French fi lm
about
the theater, directed by
Marcel Carné (1945). Contrary to what
Saladin thinks, it’s not
Frederick who says the lines “les acteurs
ne sont pas des gens,”
but Lacénaire. The complete speech is:
“Des gens. Les acteurs ne sont pas des gens. Toute le monde
et personne à la fois”--”People. Actors aren’t people. They’re
everyone and no one at
the same time.”
Page
35
Why does Saladin react the way he does to the migrant laborer’s
refusal to fasten his seat belt?
Scandal Point
See above, p. 13 [14].
Page
36
Changez Chamchawala
His fi rst name suggests
that of one of the greatest plunderers in
history: the early 13th
century Mongol Genghiz (or Chingis)
Khan.
Richard Burton
English adventurer and
orientalist (in both the traditional and new
senses of the term),
responsible for the most popular translation
the Arabian Nights into English as well as for other
translations
conveying a sense of the
“exotic” (that is to say, erotic) East, such
as the Kama Sutra of Vatasyayana and The Perfumed Garden of
Sheikh al-Nefzawi. The
original edition of his translation of the
Arabian Nights (Benares, 1885-1888) was in 16 volumes,
but
there have been several
subsequent editions in various formats.
Page
37
Grant Road
Now renamed “M. Shuakat
Ali Road.” In the Kamathipura red
light district.
Yellamma cult
Worship of a goddess
similar to Kali. In the south Indian state
of Karnataka, hundreds
of young women are given away as
“godly slave girls” in
the Bharata Poornima festival. They
become temple
prostitutes or servants of the prostitute cult called
“Servants of the Goddess
Yellamma.” Many young women have
been sold into Bombay
brothels under the belief that they were
serving the Goddess
Yellamma.
dancers in the more prosaic temples of the fl esh
There was a historical
connection of temple dancing with
prostitution, so that
temple dancing was eventually forbidden by
the government.
Page
38
folly
A term used to describe
an elaborate structure, often meant to
imitate some ancient
architectural style.
triumphal arch of Septimus Severus
Dated 203 CE. In Saladin
Chamcha’s paternal home in Bombay
there’s a reproduction
of the triumphal arch of this Roman
Emperor. It draws
together two themes: one, the conquest of
England (Severus put
down a rebellion in the colony), and
two, the battle between
father and son--Severus’ son Bassianus
Caracalla Antonius
plotted to kill him, Severus accusing him
of “want of fi lial tenderness.”
When Severus eventually died,
Caracalla married his
mother, and then murdered thousands of the
citizens of Alexandria
when they started making Oedipus jokes
about him. (David
Windsor) See also note on Septimus Severus,
below, p. 292 [301].
dhoti
Typical garment made of
folded cloth, worn by men below the
waist (Hindi).
Page
39
[40]
tinkas
Straws, slivers (Hindi).
Op Art
An art movement of the
sixties characterized by geometric
abstraction involving
carefully chosen colors which have
powerful optical effects
when used together.
Page
40
[41]
Asimov’s Foundation
The fi rst volume in
Isaac Asimov’s extremely popular and
infl uential series of
novels depicting the decline and fall of a
future galactic empire
modelled on ancient Rome. Rushdie has a
well-known interest in
science fi ction: his fi rst published novel,
Grimus, is science fi ction.
19
Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles
One of the best-selling
of all SF novels, published fi rst in 1950,
and depicting the
pollution and genocide brought to Mars by
human immigrants from
Earth.
brave new world
Refers to the title of
Aldous Huxley’s famous dystopian novel.
Page
41
Tyburn tree
The gallows where
executions were formerly carried out, an
ominous geographical
reference for Saladin’s fi rst experience
in London. The story of
Changez’ surly treatment of his son in
the city refl ects
Rushdie’s own experience with his father when
he was fi rst taken to
London to school (Hamilton 94) when they
stayed at the Cumberland
Hotel, at Marble Arch.
Describe how Changez treats his son while they are in London
and try to explain why he behaves as he does.
Page
42
The Pure Hell of St Trinians
One of a series of
popular comic fi lms about fi endishly
mischievous young girls
wreaking havoc in an English public
school, based on the
cartoons of Ronald Searle.
Chanakya
Vishnugupta (his
personal name) Chaanakya (son of Chaanak)
Kautilya (of the kutila
gotra, a descendent of Kutila). He
is reputedly the author
of the Arthasastra, and a legendary
advisor to princes,
including Chandragupta (the fi rst emperor
of that name). In the Kathasaritsagar, an 11th-century work by
Somadev, the fi rst
story in the “Madanamancuka” section, tells
how the Buddhist king of
Taxila, Kalingadatta, makes Ratnadatta
perform a deed similar
to the one described here. Ratnadatta is
the Hindu son of a
Buddhist father. Ratnadatta criticizes his father
for renouncing the Vedas
and hanging out with low-caste people;
the father complains to
Kalingadatta; Kalingadatta threatens to
kill Ratnadatta in two
months time; Ratnadatta discovers fear,
and requests
Kalingadatta to teach him how to attain liberation
from fear, and
Kalingadatta then gets him to carry round the bowl
of oil, to teach him the
proper concentration one should give to
religion (David
Windsor).
Page
43
Chicken-breasted
This is a pun on “pigeon-breasted,”
since the phrase usually
refers to a man with a
small or underdeveloped chest.
a boulder pressing down upon his chest
A repeated motif in the
novel, derived originally from the torment
imposed on the slave
Bilal by his master, trying to get him to
renounce Islam. When he
continued to recite “God is one, God is
one” under this torture,
Abu Bakr bought and freed him (Haykal
91 and Armstrong 121).
See Introduction, note on Bilal.
Page
44
kipper
This smoked herring is a
standard part of a classic English
breakfast. Rushdie
claims that this story happened to him, and is
“one of the very few
stories I’ve used in fi ction which needed no
embellishment at all”
(Hamilton 94; see also Lawson 58).
William the Conqueror
William the Conqueror
was the leader of the Norman invasion
which conquered England
in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. The
French-speaking Normans
became the new English nobility and
imported much of their
culture with them. Much that we think
of as characteristically
English, including the language itself,
was shaped by this
historical encounter. As a “post-colonial”
immigrant Rushdie likes
to remind the English that they also
have been colonized in
the past. See below, p. 129 [133].3
Page
45
fl ame of the forest
Botanical name: Butea frondosa, also known in India as Dhak,
Palas or Tesu.
chhooi-mooi touch-me-not plants
“Chhooi-moi” is
literally, in Hindi, “touch-die,” or “touch-menot,”
the plant Mimosa pudica; which is not the European “touchme-
not” (or noli-me-tangere), used as the name of two different
plants, both of whose
seed-pods burst when touched. The Indian
“touch-me-not” is harmed
when touched, and its symbolic
meaning is “someone who
is very frail and fragile, sensitive.”
The European ones (the
most important is used for is the yellow
balsam, Imapatiens noli-tangere) don’t die; its symbolic meaning
gives more of a sense of
a certain pride and aloofness. (David
Windsor)
[46]
fauntleroy
A pampered, sissifed
boy, somewhat unfairly derived from
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s
1886 novel, Little Lord Fauntleroy
about a waif who
discovers he is actually their heir to a British
title.
grand panjandrum
Conceited fool. See note
below, on “panjandrum,” p. 435 [450].
war with Pakistan began
After a prolonged series
of border skirmishes over Kashmir, fullblown
war erupted in late
August of 1965 and again in 1971.
Page
46
[47]
khali-pili khalaas
Literally “destroyed
just like that, for no reason.” Common
Bombay slang expression
(Hindi).
20
Rejoice . . . for what is lost is reborn.
A variation on Luke 15:9
in which an old woman who has lost a
precious coin says, “Rejoice
with me; for I have found the piece
which I had lost.”
Page
47
[48]
he knows not what he does
Humorous reference to
Christ’s words on the cross as he is being
tormented by his
executioners: “Father, forgive them; for they
know not what they do”
(Luke 23:34).
Page
48
hoosh
“Hoosh” (sometimes
spelled “hoos”) is a wild, uncouth person
(nothing demonic, just a
very rural person). An interesting word,
of unknown etymology in
Hindi. It could be possibly linked to
the “hush” (not
pronounced as the English “hush,” but rather with
the short version of the
vowel in “hoosh”), the word of command
used to get a camel to
stand up, or to scare away birds or other
animals. In
nineteenth-century Australian slang “hoosh” was used
as a derogatory term for
the Indian cameleers, based on this word.
(David Windsor)
Shaitan
Muslim (Arabic) name for
Satan, and amalgamated with the
Jewish/Christian Satan
in the novel, though the Islamic fi gure is
considerably less
imposing. See Armstrong, pp. 114-115.
Note that the description of Saladin’s parents’ attitude toward
Islam matches that which Rushdie attributes to his own parents.
See above, Introduction.
Page
49
Prospero Players
A theatrical troupe
named after the magician-hero of
Shakespeare’s fi nal
play, The Tempest. Because the play is set
on a Caribbean island
and features a savage, beastly native, it
is often referred to by
writers from Britain’s former colonies as
refl ecting imperialist
prejudices.
The Millionairess
This Shaw play actually
features an Egyptian doctor rather than
an Indian one.
Furthermore, according to Shaw, he “speaks
English too well to be
mistaken for a Native” (Shaw 922).
However, in the 1960 movie
adaptation, Peter Sellers played
the doctor role with his
patented Indian accent. See also note
below, for p. 49 [50],
on Peter Sellers. Rushdie would seem not
have remembered the play
accurately, though he makes a point
of having Zeeny
acknowledge, “Song is not in drama” (p. 51)
Shaw’s Egyptian doctor
winds up engaged to the millionairess
of the title, who is
almost as fi erce and destructive as Pamela
Chamcha.
What is Rushdie saying about the nature of self-invention among
immigrants?
[50]
wore bandannas
Seeking to identify with
the peasant women they claimed to be
supporting.
Trotskyist actresses
Leon Trotsky (Lev
Davidovich Bronstein) (1879-1940), after
helping Lenin lead the
Russian Revolution, broke with him and
advocated from exile a
more radical and idealistic version of
revolutionary politics
than his old comrade was working out
in the new Soviet Union.
After he was assassinated in Mexico,
his Fourth International
continued to campaign for his ideas.
Trotskyist organizations
tend to present themselves as the purest
of the pure
revolutionaries. The most famous Trotskyist actress is
Vanessa Redgrave, whose
political activities have been the target
of much criticism.
Peter Sellers
English comedian
(1925-1980) perhaps best remembered now for
his role as Inspector
Clousseau in the Pink Panther movies, but
also known for
performing various roles as an Indian. “Goodness
Gracious Me” was a
nonsense-song hit from the fi lm of The
Millionairess featuring Sellers singing with Sophia
Loren, but
of course the song is
not performed in the original G. B. Shaw
version in which Gibreel
is starring. Sophia Lyrics of the song.
Page
51
[52]
Zeeny Vakil
Her fi rst name (Zeenat)
may be a tribute to Bombay star Zeenat
Aman, who got her start
in fi lms in
Krisha, playing a character much like the younger
Zeeny Saldin
remembers on the next
page.
wogs
Insulting British term
for people of other races, used here
defi antly as an
assertive label for Indians who refuse to be
assimilated to Britain.
Page
52
In what ways does Zeeny criticize Saladin’s loss of Indian
identity?
Quant hairstyle
Mary Quant was a leading
fashion designer in London’s swinging
sixties, this refers to
her cap-like hairstyle.
Bhopal
Site of the worst
industrial accident in history. On December 3,
1984, the Union Carbide
Plant there released clouds of methyl
isocyanate into the air
which killed 2,500 people and grievously
harmed many others.
Union Carbide’s handling of the aftermath
was widely viewed as
cynical and grossly inadequate.
The Only Good Indian
General Philip H.
Sheridan, speaking at Fort Cobb in 1869,
commented “the only good
Indians I ever saw were dead” usually
21
misquoted as “The only
good Indian is a dead Indian.” Zeeny
puns on the phrase in
the title of her book to argue that rigid
stereotypes--even good
ones--of Indians should be avoided,
rejecting the strictures
of Hindu fundamentalists who seek to
censure (and censor) “bad”
Indians like Rushdie. As Margareta
Petersson points out, “She
looks upon Indian history as based on
the principle of
borrowing the clothes that fi t, Aryan, Mughal and
British. . . . It
appears that she functions here as a spokeswoman
for Rushdie, since he
brings forth her ideas and examples in
his own name in an essay
where he asserts that he always has
understood Indian
culture as consisting of a rich mixture of
traditions” (“Minority
Literatures in a Multi-Cultural Society,”
Petersson 298)
[53]
long pork
Reputed South Pacifi c
cannibal term for human fl esh.
Page
53
Angrez
English (Hindi).
[54]
Binaca smile
Advertising slogan of a
popular breath freshener.
kurta
Traditional long shirt
worn by Indian men (Hindi, Urdu).
George Miranda
Perhaps named after the
character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest,
a favorite play for
deconstruction by writers from formerly
colonized nations who
view it as an allegory of imperialism. Of
course, Miranda’s most
famous speech is “O brave new world/
That has such people in’t!”(Act
V, Scene i, ll. 183-184) used
ironically by Aldous
Huxley for the title of his dystopian novel,
Brave New World. Thus Miranda’s idealistic Marxism may be
alluded to in his name. The
name also reminds us of Bombay’s
Portuguese heritage.
Bhupen Gandhi
His name may be a
tribute to the famous Indian painter, Bhupen
Khakhar, who painted
Rushdie’s portrait which is now in
London, at the National
Portrait Gallery. The story of both these
paintings is told in the
1995 BBC fi lm “Salman Rushdie and the
Lost Portrait”
(Kuortti).
Asians
Zeeny ironically uses
the careless generalized label by which
British speakers refer
to all manner of people from Asia.
like a bloody lettuce
To Zeeny the name “Saladin”
suggests “salad.”
Page
54
Dalda
Clarifi ed butter
(Hindi, Urdu), ghee, widely used as a cooking oil
in India.
wogs
See note above, on p. 51
[52].
tinkers
Pot-menders.
our heads end up in Idi Amin’s fridge
The monstrous dictator
of Uganda was known to store the body
parts of some of his
victims for cannibalistic dining. When he
came to power, he
targeted the many Indian residents of the
country, especially
those active in trade.
Columbus was right
Columbus mistakenly
dubbed the people he met in the Caribbean
“Indians” because he
believed he had reached the Indies. The
name stuck even after it
was obvious that he had been mistaken,
and the islands were
named the West Indies.
[55]
Mister Toady
See note on Saladin
Chamcha’s name above. A “toady” is an
obsequious yes-man; but
the term also puns on the name of
Mister Toad, comic hero
of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth
Grahame (1908). Farrukh
Dhondy in his novel Bombay Duck
writes, “The Moghul
emperors had a man to feed them, to hold
the spoon and bring it
to their mouths. He stood to the left of the
throne and was known as
the ‘Chamcha,’ the spoon” (p. 74).
Hindustan
The Hindustan Ambassador
is Indian-manufactured luxury
car based on the British
classic Morris Oxford Series II, little
changed in style from
the 50s original.
Amazonic hijra got up like an Indian Wonder Woman
Hijras are technically
transsexuals whose male genitals have been
transformed into female
ones through a crude operation. The
Amazons of myth were
women who dressed and fought as men,
the opposite sort of
transsexual to the hijras. The comic book
character of Wonder
Woman is supposedly an Amazon, though
she is extremely womanly
in appearance.
Page
55
bustees
Slums (Hindi).
Shiv Sena
Right-wing nationalist
political party, Maratha/Hindu
supremacists, often
responsible for “communal” violence. Its
leader, Bal Thackeray,
objected to what he took to be a satirical
portrait of himself in
Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh under
the guise of “Raman
Fielding.” William Thackeray and Henry
Fielding were both
famous English novelists.
Datta Samant
Militant Bombay labor
leader.
[56]
Wonderland, Peristan, Never-Never, Oz
Note how the childhood
home of Saladin is lumped in with
fantasy lands by Lewis
Carroll, James Barrie, and L. Frank
22
Baum.
According to Zeeny, what was the difference between the Bombay
Saladin remembers from his childhood and the real Bombay?
the saints were in plastic bags
Jains do not worship
gods, but they do venerate saints, and
decorate temples with
their images.
Page
56
crowded dhaba
A tiny hotel, almost a
hut.
Thums Up Cola
An Indian imitation of
Coke. It is appropriate that Zeeny is
drinking it as she
denounces the common taste for “goods from
foreign;” but she wouldn’t
have had any choice since India
banned both Coca-Cola
and Pepsi until very recently.
[57]
Mr. Rajiv G.
Rajiv Gandhi (1944-91). Indian
politician, the eldest son of
Indira Gandhi. After she
was assassinated in 1984, he replaced
her as Prime Minister
until 1989. He was in his turn assassinated
in 1991 during an
election campaign. George seems to share
Rushdie’s own low
opinion of Gandhi.
Assam
In March of 1985,
thousands of Islamic refugees from
Bangladesh were
massacred by Hindus in the Indian province
of Assam. Most news
reports focussed on the involvement of
ignorant peasants, but
in fact better-educated Hindus, including
college students, were
also involved.
What is the point of the argument between George and Bhupen?
Page
57
we cracked your shell
Combined with the phrase
about stepping through the lookingglass
on the top of the next
page, this image relates to the theme
of the glass-encased
body which recurs throughout the novel.
Page
58
India’s Babel
In Genesis 11:1-9 God
prevents the completion of the skywardreaching
Tower of Babel by
multiplying the languages of the
builders so that they
can accomplish no more. India has scores
of languages which have
been the cause of much strife, often
bloody. Rushdie had used
the same metaphor in Midnight’s
Children, pp. 191-192.
seven-tiles and kabbadi
Both street games. In
Seven Tiles one team’s objective is to
stack seven stones
inside a small circle while the other team tries
to prevent them by
hitting them with a rubber ball (Sudhakar).
Kabbadi (Hindi) is a
sort of tag played by two teams of nine each.
a nikah ceremony
Muslim marriage ceremony
(Hindi, Urdu).
[59]
Dark skin in north India.
The dark-skinned
Dravidians who predominate in southern
India are traditionally
considered inferior by the lighter-skinned
Aryans of the north.
Matrimonial ads often specify “wheatish
complexion;” but she
acknowledges that Saladin is right in
refusing to attribute
her single state to her skin coloring.
Page
59
[60]
nawabs
Upper-class people,
nabobs (Hindi, Urdu).
Why I shouldn’t employ?
A typical Indian
expression of the sort Saladin has worked so
hard to purge from his
speech.
Page
60
the Man of a Thousand Voices and a Voice
Echoes the traditional
title of The Arabian Nights: The Tale of a
Thousand Nights and a Night and The Man of a Thousand Faces.
crisps
British for what
Americans call “chips,” which is turn what the
British call American “fries.”
[61]
Juliet
Shakespeare’s
inexperienced thirteen-year-old heroine, naive
though passionate. See
note below on “balcony,” p. [384].
Mae West
Raunchy actress famous
for her risqué jokes and bawdy, hardliving
characters. Her classic
fi lm is perhaps I’m No Angel 1933).
we could be the United Nations
Margareta Petersson
points out that Saladin is also compared to
the United Nations on p.
192 [198](Petersson 273).
‘You’re the one who’s circumcised.’
Muslim men as well as
Jewish ones are circumcised.
looked like a Michelin poster
Chubby, like the bulging
Michelin man used by the French tire
company as its symbol
(see below, p. 271 [280]) His name is
“Bibendum.”
Page
61
dark stars
Alludes to collapsed
stars which emit no light, but have enormous
gravitational fi elds.
The largest become black holes.
23
Botticelli Venus
Sandro Botticelli’s most
famous painting is his “Birth of Venus”
(c. 1482) depicting an
idealized nude woman and imitating
classical sculptures
from ancient Greece.
Olympia
A famous 1863 painting
by Edouard Manet of a nude woman of
doubtful virtue,
parodying the 1538 Venus of Urbino by Titian.
She represents a later
ideal of the feminine form.
Monroe
Marilyn Monroe is the
most modern in this series of ideallyformed
women.
upheavals of Armenian-Jewish history
The more familiar Jewish
history of exile and genocide is here
joined to that of the
Armenians, who have seldom ruled over
a homeland of their own,
being overrun and subjected in turn
by Iranians and Turks.
The latter massacred them wholesale in
the late 19th century
and at the end of World War I. Mimi is the
ultimate exile, seeking
neurotically to buy the roots she did not
inherit. But she plays
in turn the part of an invading imperialist,
as the protesting ghosts
in the houses she buys make clear.
a sea-coast in Bohemia
A literary joke. Bohemia
has no seacoast; but Shakespeare,
ignorant of that fact,
famously set Act 3, Scene 3 of The Winter’s
Tale in “Bohemia. A desert country near the sea.”
[62]
the babu part
Literally a clerk; but
usually derogatory for a “pidgin” English
speaker (Hindi).
Page
62
Pygmalien
A pun on the name of
Pygmalion, the classical Greek sculptor
who fell in love with
his own creation and brought her to life.
Hence the name is
appropriate for a piece of rock which has
come to life. The myth
is in turn the source for the title of George
Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion in which a professor transforms
a cockney waif into the
toast of London by teaching her how to
speak like a lady, a
theme closely related to the themes of The
Satanic Verses. The play was transformed in 1956 by Alan
Jay
Lerner and Frederick
Lowe into the musical, My Fair Lady.
Matilda, the Australien
Pun on “Australian’ and “alien,”
connected to the name
“Matilda,” of Australia’s
most famous song, Waltzing Matilda.
Alien Korns, maybe because you could lie down among them
From John Keats” “ Ode
to a Nightingale,” stanza 7:
Perhaps the selfsame
song that found a path
through the sad heart of
Ruth when sick for love,
She stood in tears amid
the alien corn.
“Corn” here means “grain,”
probably wheat. The original ties in
with the theme of
immigration (Ruth was a foreigner in Israel),
but Rushdie implies the
Alien Korns derive their name from their
propensity for sleeping
with groupies.
[63]
Ridley
An allusion to the name
of the director of Alien (1979) Ridley
Scott.
Signourney Weaver
Star of Alien.
Francis Bacon
British painter famous
for grotesque portraits.
Kermit and Miss Piggy
Hosts of The Muppet Show.
Maxim and Mamma Alien
Puns on “Maximilian,’
and “mammalian” as well as Mimi
Mamoulian’s name.
Page
63
once the video-computers had gone to work--made them look just
like simulations
This accurately
describes the technique used to create the 80s
briefl y famous
satirical television character, Max Headroom.
[64]
Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan, see
note above, in Introduction.
Page
64
re-invented
Azfar Hussain on this
word:
Rushdie’s characterization
of the Bombay fi lm industry as
endlessly reinventing
Western fi lms is a postmodernist kind
of
parodic-ironical-satirical play on words: “re-invention”
does not so much imply “creativity”
as it does “fetishizing,”
“stereotyping,” or, as
Baudrillard puts it, the “commodifi ed
re-production of images”--images
of the folkloric,
mythical pursuit; comic
resolutions of apparent confl icts
and confrontations
through highly artifi cial compromises
including the crossing
of class boundaries and culturally
and religiously
sanctioned hierarchical gender roles. Other
commonly reworked themes
besides the dying heroine,
are the misunderstood
heroine, the sacred heroine, “patiseba,”
(the
husband-nursing/adoring his wife), the struggle
against parents who
oppose the relationship. But none of
these forms of struggle
confront the confl ict between the
base and superstructure
of the semi-capitalist, semi-feudal,
male-dominated society
that these Bombay love-story fi lms
endlessly depict;
understandably, these fi lms endlessly erase
the possibilities of
class struggles.
24
The Magnifi cent Seven
Already an imitation,
being a John Sturges remake of Akira
Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. So Indian fi lmmakers are
imitating an American
who was imitating a Japanese fi lmmaker.
Both concern a band of
fi ghters who join to clean up a town
dominated by thugs.
There were also three American sequels to
the Sturges fi lm.
Love Story
Hugely popular 1970
sentimental movie ending in the death of
the heroine from
leukemia. Several Bombay fi lm titles allude
directly to it, such as Arek Prem Kahini (A New Love Story).
dacoits
Bandits.
crorepati penthoused wretch
Ten million equals one crore, hence millionaire, a very rich
person (Hindi). Changez
is being compared specifi cally to the
eccentric millionaire
Howard Hughes, who spent the latter part of
his life secluded in a
Las Vegas penthouse.
[65]
Gargoyles
Technically, the
grotesque sculpted heads which serve as
downspouts on the roofs
of Gothic churches, but more generally
any such grotesque
decorative sculpture. Changez’s tendency
to transform his face in
monstrous ways foreshadows his son’s
similarly monstrous
transformations.
a high-walled compound nicknamed the Red Fort
Elaborate complex built
in Delhi by the Mughal Emperor Shah
Jahan in the mid-17th
century, Lal Qual’ah.
Page
65
Dresden ballerinas
Valuable fi gurines of
the kind known as “Meissen porcelain”
produced in the eastern
German city of Dresden beginning in
1710. Both they and the
glass bulls are frozen in time, like the
room they occupy.
[66]
Vallabhbhai
Using an intimate form
of address to Vallabh (Hindi).
Pages
66-67
[67]
Popeye-forearms and Bluto belly
Cartoon characters with,
respectively, enormous forearms and a
swollen belly. Popeye’s
comic strip enemy was originally named
Brutus, but he was
renamed Bluto in the animated cartoons.
Page
68
[69]
pooja
A general term which
comprises sacrifi cial offerings, prayers,
and many other
reverential acts in Hinduism (Hindi). More
commonly spelled “puja.”
Page
69
Old Man of the Sea
Refers not to Hemingway’s
The Old Man and the Sea, but to an
episode in Sinbad’s fi
fth travel (83-84 nights). Sinbad helps an
old man cross a river. As
he sits on Sinbad’s shoulders, the old
man nearly throttles him
with his legs. Sinbad eventually shakes
off his burden by
getting the old man drunk. He smashes his head
with a big stone. Sinbad
learns from the sailors who rescue him
that he has killed the
Old Man of the Sea. The image recurs when
Gibreel is forced to
bear “the old man of the sea” (in this case, the
1) on his shoulders (212
[218]). (Note by Martine Dutheil)
I don’t explain you any more.
What does this sentence mean? Why is it important? What does it
tell us about this father/son relationship?
Hamza-nama cloths
Illustrating scenes from
the 16th-century Dastan-e-Amir Hamza
(Urdu). Hamza is the
uncle of the Prophet; the Dastan-e-Amir
Hamzah is a collection
of stories of the life of this man, but is
largely concerned with
his adventures before he met the Prophet.
The particular version
of the romance that was executed at
Akbar’s court is now
largely vanished; only a few hundred cloths
remain of an original
14,000 (it would have been the greatest of
all illuminated
manuscripts). The particular cloth that is described
on p. 70 [71], showing
the giant trapped in a well, is in the
holdings of the Victoria
and Albert Museum. Their collection of
these manuscripts is
primarily made up of ones found covering
windows in Srinagar.
(Note by David Windsor.)
Page
70
Hind
See Introduction, note
on “Hind.”
Uhud
A battle in which
Muhammad was defeated (March 21, 625 CE, 3
AH). After the battle “Hind
carved open Hamza’s breast, tore out
the liver of the man who
had killed her father at Badr, chewed it
up and spat it out.” (Rodinson
181 and Armstrong 186-189). See
note in Introduction on
Hind.
[71]
Chandela bronzes
See note above on
Chandela period p. 12.
Ravi Varma
Raja Ravi Varma Koil Tampuran of Kilimanoor
(1848-1906)
came from an
aristocratic family that had a strong interest in art.
Raja Ravi Varma laid the
foundations of oil painting in India;
he was the fi rst to
follow European realistic styles, though he
never studied overseas,
being afraid of thereby losing caste.
He was enormously
popular, particularly for his paintings of
religious subjects, but
suffered the fate of other realistic painters
throughout the world
with the advent of modernism in art and
25
became sneered at.
(David Windsor)
Jaisalmer lattices
See above, note on p. 26
[27].
Page
71
Nandi bulls
Nandi is the vehicle of
Shiva: a white, humped bull. He is always
portrayed in temples of
Shiva, sometimes as anthropomorphic.
His veneration is
related to the general respect for cows in
Hinduism.
Page 73 [74]
padyatra
Pilgrimage undertaken on
foot (Hindi). See below, p. 488 [502].
to Assam
Where they may be
massacred. See above, p. 56 [57].
M G R
Marudur G. Ramachandran,
Tamil Nadu’s Ronald Reagan, who
made numerous Robin Hood
movies in which he defended
the common man from
various villains. As a result, he was,
even before Ronald
Reagan became President of the U.S.,
elected Chief Minister
of Tamil Nadu in early 1980. He made
“mythologicals” like the
kind Gibreel Farishta stars in (note
by Srinivas Aravamudan,
see also Avramudan “Being God’s
Postman” 9).
N. T. Rama Rao
Starred in Hindu “mythologicals”
(in the novel called
“theologicals”) and was
elected head of Andhra Pradesh. (See
Avramudan: “Being God’s
Postman” 9.)
Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan, see
note above, in Introduction.
Durga Khote
Brahmin fi lm star whose
appearance in Ayodhyecha Raja (1932)
helped to legitimize
respectable actresses performing in fi lms.
Before this time, female
roles had been played by boys. Her
politics were liberal,
but anticommunist.4
Page
74
[76]
Fancy-a-Donald T-shirts
Warning:
this is an “R-rated” note, minors and easilyoffended
persons
should skip it. First a short lesson in Cockney
rhyming slang. A word is
rhymed with another word which is part
of a word phrase, of
which only the non-rhyming part is usually
spoken. Clear? OK, here’s
a simple example: “head” rhymes with
“bread,” which is part
of the phrase “loaf of bread;” so the word
“loaf” comes to mean “head,”
as in the expression, “Use your
loaf!” Another more racy
example: “fart” becomes “rasberry tart”
which leads to “razz.”
To “razz” people was originally to make
a farting sound at them.
In the present instance, in the question,
“Fancy a fuck?”
(American equivalent: “Wanna fuck?”) “fuck”
has been linked to “Donald
Duck” and “Donald” substituted for
the word. Print up a
t-shirt with the words “Fancy a” followed by
a picture of Donald Duck
and a question mark, and you have a
Fancy-a-Donald T-shirt
of a cheerful vulgarity likely to appeal to
the members of the
Prospero Players who probably safely assume
their fellow Indians at
home will not get the joke.
natyam dancers
Traditional Indian
temple dancers who make a characteristic
movement of their heads
from side to side without turning their
faces (Sanskrit, Hindi).
Benarsi saris
Saris in the style of
Benares, or Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh.
Page
75
‘rail roko’ demonstration
A type of protest in
which railroad lines are blocked by the
demonstrators (Hindi).
[77]
Mr Charles Darwin
The founder of modern
evolutionary theory, rejected by Biblical
literalists like
Dumsday. Joel Kuortti suggests Dumsday’s fi rst
name, Eugene, may ironically
refer to eugenics, systematic
breeding which artifi
cially imitates the process of evolution. See
also note on Lamarck,
above, p. 5.
Christian guard
Christian God: Dumsday
(=doom, dumb) speaks with a thick
Texas accent.
What characteristics of Dumsday do you think Rushdie considers
peculiarly American?
Page
76
God-ridden
Haunted by thoughts of
God. Darwin began his career as a
theist, and wrestled for
years with his doubts as the evidence
against the existence of
the Biblical Creator mounted. He was
not, as fundamentalists
like Dumsday often suppose, a dogmatic
atheist whose
evolutionary beliefs were designed to reinforce his
skepticism; rather he
tried repeatedly to accommodate religious
sensibilities in his
work.
Beelzebub
A traditional name for
the devil (see, for instance, Matthew
10:25) (Hebrew). See
note below on “Baal,” p. 97 [100] and p.
167 [173], where the
manticore calls Saladin “Beelzebub”.
Asmodeus
A Hebrew demon featured
in the deuterocanonical book of Tobit
(3:8), associated in
Jewish tradition as well with Solomon.
26
Lucifer
Isaiah 14:12 addresses
the conquered king of Babylon as
Lucifer “How art thou
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of
the morning!” This verse
was interpreted by early Christians as
referring to Satan. The
name originally refers to the planet we
call Venus (see p. 131
[135]); but because of its use in this verse
has come to be connected
with the tradition of Satan’s fall from
Heaven.
Rotary Club
International
businessmen’s organization founded in Chicago in
1905, promotes peace and
community work. Generally viewed
as a conservative
organization which Rushdie presumes might
welcome a speaker such
as Dumsday.
[78]
Vasco da Gama
Portuguese navigator, fi
rst European to sail around Cape Horn to
fi nd a sea route to
Asia in 1498, was appointed Viceroy to India in
1524, but died and was
buried only three months after he arrived,
in Cochin, where Dumsday
has just been speaking.
hashish
A drug made, like
marijuana, of hemp.
Page
77
one hundred and eleven days
This prolonged ordeal is
modeled on 1985 TWA hijacking
discussed above in the
note on p. 4.
What effect does it have on the novel that the hijackers are
Indians? Discuss.
Shelley Long and Chevy Chase
The fi lm is “Foul Play,”
a 1978 preposterous detective caper fi lm
invoving a plot to
assassinate the Pope set in San Francisco.
Page 78 [79]
Dara Singh Buta Singh Man Singh
Sikhs are traditionally
named “Singh.” Several notorious
incidents involving Sikh
separatists had happened in the period
preceding the
publication of the novel, including the assassination
of Indira Gandhi. The
bandits’ pseudonyms are taken from the
following celebrities:
Dara Singh is a wrestler turned movie star;
Buta Singh is a
prominent politician; Man Singh was a bandit
who joined forces with
Phoolan Devi (see note on Phoolan Devi,
below, p. 263 [272]).
Tavleen
Tavleen Singh is a
well-known journalist who writes about
political issues.
the oasis of Al-Zamzam
Named after a famous
spring; see note below on p. 91 [94].
Page 80 [82]
Hijras! Chootias!
Eunuchs! Fuckers! See
note on “Amazonic Hijra,” above, p. 54
[55] (Hindi, Urdu).
Page 81 [83]
funtoosh
Done (Hindi).
single unifi ed force
See note on “unifi ed fi
eld theory” above, on p. 24.
djellabah
A loose hooded gown,
worn especially in North Africa (Arabic).
Page 82 [84]
Xixabangma Feng
Also known as
Kao-seng-tsan-Feng (Gosainthan) and Shisha
Pangma, located in
Tibet. Most of the heights of these mountains
recited by Chamcha
differ slightly from later measurements, the
last two are listed in
the wrong order, and two are omitted from
the sequence: Cho Oyu,
(Kuortti).
Annapurna
This Nepalese mountain
has several peaks,the highest of which is
now believed to be
slightly higher than the fi gure Gibreel recites.
Chomolungma
Tibetan name of Mt.
Everest, located in Nepal and Tibet.
K2
Also known as Mt. Godwin
Austen, Dapsang, and Chogori,
located in Pakistan.
Kanchenjunga
Also called
Kangchenjunga and Kinchinjunga, or (in Nepali)
Kumbhkaran or Lungur.
Located in Nepal-Sikkim.
Makalu
Also known as
Kangshungtse. Located in Nepal and Tibet.
Dhaulagiri
In Nepal.
Manaslu
In Nepal.
Nanga Parbat
Located in the Indian
part of Jammu & Kashmir.
Page 84 [86]
Dalai Lama
In Tibetan religious
belief he is an incarnation of Avalokitesvara,
the guardian bodhisattva
of Tibet. When the current Dalai Lama
dies, a new one is
sought among recently born babies. The 14th
27
one is Tenzin Gyatso
(1937-), who received the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1989; after the
1959 Chinese occupation of Tibet he
was exiled in Dharamsala,
Punjab, India, where he created an
alternative democratic
government (Kuortti).
Page 85 [86]
the Old Gramsci chestnut
Italian Marxist Antonio
Gramsci (1891-1937). The closest thing
to this quotation I have
found is “The crisis consists precisely
in the fact that the old
is dying and the new cannot be born”
(Gramsci 276). Rushdie
comments, “So many variations of the
phrase were common in
the conversation of both Indian and
British leftists that I
felt free to describe it as an old chestnut.
It may be less of a
chestnut than I thought. . .” (personal
communication from
Salman Rushdie).
Page 86 [87]
shorn Sirdarji
Devout Sikhs never trim
their beards or hair (Hindi).
Page
87
albatross
[88]
Reminiscent of the
albatross in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem,
“The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner,” which tells the story of a
ship whose crew almost
all died at sea, as the passengers of this
jumbo jet are about to
die.
and the walls came tumbling down
Refrain of an old
African-American spiritual by H.T. Burleigh
retelling the story of
Joshua’s miraculous destruction of the city
of Jericho (see Joshua
6). Since the story in the Bible is presented
as a victory, the image
is appropriate for the upbeat twist Rushdie
gives the bombing.
(Notes for Chapter I)
1 Note by Martine Dutheil:
Defoe contends that
whereas Milton’s Satan, after falling through
Chaos for nine
days--which inspires the snide remark “a good
poetical fl ight, but
neither founded on Scripture or philosophy”
(71)--is swallowed up
and locked into Hell, the Devil is more
likely to be set free in
the atmosphere and wander among us. The
image of a wandering
Devil is found in Ephesians (ii. 2), I Peter
(v. 8), and Job (i. 7):
Now there was a day when
the sons of God came to present
themselves before the
Lord, and Satan came also among
them. And the Lord said
unto Satan, Whence comest thou?
Then Satan answered the
Lord, and said, From going to and
fro in the earth, and
walking up and down in it.
Whereas Defoe claims to
pit biblical authority against Milton’s
mythopoetic universe, he
actually misreads Paradise Lost,
since Milton’s Satan is
far from being confi ned to hell. Defoe
nevertheless substitutes
for Milton’s “defi cient, if not absurd”
(72) scheme the
suggestion that “he is more a vagrant than
a prisoner; that he is a
wanderer” (73). The next paragraph
develops this idea,
which Rushdie uses in a truncated form in the
epigraph. Following the
standard doctrine, Defoe’s unexpurgated
text reads:
Satan being thus confi
ned to a vagabond, wandering,
unsettled condition, is
without any certain abode; for though
he has, in consequence
of his angelic nature, a kind of
empire in the liquid
waste or air, yet this is certainly part
of his punishment that
he is [continually hovering over this
inhabited globe of
earth, swelling with the rage of envy at the
felicity of his rival,
man, and studying all the means possible
to injure and ruin him;
but extremely limited in his power,
to his unspeakable
mortifi cation: this is his present state,]
without any fi xed
abode, place, or space allowed him to rest
the sole of his foot
upon. (73-4)
(For a discussion of the
relations between Defoe’s The History
of the Devil and Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, see my “The
Epigraph to The Satanic Verses: Defoe’s Devil and Rushdie’s
Migrant”, forthcoming).
Martine Dutheil. See Dutheil, pp. 53-61
for a much fuller
discussion of this theme.
2 The image of human
bodies covered with a thin skin of glass
which recurs in the
novel in various contexts may have been
inspired by a passage
from one of Rushdie’s favorite novels:
Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.. In Vol. 1, Chapter 23, the
narrator speculates upon
the existence of glass-covered beings.
He begins by referring
to a myth that Momus, the Greek god of
satire, thought that
humans should have windows into their hearts
so that their secret
feelings could be discerned. The reference to
“window-money” refers to
the fact that houses used to be taxed
according to the number
of windows they possessed.
If the fi xture of Momus’s glass, in the human breast,
according to the
proposed emendation of that arch-critick,
had taken place,--fi
rst, This foolish consequence would
certainly have
followed,--That the very wisest and the
very gravest of us all,
in one coin or other, must have paid
window-money every day of
our lives.
And, secondly, That had
the said glass been there set up,
nothing more would have
been wanting, in order to have
taken a man’s character,
but to have taken a chair and gone
softly, as you would to
a dioptrical beehive, and look’d
in--view’d the soul
stark naked;--observ’d all her motions,-
-her
machinations;--traced all her maggots from their fi rst
engendering to their
crawling forth;--watched her loose
in her frisks, her
gambols, her capricios; and after some
notice of her more
solemn deportment, consequent upon
such frisks,
&c.--then taken your pen and ink and set down
nothing but what you had
seen, and could have sworn to:-
-But this is an
advantage not to be had by the biographer
in this planet,--in the
planet Mercury (belike) it may be so,
if not better still for
him;--for there the intense heat of the
country, which is proved
by computators, from its vicinity to
the sun, to be more than
equal to that of red hot iron,--must,
I think, long ago have
vitrifi ed the bodies of the inhabitants,
28
(as the effi cient
cause) to suit them for the climate (which is
the fi nal cause); so
that, betwixt them both, all the tenements
of their souls, from top
to bottom, may be nothing else, for
aught the soundest
philosophy can shew to the contrary, but
one fi ne transparent
body of clear glass (bating [excepting]
the umbilical
knot);--so, that till the inhabitants grow old
and tolerably wrinkled,
whereby the rays of light, in passing
through them, become so
monstrously refracted,--or return
refl ected from their
surfaces in such transverse lines to the
eye, that a man cannot
be seen thro’;--his soul might as well,
unless, for more
ceremony,--or the trifl ing advantage which
the umbilical point gave
her,--might, upon all other accounts,
I say, as well play the
fool out o’doors as in her own house.
But this, as I said
above, is not the case of
the inhabitants of this
earth;--our minds shine
not through the body,
but are wrapt up here
in a dark covering of
uncrystalized fl esh and
blood; so that if would
come to the specifi ck
characters of them, we
must go some other way
to work.
3 Feroza Jussawalla on
Migration in The Satanic Verses:
In “Rushdie’s Dastan-e-Dilruba: The Satanic Verses as Rushdie’s
Love Letter to Islam,”
Feroza Jussawalla makes an interesting
argument for viewing the
main characters of the novel not
as rootless exiles, but
as exhibiting characteristics typical
of Muslims in India,
both by history and by tradition. Their
transplanted nature can
be seen as part of their heritage rather
than as a break with
their heritage. She argues that the Persian
conquest of India is at
least as signifi cant to Rushdie as was the
English conquest, and
that the Indian Muslim culture he explores
in the novel is largely
a Persian Mughal import which needs to be
seen against a
colonialism that goes back half a millenium.
Arguing against Gayatri
Spivak’s analysis of these characters, she
comments:
this is a rather narrow,
eurocentric view of
postcoloniality, as it
sees all colonization as
stemming from Europe and
in that it sees
an individual like
Rushdie as the effect of
post-European
colonization. Rushdie is the
European metropolitan
intellectual who
does not dislodge
metropolitan defi nitions
but instead reinscribes
them into his roots
and his history, which
are post--yet another
colonization--Muslim
colonization.
In contemporary academic
criticism, the two
main characters of The Satanic Verses, Gibreel
Farishta and Salahuddin
Chamcha, are seen
as the essence of
post-European coloniality-
-as hybrid migrants. But
migration and
hybridization are not
just conditions of recent
postcoloniality. They
are in Rushdie’s work
metaphors for the
Prophet, who himself was
a migrant who took
shelter in exile. Rushdie
parallels their
migration with Mohammed’s
emigration to Yathrib, where
in exile he
rethinks his sense of
idenity. Both these
characters do so too as
they fi nd that their
liberation from the
monstrous states they have
grown into (and here
Rushdie literally depicts
them as monsters), from
their doubts and their
distance from their
faith, can be gained only
through their own
people, the family that owns
the Shandaar cafe,
actually the family with
another Islamic
metaphor, the family of Hind
Sufayan. Though the
Sufayans had originally
been opposed to
Mohammed, through a series
of treaties, Abu Sufayan
himself, a powerful
campaign organizer,
remained neutral in the
battle against Medina.
Mohammed had granted
complete immunity to any
Medinans who took
shelter in the Sufayan’s
home. Thus it is that
Rushdie’s character, the
contemporary mohajir
(immigrant), Saladin
Chamcha, takes shelter
in the Sufayan home and
is liberated only
through them. Rushdie is
in fact saying that
liberation from this “subaltern”
status can only
be achieved by turning
to one’s roots and one’s
religious/national
group/family.
Thus, Gibreel Farishta
and Salahuddin
Chamcha reject their
categorization as halfbreed
bowler-hatted Englishmen
and stretch
backward into their
Islamic history which they
reclaim in a celebration
of their heritage--a
celebration that has
been misunderstood largely
by contemporary critics
such as Homi Bhabha,
who classifi es these fi
ctional characters and
their real-world
counterparts as subalterns in a
marginalized space. It
is this interpretation of
the work that those who
actually occupy the
marginal spaces in
metropolitan London--the
Muslims of Bradford and
Brick Lane--have
been deceived by. They
have been led by all
the Western press’s
interpretations, which are
largely dependent on
academic interpretations,
to see Rushdie’s fi ctional
characters as
caricatures of
themselves. They therefore
attempt to reject this
caricature of themselves
as violently as they can
through book burnings
and so on.
“Rushdie’s Dastan-e-Dilruba,” pp. 60-61.
4 Durga Khote (A note by Salil Tripathi and David Windsor)
Despite what might be
inferred from this passage, Durga Khote
was not a political
conservative; she was in fact a radical for her
times, choosing to act
in an industry where young boys acted as
women, since acting was
considered a “bad” profession. That was
truly remarkable, since “girls
from good homes” did not perform
in public. (That problem
is depicted accurately by Shyam
Benegal in his 1978 fi
lm, Bhumika (The Role), based on the tragic
life of another Marathi
heroine, Hansa Wadkar.)
29
Khote was an active
participant of the Indian People’s Theater
Association (IPTA), a
progressive, left-leaning movement of
artists, writers and
playwrights with links with the Communist
Party and the
Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA), and
which was incorporated
as an all-Indian movement in 1943.
The IPTA and the PWA can
be seen as part of a remarkable
cultural fl owering just
prior to independence, and many of those
involved would defi ne
Indian literature and cinema, and to a large
extent defi ne its concerns,
in the period immediately following
Independence. Khote was
committed to “democracy” as she
understood it. Her
family opposed and campaigned against Indira
Gandhi’s emergency
(1977-1979) which suspended civil rights.
Khote came from an
enlightened family, and had enlightened
children who married
beyond their caste--also remarkable,
considering that most
must have married in 1940s/1950s.
Her daughter-in-law is
the renowned stage director, Vijaya
Mehta, whose credits
include reviving great Sanskrit plays like
Mrichhakatika and Hayavadana (reinterpreted by Girish
Karnad
into Hindi and Marathi);
performing Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk
Circle in Marathi (as Ajab Nyay Vartulacha); and getting a
German team to perform
Kalidasa’s Shakuntala in Germany. She
also acts in fi lms, and
is at present the director of the National
Center for the
Performing Arts at Nariman Point in Bombay.
Other relations married
into the princely Holkar family. One of
the grand-daughters,
Tina Khote, made a fi lm on Durga Khote’s
life.
Durgabai, as she was
known, lived her autumn years at Alibag,
the waterfront beach
area which, in a very crude way, can be
likened to Martha’s
Vineyard (summer homes and all that, for
the super-rich). Her
grandson, Ravi, makes movies; another
grandson, Deven, works
with TV, and another relation formed a
company called Durga
Khote Productions, which produced Wagle
Ki Duniya, a TV program created by the noted
cartoonist, R.K.
Laxman.
Rushdie’s intellectual,
aesthetic and political debts to the
PWA and the IPTA are
hinted at in a number of his novels. In
Midnight’s Children, there are Saleem’s Mumani and Mama,
Pia, an actress, and
Hanif, a scriptwriter trying to bring social
realism to Bombay fi
lms, “writing about ordinary people and
social problems” (p.
242). At artistic gatherings at their fl at on
Marine Drive, “the air
was thick with political, and other, chatter”
(p. 246). Among others
described as turning up are members of
Uday Shankar’s dance
group--whose involvement was crucial to
the initial success of
the IPTA. Given that so much of Midnight’s
Children is based on Rushdie’s own life--in an
interview with
the principal of the
school Rushdie attended he says that the
school-based incidents
in the novel all actually took place--it’d be
interesting to know who
were the artists, musicians and writers
who were part of his
parents’ social group. M. F. Hussain and
Bhupen Khakkar obviously
knew them pretty well, otherwise we
wouldn’t have had the
story that set off The Moor’s Last Sigh.
Rushdie pays homage to
three writers in the latter novel: Ismat
Chughtai, Sadat Hasan
Manto and Mulk Raj Anand. The last
named was of course
crucial to the setting up of the PWA (it is
interesting that the PWA
was an example of a writers association
in India that managed to
overcome some of the language barriers,
including English and
Urdu language writers), as well as being
a supporter of modernist
painting in India. The other two writers
were also members of the
amazing milieu of Urdu writers in
Bombay, though Manto did
run into trouble with the PWA (or at
least, with the more
communist members of it) who found his
works too pornographic
and pessimistic.
It is unfortunate that
more attention hasn’t been drawn to this
part of Rushdie’s
heritage - the progressive writers’ and artists of
Bombay.
30
Chapter
II: Mahound
Plot
outline for Chapter II
Gibreel falls asleep and
“dreams” the beginning of the other main
plot of the novel, the
story of Mahound, more or less closely
based on the traditions
surrounding Muhammad and the founding
of Islam in the seventh
century. It is this plot that resulted in
the attacks on Rushdie
by Muslim critics. We see Mahound
surveying the city of
Jahilia and are introduced to various
signifi cant locales.
The period corresponds historically to the
early days of Muhammad’s
preaching in Mecca, where he was
not widely accepted, and
the Ka’ba was still fi lled with pagan
idols, including those
of the three goddesses who are the focus of
the “satanic verses.”
Mahound’s preaching has earned the hatred
of the ruler of Jahilia,
Abu Simbel, whose fortune is derived
from worshippers at
their temples. Abu Simbel, aware that Baal
is his wife Hind’s
lover, blackmails the poet Baal to satirize the
Mahound and his
companions.
But then he tries a more
effective alternative to render the prophet
harmless by offering him
toleration if he in turn will acknowledge
the three goddesses
whose temples he and his wife receive their
income from. Mahound
horrifi es his followers by seeming to be
willing to deviate from
his message of strict monotheism. He
consults with the Angel
Gibreel, who has up to this point been
dictating holy scripture
to him, and becomes convinced that the
“satanic verses” quoted
at the bottom of p. 114 [top of p. 117],
acknowledging the three
goddesses, should be proclaimed as
inspired, though the
narrator hints on p. 112 [114] that they have
been inspired not by
God, but by the devil.
Mahound’s decision
produces an orgy of celebration which
results in death for
some, and he himself wakes up in Hind’s
bedroom. Mahound realizes
the “satanic verses” are indeed
satanic, and goes to the
Ka’ba to repudiate them. A fi erce
persecution of Mahound’s
followers is unleashed, and he has to
fl ee to Yathrib.
Gibreel dreams that he is being attacked by the
goddesses, for in his
dream-role as the archangel/devil he has
been responsible both
for suggesting the verses and repudiating
them.
Note
on the “Satanic Verses”
by
Joel
Kuortti
One of the most
controversial topics in the Satanic Verses
“affair” is the question
of the “satanic verses” themselves. The
title of the novel
refers to an incident which is on the disputed
terrain between fi ction
and fact. The “satanic verses” are, in
transliteration from
Arabic, tilk al-gharaniq al-’ula wa inna
shafa’ata-hunna la-turtaja, and translate into
English as “these
are exalted females
whose intercession is to be desired” (Satanic
Verses p. 340). (See the note on the translation
of these verses,
below.) The verses
comprising this sentence are said to have
been added to the 53rd
sura of the Qur’an entitled Surat-annajm,
The Star (53:19ff)in order to acknowledge the
validity of the
goddesses Lat, Manat,
and ‘Uzza. The tradition goes on to say
that the verses were
later withdrawn and denounced as “satanic.”
But the historicity of
the incident is disputed by some of the
early Muslim historians,
especially (Muhammad ben Yasar)
Ibn Ishaq (d. 768 CE),
(Muhammad Abu ‘Abdullah Ibn Umar)
al-Waqidi (747-822 CE),
(Muhammad Ibn Muslim Ibn Shihab)
al-Zuhri (d.741 CE), Muhammad Ibn Sa’d (d. 845
CE), al-Tabari
(c. 839-923 CE), Ibrahi.
Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq’s editor, omits
the passage, but it is
preserved as a quotation from al-Tabari, in
Guillaume’s translation
of Ibn Ishaq (Ishaq 165-166. See Muir,
pp.lxxix-lxxx).
Some Islamic and most
non-Muslim Western commentators on
the Qur’an have accepted
this story of Muhammad’s momentary
acceptance of the
verses; others have repudiated it. But the
prevailing Muslim view
of what is called the “Gharaniq”
incident is that it is a
fabrication created by the unbelievers
of Mecca in the early
days of Islam, and, Haykal comments,
afterwards the “story
arrested the attention of the western
Orientalists who took it
as true and repeated it ad nauseam.”
(Haykal 105) The main
argument against the authenticity of the
two verses in Haykal and
elsewhere is that “its incoherence is
evident upon the least
scrutiny. It contradicts the infallibility of
every prophet in
conveying the message of His Lord.” (Haykal
107) In other words,
since Muslims believe Muhammad to have
faithfully reported God’s
word, it is surprising that Muslim
scholars have accepted
such a discreditable story, and not at all
surprising that it might
have been invented by Islam’s enemies.
In his analysis of the
passage, Haykal comes to the conclusion
that “this story of the
goddesses is a fabrication and a forgery,
authored by the enemies
of Islam after the fi rst century of
Hijrah” (Haykal 144).
Zakaria Bashier shares this view, though
he further argues that
even if the verses were to be regarded as
being genuine, they
would not impugn the Prophet’s infallibility
because they were in
fact uttered by Satan. (Bashier 175). He also
refers to similar
observations by al-Suhayili (see Bashier 173).
The argument that W.M.
Watt, for his part, provides for the
inarguable authenticity
of the verses is that “it is inconceivable
that any Muslim would
invent such a story, and it is
inconceivable that a
Muslim scholar would accept such a story
from a non-Muslim.”
(Watt xxxiv). Similarly, in his highly
controversial book Twenty-Three Years, the Iranian ‘Ali Dashti
concludes that “the
evidence given in well-attested reports and
in the interpretations
of certain commentators makes it likely
that the incident
occured.” (Dashti 32). As evidence for the
possibility of such a
recitation and its subsequent withdrawal, the
following passage from
the Qur’an is often cited: “And We did
not send before you any
apostle or prophet, but when he desired,
the Shaitan made a
suggestion respecting his desire; but Allah
annuls that which is
cast” (22:52). As the suras of the Qur’an
are traditionally not
presented in chronological order (and just
what that order might be
is generally under dispute), it could be
possible that this
passage is referring to such a withdrawal.
The verses were perhaps
fi rst named “satanic verses’ by Sir
William Muir, as Ahsan
notes (Ahsan 139, footnote 2). Later
the term was widely
adopted, for example by Watt in his book
Muhammad at Mecca.
Daniel Pipes explains that as the term
“satanic verses” does
not occur anywhere else than in Western
Orientalists’ works, and
states that Rushdie “unwittingly adopted
a part of the
orientalist tradition.” (Pipes 116) Rushdie maintains
that the term “comes
from al-Tabari, one of the canonical Islamic
sources.” (Rushdie: “Choice
between Light and Dark“ 11)
31
A
list of references to the “satanic verses” in
the
novel.
Page 24
the incident of the Satanic verses in the early career of the
Prophet
Page 114
The Star ... At this point, without any trace of hesitation or doubt,
he recites two further verses.
Have you thought upon Lat and Uzza, and Manat, the third, the
other?ʼ . . . ʻThey are the exalted birds, and their intercession is
desired indeed.ʼ
Page 123 the three winged creatures, looking like herons or
swans or just women
ʻIt was the Devil . . .ʼ
Page 124
He stands in front of the statues . . .
After the repudiation of the Satanic verses . . .
Page
340
he would still speak, at nights, verses in Arabic . . .
Page
366
What fi nally fi nished Salman with Mahound: the question of the
women; and of the Satanic verses.
Page
368
I went on with my devilement, changing verses . . .
Page
373
Have you heard of Lat, and Manat, and Uzza . . .
There are allusions in the London plot from time to time which
connect the verses to Gibreel:
Page 285
it proved impossible to identify
the verses
Page
445
the return of the little, satanic verses that made him mad
Page
459
What does a poet write? Verses. What jingle-jangles in Gibreel’s
brain? Verses. What broke his heart? Verses and again verses
Page
544
But I heard verses/You get me Spoono/V e r s e s
Note:
The transliteration is
given without diacritical marks. The
translation in The Satanic Verses here is closest to the one in
William Muir, The Life of Mohammad from Original Sources 81).
Another translation can
be found in M. M. Ahsan: “These are
the high-soaring ones
(deities) whose intercession is to be hoped
for!” (Ahsan 132).
Arabic variants appear on pp.132 & 141 of the
same source, and there
are variant transliterations in Muhammad
Husayn Haykal, p.111.
Rushdie’s own most extended
discussion of this issue appears in
his Critical Quarterly interview, pp. 59-62.
Karen Armstrong, in her Muhammad: A Biography of the
Prophet, speculates about what truth might lurk
behind this tale
without necessarily
alleging that Muhammad recognized the three
goddesses as in any way
comparable to God himself:
The gharaniq were probably Numidian cranes which were
thought to fl y higher
than any other bird. Muhammad, who
may have believed in the
existence of the banat al-Llah as he
believed in the
existence of angels and jinn, was giving the
“goddesses” a delicate
compliment, without compromising
his message. The gharaniq were not on the same level as al-
Llah—not that anybody
had suggested that they were—but,
hovering as it were
between heaven and earth, they could be
valid intermediaries
between God and man, like the angels,
whose intercession is
approved in the very next section of
Sura 53. The Quraysh
spread the good news throughout
the city: “Muhammad has
spoken of our gods in splendid
fashion. He alleged in
what he recited that they are the
exalted gharaniq whose
intercession is approved.
Notes
for Chapter II
Page
91 [93]
How is “falling asleep” made literal in this opening paragraph?
lote-tree of the uttermost end that stands beneath the Throne.
In Sura 53, verses 14-16
of the Qur’an,entitled “The Star,” It
is said that a lote tree
stands at the boundary of the garden of
paradise. According to
W. M. Thackston, “This tree, said to stand
in the seventh heaven on
the right hand of the Throne of God,
is called al-muntaha, ‘of the limit,’ because it is the
boundary
beyond which even the
angels do not pass” (al-Kisa’i 347; see
also Haykal 141-142). It
is the passage just following this into
which the “satanic”
verses are said to have been inserted and then
withdrawn.
[94]
revealing the spring of Zamzam to Hagar the Egyptian
Refers to a famous story
according to which Muslims believe that
Hagar (Arabic Hajar),
mother of all future Arabs, fi nds water in a
well miraculously
provided by Gibreel (Cornwell 195). Her quest
is ritually reenacted by
all those who go on the Hejira to Mecca,
where the well is now
enclosed by the Haram, the grand mosque.
Her son Ismail (Ishmael)
is considered the ancestor of all Arabs.
See above, p. 17. (Side
note: There is an Iranian brand of soda
pop called “Zamzam.”)
the Jurhum fi lled up Zamzam with mud and golden gazelles
The Jurhum, a tribe of
Arabs, a daughter of which had married
Ismail (Ishmael), fi
lled the well of Zamzam in when they left
Mecca. They had come to
Mecca from the Yaman, and settled
there before Hajar and
Ismail arrived. They became the rulers of
the temples and judges
in Mecca. But it is said that they became
“high-handed and made
lawful what was taboo;” and other tribes
rose against them and
cast them out of the city, sending them into
exile. Before they left,
one of the Jurhum brought out two carved
gazelles of the Ka’ba
and the corner-stone, threw them into
Zamzam, and covered the
well over. Generations later, the tribe
of the Quraysh gained
control of the Ka’ba, and it was to one of
them, ‘Abdu’l-Muttalib
b. Hashim, who had responsibility for
watering and feeding the
pilgrims, that the vision came ordering
him to dig up Zamzam. He
was the grandfather of Muhammad.
Speaking symbolically,
the fi lling in of the well stands as part
of the slide into
ignorance (Jahiliya) and polytheism by the
32
Meccans; along with the
introduction of idols into the Ka’ba.
(David Windsor). See
Haykal, pp. 33 & 38.
Page
92
Muttalib of the scarlet tents
Muhammad’s grandfather’s
name Abdul Muttalib. He like his
father, was a merchant..
What is the reference to the scarlet tents?
and the silver hair?
I’ve had my bloody chips
British slang for to be
fi nished, done for.
Cone Mountain
Note the pun on Alleluia
Cone’s name. Plays a role in the novel
similar to to Mount Hira
where Muhammad received his fi rst
revelation (Netton: Text 27). For more on Mount Hira, see
Haykal, pp. 70, 406.
Allahgod
The word for God in
Arabic is “Allah.”
homosap
Homo sapiens (“wise
human”) considered as a “sap” (fool).
Freedom, the old antiquest.
Pun on “Anti-Christ;”
suggests that religion opposes freedom.
[95]
harpy
Vicious winged creatures
in Greek mythology, implements of
vengeance, most
unangelic; but here the pun is on “harp,” the
instrument traditionally
played by angels.
What is said about the will versus submission in the last
paragraph on this page?
Page
93
The businessman
Muhammed. The
description that follows resembles the
description of The
Prophet in Haykal, p. 63.
opobalsam trees
These trees produce
myrrh. Latin name Myroxylon samum.
Jahilia
A term used by Muslims
to refer to the period of history
preceding the revelation
of the Qur’anto Muhammad, meaning
“ignorance,” or “barbarism.”
Commonly used as a term of
contempt today meaning “unislamic”
(Easterman 34). Rushdie
uses it as a name for
Mecca or Makkah.
Mahomet
A common misspelling of
Muhammad’s name in Europe from the
Middle Ages through the
19th century.
farangis
Foreigners, Europeans
(Hindi).
whigs, tories, Blacks
Each of these is a term
originally used by its enemies to denigrate
the designated group,
but later adopted with pride by that very
group. Compare Yankee, originally a British term of contempt for
Americans.
Mahound
See note on Mahound,
above, in Introduction.
What is your reaction to Rushdie’s explanation for choosing this
name for his prophetic character?
Hijaz
The area in which Mecca
is located.
Page
94 [97]
Zamzam
See note above, on p. 91
[94].
House of the Black Stone
The Kaaba, the temple
enclosing the al-hadjar al-aswad,
the mysterious rock said
to have fallen from heaven, the center of
Muslim worship in Mecca,
a focus of religious observances from
before Islamic times.
Given the fact that most Middle-Eastern cities introduce pools
and fountains wherever they can, what do you think is the
signifi cance of the symbolism of a city made of sand which
abhors water?
Page
95
Khalid Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 642) was converted
to Islam in
the year before Muhammad
conquered Mecca and became early
Islam’s most famous
military leader apart from the Prophet
himself. He is referred
to again on p. 381 [385] as “General
Khalid.”
Shark
See note in
Introduction. Rushdie is stressing the appropriateness
of the name for a tribe
of businessmen.
Ismail
The Qur’anic spelling
for character called Ishmael in the Bible.
Gibreel was partly named
after him. See note on “Ismail,” above,
p. 17.
He moves in mysterious ways.
Alluding to the fi rst
lines of the Olney Hymn no. 35, “Light
Shining Out of Darkness“
by William Cowper (1731-1800):
“God moves in a mysterious
way / His wonders to perform.”
fi rst Safa then Marwah
Two mounds between which
pilgrims to Mecca still run in
imitation of Hagar.
Arabia Odorifera
Latin for “fragrant
Arabia.” The region was associated with
spices in ancient and
medieval times and it was said that one
33
could smell them in the
air. See, for instance, Rabanus Maurus’s
De rerum naturis, Book 19: on aromatic herbs and trees in
the
Middle East (842-846).
balsam, cassia, cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh
Fragrant substances; it
is probably not a coincidence that the last
two were often described
as being given to the Christ child by the
Magi.
Page
96 [98]
Monophysite
The belief that Christ
had only one nature.
Nabataean
An ancient Arabian
people; but the term is used in Arabic to label
Syrian and Iraqi
Aramaeans.
Basra
In southeastern Iraq.
hashish
See above, note on p. 76
[78].
afeem
Opium.
Page
98 [100]
Anatolian slaves
Anatolia (modern Turkey)
was a source of slaves from ancient
times.
[99]
a series of rough circles
According to Rushdie,
this feature of Jahilia is modelled on Delhi
(“In Good Faith“ 409).
Page
97
onager
A wild ass (Equus hemionus) of southwestern Asia.
[100]
the satirist
Muhammad was much
troubled by satirical poets who attacked
him and had one, named
Ka’b, assassinated (Armstrong 185).
Baal.
Originally the name of a
Middle Eastern sky-god worshipped
by the original
inhabitants of Israel, much denounced but
occasionally worshipped
by Jews. In the Bible his worship is
fi ercely denounced, and
his name eventually became synonymous
with “Devil.” He is also
often referred to as “Baalzebul” (“Lord
of Lords”), although
these were evidently originally separate
gods.
Why do you think Rushdie has chosen this as the name of his
satirist?
Page
99 [101]
Hubal . . . Kain
The Arabic spellings of “Abel”
and “Cain.”
Amalekites
A Semitic people who fi
gure as enemies of the Israelites in the
Bible, and whose descent
are traced from Esau. See Exodus
17:8-16, I Samuel
15:1-33. Arabic scholars identify them with
the ancient Arab tribe
of Abulfeda, ruling for a long period over
Mecca.
Uzza . . . Manat . . . Al-Lat . . .
Not only were these
three pre-Islamic goddesses worshipped in
Mecca, but at temples of
their own in, respectively Taif, Qudayd,
and Naklah.
Page
101 [103]
Bilal
Bilal b. Rabah, was a freed
Abyssinian slave and appointed by
Muhammad as his fi rst
muezzin (Netton: Text, p. 28). See note on
“Bilal X”, below, p. 207
[213].
some sort of bum from Persia by the outlandish name of Salman
Salman al-Farisi was an
early Persian convert to Islam, but this
is also a sly reference
to the author’s fi rst name (Netton: Text, p.
28). David Windsor adds,
“he was one of the actual companions
of the Prophet (though
not one of the scribes of the Recitation,
as he is in the novel)
and is credited with the idea of digging the
trench (in the battle
that gets it name from it) which defeated the
Meccan cavalry. (See
Haykal 303 and Armstrong 203).
Why does Abu Simbel oppose Mahound so fi ercely?
Page
102 [104]
They stretched him out in the fairground with a boulder on his
chest.
See note above on p. 43.
What does Abu Simbel mean by his answer to the question,
“What kind of idea am I?”
manticore
See “manticorps,” below,
p. 361 [373].
Page
103 [105]
Zafar
A city in Yemen, founded
in the 13th century. Rushdie
undoubtedly mentioned
this city partly because its name is also
that of his son by his
fi rst wife, and to whom Haroun and the Sea
of Stories is dedicated.
Sheba
The kingdom also known
as Saba, in southern Arabia, considered
by many scholars to be
the Biblical Sheba.
34
Yathrib
The original name of
Medina before Muhammad moved there in
622, the second most
sacred city of Islam, object of the Hejira or
Hijrah.
Midian
The area bordering the
Gulf of Aqaba opposite the Sinai
Peninsula.
Aqabah
Or Aqaba, the port city
at the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba.
Petra
Ancient city in
southwest Jordan, capital of the Nabataeans.
Palmyra
Ancient city in Central
Syria, northeast of Damascus. Legend
says it was built by
Solomon. Although the Bible does not
indicate that Solomon and
Sheba were lovers, legend linked them
romantically.
[106]
gangs of young Sharks
The Tribe of Mahound
(see above, Introduction) but very likely
also a reference to the
Puerto Rican gang called “The Sharks” in
Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, which, like this novel, has a
theme of interracial
strife.
Page
104 [106]
Ablutions
Muslims must
ceremoniously wash certain parts of their body
before prayers.
[107]
Hamza
The name of the uncle of
the historical Muhammad. (See Netton:
Dictionaryp. 95.)
Page
105 [107]
When you come down from Coney there’s a brightness on you.
Compare with the
Biblical tradition that when Moses descended
from Mount Ararat after
receiving the Law from God, his face
shone (Exodus 34:35).
[108]
There is no god but God.
The central statement of
faith of Islam, the qalmah: “La ilaha
ilallah! La ilaha!” A
fuller translation is: “There is no God but
God, the God”.
Page
108 [110]
pee oh vee
POV: point of view.
steadicam
A camera on an ingenious
mechanical mounting that allows it to
compensate for the
movements of the person carrying it, so that a
hand-held shot looks
steady.
bazooms
Old-fashioned slang for “bosoms.”
[111]
travelling mat
A special effect in fi
lm which allows the insertion of a person into
a scene where he/she has
actually never been.
Page
109
bhaenchud
Literally means “one who
sleeps with his sister;” but used very
commonly as a very
insulting expletive like “fucking” (Hindi,
Urdu).
Page
110 [112]
fl ew me to Jerusalem
Refers to a miraculous
journey taken by Muhammad, the ‘isra
(“Night Flight”). See
Armstrong pp. 138-142.
Page
111 [113]
Allah Ishvar God
Listing in order Muslim,
Hindu and Christian terms for the deity.
What do you think the repeated refrain “What kind of an idea are
you/am I” is meant to indicate? Keep track of the various uses to
which this phrase is put throuhgout the novel.
Page
112 [114]
epileptic fi t
In some early Western
commentaries on Islam, Mumhammad’s
visions were ascribed to
epileptic fi ts (Kuortti).
Page
113 [116]
that famous Grecian profi le . . .
Compare with the
description of Ayesha below, p. 206 [212].
kahin
Muhammad was accused of
being a seer or kahin (Arabic)
by the inhabitants of
Mecca early in his career, one of several
accusations against him
made previous to his recognition as
the Prophet (Götje. 9,
Bader 69). When the angel Gibreel fi rst
ordered Muhammad to
recite, he protested that he could not, that
he was not a kahin (Armstrong 46).
Page
114
The Star
Each sura, or chapter in the Qur’an has a title, in this case “The
Star” (Sura 53). The
added verses are, of course, the “Satanic”
verses of the title, and
there is indeed a rather obscure Muslim
tradition which tells
how these verses were at fi rst included, then
rejected. See also
above, p. 24, and below, p. 123 [125-126]. See
also Haykal, pp.
105-114.
35
Note the seeming results of Mahound’s new “revelation” on the
following pages and discuss them.
Page
115 [117]
Allahu Akbar
“God is Great,” part of
the traditional Islamic call to prayer
(Arabic).
Page
117 [119]
gryphons
Monsters combining the
forequarters of eagles and the
hindquarters of lions.
Also spelled “Griffi ns.”
salamanders
Because salamanders were
often found basking in the still-warm
ashes of extinct fi res
they were thought to be able to live in
fl ames and were
attributed all sorts of miraculous properties.
rocs
The roc was the gigantic
bird that carried off Sinbad in The
Thousand and One Nights.
amphisbaenae
Two-headed serpents of
Greek myth.
Assyrian Sphinx
The Assyrian fi gures of
winged bulls with bearded human heads
have sometimes been
called by this name by analogy with the
Egyptian sphinx, which
has the body of a lion and head of a man.
Djinns
See note above, on p.
22.
houris
Beautiful, virginal
maidens provided for the pleasure of the saved
(men) in the Muslim
paradise (Arabic). See Introduction.
Page
118 [121]
Isa . . . Maryam
Jesus and Mary. Jesus is
a miraculously born prophet of God in
Islam, but not God’s
son.
Page
120 [122]
simurgh
In Persian mythology, a
gigantic bird. Rushdie called his fi rst
novel Grimus, a near-anagram of “simurgh.”
hippogriffs
Mythical monster
combining the forequarters of a griffi n and the
hindquarters of a horse.
See above, note on “gryphon,” on p. 117
[119].
[123]
He knows I take lovers
According to tradition,
Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan (after whom
Abu Simbel is
patterned), had many lovers (Haykal 319).
Page
123 [125]
wrestling match with the Archangel Gibreel
Refers to Jacob’s
wrestling match with an angel (or God himself,
depending on how you
read Genesis 32:24-32).
[126]
Why does the narrator say “it was me both times”? What is the
signifi cance of this statement?
Page
124 [127]
These are but names you have dreamed of, you and your fathers.
Allah vests no authority in them.’
Verses from the chapter
called “The Star“ in the Qur’an.
Page
125
Submission
“Islam” literally means “submission.”
Yathrib
See note above, on p.
103 [127].
36
Chapter
III: Ellowen Deeowen
Plot outline for Chapter III
Rosa Diamond, an old woman who spends much of her time
dreaming about the past (the Norman Invasion and her own, in
Argentina), witnesses Gibreel and Saladinʼs descent to earth and
rescues them; but Saladin is arrested as an illegal immigrant,
while Rosa dies. The police strip and humiliate Saladin, who
discovers that he is turning into a hairy, goatlike creature. In
a bizarre secret hospital where animal/human experiments
reminiscent of H. G. Wellsʼ The Island of Doctor Moreau are
being carried out he is befriended by a physiotherapist and
escapes.
The scene shifts to Saladinʼs home where his wife Pamela, rather
than grieving for him, has started an affair with Jumpy Joshi, and
does not welcome the news that he is still alive. The two lovers
fl ee and engage in an orgy of lovemaking until Saladin fi nds them
in his goatlike form.
On the train to London Gibreel is bored by an American
fundamentalist with the same name as a “false prophet” in
Islamic tradition: Maslama. Various signs convey to Gibreel
that he is evolving into an angel. This scene shifts to introduce
Alleluia Cone, former lover of Gibreel, speaking to a class of
schoolgirls about her career as a mountain-climber. Gibreel,
entering London, haunted by the ghost of another lover—Rekha
Merchant—runs into her on the street.
Notes for Chapter III
Page 129 [133]
Rosa Diamond
Her story and its sources are studied in detail by Daniel
Balderston.
Willie-the-Conk
William the Conqueror. See above, note on p. 44.
It is appropriate that Rosa Diamond be the person who fi rst
encounters Gibreel and Saladin after their fall because, she,
William the Conqueror, and they are all immigrants.
Page 130 [134]
Battle Hill
Near the traditional site of the Battle of Hastings; its name
commemorates the battle.
Harold Arroweye
Although this epithet might suggest a sharp-eyed leader, it is in
fact a mocking reference to the means of King Haroldʼs death. In
the Bayeux Tapestry the Saxon leader is depicted as having been
shot through the eye with an arrow.
William with his mouth full
of sand
One tradition says that when William landed, he bent down and
ate a mouthful of English soil.
Page 131 [135]
Lucifer
One traditional name for the planet Venus, also a name for the
Devil. See note above on p. 76 [.
old Chumch
A pun on “old chum.”
cased in a fi ne skin of ice
See notes on pp. 33-34, 169.
Page 132 [136]
Charlton Heston
In one of the more spectacular Academy Award-winning special
effects from the 1956 fi lm The Ten Commandments, Heston,
playing Moses, parts the Red Sea with his staff so the captive
Hebrews can leave Egypt.
the tall, bony fi gure of
Death
Margareta Petersson points out that both Gibreel and Chamcha
“meet, almost in a faint, a woman with a cane, which they believe
is Death: for Saladin it is Rosa Diamond, for Gibreel Allie Cone”
(Petersson 273).
Page 133 [137]
almost a wanton attitude to
tumbling fl ies
See Shakespeareʼs King Lear , Act IV, Scene 1: “As fl ies to
wanton boys, are we to the gods.”
I yield pride of place to no
personage in the matter of tumbles
Satan (Satan) is said to have been an Angel, cast down from
Heaven for rebelling against God. (See Qurʼan 38:78 and
Revelation 12:9). Note also the suicidal plunges of various
characters in the novel.
Page 134 [138]
like a wolf on the fold
From Byronʼs “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” stanza 1, line 1:
“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.”
shingle
Shoreline gravel.
37
Page 135 [139]
Japonaiserie
Imitating Japanese style (French).
Page 136 [140]
Here I am, in Grandmotherʼs house. Her big eyes, hands, teeth.
Allusion to “Little Red Riding Hood.”
Tennyson
The play described might be a dramatization of Alfred Lord
Tennysonʼs Enoch Arden (1864), with the incident of the toy
added by the dramatist (or by Rushdie).
Page 137 [141]
Harrods
A popular London department store.
sod
An obscene verb derived from sodomize, commonly used as
a
curse.
Page 138
vibora, de
”Viper of the cross,” the popular Spanish name of the snake
scientifi cally called Bothrops Alternatus, also called the urutu.
The paradoxical association of the holy cross with the demonic
snake fi ts the divine/demonic themes of the novel. The historical
Martin de
was a 16th-century doctor who wrote the fi rst medical book
written in Colonial America, the Libellus de Medicinalibus
Indorum Herbis (1552).
Iʼm not having it
I wonʼt accept/allow this.
Jerry
German soldier. Rosa Diamond is remembering the coastal
blackouts imposed during World War II.
Page 139 [143]
illegals
Illegal immigrants.
Page 140 [144]
ugando-kenyattas
Jomo Kenyatta was the leader of the Mau Mau liberation
movement in Kenya, which had nothing to do with another
British African colony, Uganda. Here the two are linked as a way
of mocking the tendency of the British to lump all dark-skinned
people together
Page 142 [146]
pull the other one
An expression of incredulity, meaning “Try another outrageous
lie on me, I donʼt believe this one.” Derived from the expression
“Youʼre pulling my leg,” meaning “Youʼre kidding me.”
Black Maria
Traditional slang term for a police van.
Page 143 [147]
Argentina
The most thorough discussion of the Argentina allusions in the
Rosa Diamond section is by Daniel Balderston
Page 144 [148]
men with horned helmets
Alludes to ancient invasions of England by Norse raiders.
[149]
Some ancient Morgan Le Fay
singing a young Merlin into her
crystal cave
In most versions of the Arthurian legends it is the young
Vivien (also known as Nimue, one of the “ladies of the lake”),
who traps the aged Merlin in a cave or tree. Rushdie was
probably infl uenced by John Boormanʼs 1981 fi lm, Excalibur,
in substituting the better-known Morgan (called “Morgana” in
the fi lm) for Vivien. Rosa is old and Gibreel is young; so that
although she enchants him as did her predecesssor, the difference
in their ages is reversed. Back on p. 135, Saladin had dreamed of
Zeeny Vakil luring him into an iceberg with her song, clearly a
foreshadowing of this image.
Page 145 [150]
Babington
Rushdie has given this anti-English Argentinian a quintessentially
English name, the middle name of poet Thomas Babington
Macaulay (1800-1859), infamous in India for his 1835 “Minute
on Indian Education” which prescribed a system of Westernoriented
education designed to keep Indians subordinate to the
English within the British Empire.
38
Page 147 [151]
the Peròn people
Followers of Argentine dictator Juan Perón, who rose to
power during the period 1943-1946. As Daniel Balderston
points out (304-305) Rosa Diamond would seem to have left
Argentina considerably before he became known, one of several
anachronisms in this story.
the Hurlingham
Probably the members of the Hurlingham Golf Club, near Buneos
Aires, founded in 1888 by a group of English citizens.
trop fatale
French for “too fatal;” but alluding to the expression “femme
fatale” (”fatal woman”) which describes a woman whose beauty
lures men to destruction. [152]
Aurora del Sol
Spanish for “dawn of the sun.”
Page 148 [152]
Martello tower
A kind of circular coastal fort built along the English coastline in
the late 18th and early 19th centuries, named after the fi rst one at
Cape Martello in Corsica. A series of them was also built 1803-
1806 along the Irish coast as protection against a Napoleonic
invasion; the one at Sandycove was inhabited by James Joyce
for a week in September 1904 and is now a Joyce museum
(Fargnoli). Stephen Dedalus lives there in Ulysses. Hence this
may be one of several Joyce allusions inThe Satanic Verses.1 In
both Rushdieʼs work and Joyceʼs the towers are associated with
characters alienated from their homelands; but here they also
remind us that England has been subject to threats of invasion, a
major theme in the novel.
Photos of Joyceʼs Martello tower by K. Gwan Go
ostrich
Since Rosa sees it as well, this is probably a South American rhea
rather than at true ostrich, suggests Steven F. Walker. It marks the
beginnings of Gibreelʼs hallucinations (Walker 349).
Page 149 [153]
fancy dress
Party costume.
Page 150 [154]
Amerigo Vespucciʼs account of his voyages
This 15th-century Italian navigator made exaggerated claims for
his discoveries in the Western hemisphere and managed to have
the “New World” named after himself: “America.” Some more
recent scholars have tried to rehabilitate Vespucciʼs reputation.
Page 151 [156]
Hispano-Suiza
A deluxe early make of sports car whose name refl ects the theme
of intercultural hybridity, since it means “Spanish-Swiss.”
Page 152
estancia
Argentinian ranch.
As white as snow . . .
Her body forms the Nazi fl ag, as described in the previous
paragraph.
Page 153 [157]
As if a boulder had been
placed upon his chest
See note above on p. 43.
Page 156 [160}
London shareef
The term sharif or shareef means “noble, exalted” (Arabic). Here
the term parodies the more usual term Mecca Sharif (see below,
p. 235, where the terms Quran Sharif and Haram Sharif are also
used.)
younger
Since Rosa has just died, this sexual encounter with her younger
image seems to be a delusion in Gibreelʼs mind. On p. 334, the
ghost of Rekha Merchant claims that this younger Rosa was a
shape taken by herself.
39
Page 157 [163]
Fancy
Desire.
Saladinʼs transformation into a beast functions allegorically to
refl ect how the British regard South Asian immigrants as not
quite human.
Page 158
Joe Bruno, Novak, Jock Stein
The “distinctly un-Anglo-Saxon” names of the immigration
offi cers drive home the absurdity of their rabid xenophobia.
Joe Bruno is the long-time New York Senate Republican leader
who has been outspoken in his criticism of minorities and
immigrants.
Jock Stein was the renowned manager of the Scottish soccer
team, the Glasgow Celtic, in the 1960s and early 1970s. “Mack”
is a plausibly Scottish nickname for this person with a Jewish
last name. Stein was, however famously a Protestant leading a
Catholic team—another outsider (David Windsor).
On. p.160 Novak is called “Kim,” presumably a nickname
derived from that of the very female American movie star of
Vertigo and other popular fi lms. Novak is a Polish surname, but
it may have amused Rushdie to refer to Kim because that is the
name of one of Rudyard Kiplingʼs most famous protagonists,
born English, but living as an Indian.
that Sussex of rewards and
fairies which every schoolboy knew
Rudyard Kiplingʼs Rewards and Fairies (1910) continued the
historical/fantastical adventures of Dan and Una, whom most
readers met for the fi rst time in Puck of Pookʼs Hill (Suzanne
Keen). Both volumes deal in part with “colonial” periods in
English history, including the Roman and Norman invasions, and
are set in the same general area as the Rosa Diamond episode.
Page 159 [164]
Sylhet
A rural district in Bangladesh. Information on Sylhet.
Gujranwala
An agricultural center in Pakistan.
[165]
primus inter pares
First among equals (Latin).
Page 161 [166]
Danny Blanchfl ower
Famous footballer (soccer player) for the Tottenham Hotspurs
during 1960 and 1961 seasons when they were champions, hence
the reference to the “double” team (Kuortti).
Pansy . . . bum boys
Both insulting terms for gay men.
football hooligans
Violent soccer fans.
Page 162 [167]
Eternal vigilance is the
price of liberty
Although this slogan is commonly attributed to Thomas
Jefferson, it was apparently fi rst delivered in this form by
Wendell Phillips in 1852, speaking to the Massachusetts
Antislavery Society; but an earlier version—”The condition upon
which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance”—was
uttered by John Philpot Curran in Ireland in 1790.
Page163 [168]
matchoftheday
Broadcast football (soccer) match of the day, here sports talk
generally.
the penny dropped
Refers to someone belatedly catching on to what is being talked
about; derived from a slow-working coin-operated machine.
Packy billy
Pakistani goat. All South Asians tend to be labelled “Pakys” in
London.
Garrick Club
Prestigious actorsʼ club, named after the famous actor David
Garrick (1717-1779).
Page 164 [169]
The fact that the Police National Computer identifi es Saladin
as an English citizen places him in greater danger than before
because the police now have to cover up an assault on a citizen
and not a mere illegal alien; they are likely to do so by killing
him.
[170]
Hyacinth Phillips
In Greek mythology, Hyacinth was a beloved friend of Apollo.
Supposedly when Apolloʼs tears blended with the dying
Hyacinthʼs blood as the god embraced him they created the
fl ower we now call Hyacinth, so the name may be plausibly
linked to caring for the sick, as in the case of an AIDS service
organization with that name (Kuortti). She shares her last name
with another Black woman, Orphia Phillips, whom Gibreel will
meet later, on p. 328 [338] (Petersson 273).
Page 166 [171]
The image of the woman repeatedly giving birth powerfully
suggests the monsters being created in this “hospital.”
exotic spices sizzling in
clarifi ed butter—coriander, turmeric,
cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves
Indian recipes often begin by “roasting” (frying) whole spices
such as these (the masala) in clarifi ed butter (ghee).
40
[172]
Cheshire-Cat-like
In Lewis Carrollʼs Alice in Wonderland the Cheshire Cat can
make parts of his body—such as his head—appear and disappear
in isolation.
Page 167
that sick
British equivalent of American “so sick.”
burd
Bird, British slang for “woman.”
[173]
Beelzebub
See note above, on p. 98 [100].
manticore
A mythical Indian beast with the head of a man, body of a tiger or
lion, and feet and tail of a scorpion or of a dragon; from Persian
mandchora: “man-eater.” From Rushdieʼs acknowledgements:
“For the description of the Manticore, Iʼm indebted to Jorge
Luis Borgesʼs Book of Imaginary Beings.” The manticore is
a
chimera, see note on p. 301 [311].2
For more about the manticore. See Appendix C.
Moaner Lisa
Pun on the Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci.
Page 169 [174]
Her skin turned to glass.
As in Saladinʼs dream, pp. 33-34.; see note on p. 131 [135].
[175]
he found himself dreaming of
the Queen, of making tender love to
the Monarch
Like Gibreel with Babasaheb, p. 22 or Mahound with Hind, p.
119 [121].
Page 170 [176]
great escape
Probably an allusion to The Great Escape, a 1963 fi lm
about an
escape from a World War II prison camp.
Page 171
detenus
French for “prisoners.”
Page 172 [178]
the two-backed beast
In Shakespeareʼs Othello Iago tries to stimulate Brabantioʼs
horror at the news that his daughter has married the African
Othello by telling him that the couple is now “making the beast
with two backs,” that is, making love (Act I, scene
breather
Obscene phone-caller who gets his kicks by saying nothing (just
breathing) while listening to the agitated party on the other end of
the line.
Page 173 [179]
Partido Socialista
Socialist Party (Spanish).
even the last of the elms, a
survivor of the plague years
Most elms in Europe have been killed by Dutch elm disease. The
fi nal phrase echoes the title of Daniel Defoeʼs A Journal of the
Plague Year (1722).
Page 174 [180]
patchouli
The most commonly imported Indian scent, worn widely by
hippies in the sixties seeking to associate themselves with India,
which explains why Saladin has doused himself with it to attract
Pamela.
kurta
See above, p. 53.
read-your-palm
The fi rst in a list of other stereotypically but inauthentically
Indian images which might attract an exoticism-seeking young
woman like Pamela. Palm reading is traditionally more associated
with gypsies, though they are Indian in origin.
bedspread-jacket
A cheap cloth jacket made of an Indian-print bedspread.
Hare-Krishna
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, very
conspicuous in the West in the seventies.
dharma bum
Refers to the title of Jack Kerouacʼs 1958 novel, Dharma Bums,
which incorporates the Hindu concept of duty: dharma. A dharma
bum is either someone who fi nds his dharma in being a bum,
or,
more likely, someone who avoids performing his dharma.
Eros
The Greek god of love.
Page 175 [181]
a real Saladin . . . a man
with a holy land to conquer
In the 12th century, the Sultan Saladin led a successful attempt
to dislodge the Europeans from Jerusalem, which the latter had
seized in the First Crusade.
the Falklands War
The British forced Argentina to abandon the Falkland Islands off
its coast, which the latter had seized in 1982. The confl ict was
widely interpreted as a fl areup of old British imperialism.
41
[182]
the one hundred and
thirty-seventh psalm, ʼSuper fl umina.ʼ
Psalm 137 is the lament of the Jews taken into exile in Babylon in
the early sixth century BC and begins “By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.” The
exiles refuse to sing their songs in this foreign land (How shall
we sing the Lordʼs song in a strange land, p. 176). The
attribution
to King David is traditional, but unsupported by modern
scholarship. On their 1978 album Nightfl ight to Venus the group
Boney M set this psalm to music as “Rivers of Babylon.” Boney
M was a Euro-Disco group of black American soldiers who had
stayed on in Germany after serving hitches there, assembled by
a German record producer in the mid-seventies; so not only is
the theme of immigration and exile present in the song but in its
singers.
Page 176
Sher Khan
Saladin evidently named his dog after the tiger in Rudyard
Kiplingʼs The Jungle Book, set in India. Kipling was probably
alluding to the Medieval Kashmiri leader ʼAlam Sher Khan,
whose deeds are recounted in the Baharistan-i-Shahi.
Page 177
Harold Wilson
Prime Minister of Great Britain 1964-1970 and 1974-76. Leader
of the British Labour Party.
students disguised as Russian
assassins
The description that follows refl ects an old newspaper-cartoon
stereotype of the communist terrorist, which the students here are
self-consciously mocking.
fedoras
Felt hats with curled brims traditionally associated with cartoon
terrorists.
[184]
bonnet
American “hood.”
long live Ho Chi Minh
Many radical anti-Vietnam War protesters, far from being
pacifi sts, aligned themselves with the communist forces in
Vietnam led by Chairman Ho.
Page 179 [185]
Finn MacCool
This legendary Medieval Irish warrior-poet had only to suck
his magical thumb of knowledge to forsee things to come. Also
known as Finn Mac Cumhail.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
President Kennedyʼs widow appalled many of her admirers when
she married the conservative shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis
who lived on the Greek island of Skorpios.
Page 180 [187]
ass. Arse. Ass.
Alternating the American spelling with the British one.
Page 181
ack-ack
World War II bomber crew slang for aerial machine gun fi re.
to the top of a tall building
Jumping or falling to oneʼs death is a constant motif in this novel.
Compare for instance, Rekha Merchant and her children (pp.14-
15).
Page 182 [188]
Château Talbot
One of the fi nest of red Bordeaux wines, named after an English
general who was killed in the fi nal battle of the Hundred Years
War at Castillon, near where the wine is made. Hence this is
another cross-cultural reference: a French wine named after an
Englishman.
Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfi
nder-General
A 17th-century British “Witch Finder General” responsible
during 1645-1647 for the deaths of perhaps 230 people, fi nally
himself hanged as a witch in 1647 (Robbins 249-253). He was
particularly obsessed by the consorting of witches with imps and
familiars: demonic creatures in the form of possessed animals,
as depicted in the frontispiece of his pamphlet entitled The
Discovery of Witches. Rushdie might have been made aware
of Hopkins by the fame a 1982-1983 heavy metal rock called
Witchfi nder General.
Gremlins
In World War II, pilots invented mythical creatures called
“gremlins” which were responsible for various mechanical
malfunctions in their planes; but Rushdie may be referring to the
demonic little creatures featured in the 1984 movie, Gremlins.
[189]
I amI am that I am
Godʼs defi nition of himself, or his name, in Exodus 3:14.
Page 183
Chin-Chin . . . Skol
British and Swedish expressions for “Drink up!”
[190]
killing old women
See below, p. 361.
Page 184
cannibal and Christian
Cannibals and Christians is the title of a 1966 collection of
essays by Norman Mailer in which he opposes what he calls “the
Right Wing” (”cannibals”) to all who believe in the potential
goodness of humanity (”Christians”).
42
pista barfi and jalebis
Indian sweets (Hindi). Pista barfi would be a sort of fudge made
with pistachios. Jalebi are deep fried swirls of saffron-fl avored
yellow dough. A thick batter is poured in a stream into hot oil to
make jalebis, which are then soaked in a sugar syrup.
chaloo chai
Sweetened spiced tea with milk (Hindi).
[191]
samosas
Pockets of bread fi lled with spiced meat or vegetable (Hindi).
Page 185 [192]
pice
Tiny coin, 100th of a rupee (Hindi).
rishi
Ancient Hindu sage (Sanskrit).
pir
A Muslim saint, wise man (Farsi).
Page 186
Like the Roman, the ferrety
Enoch Powell had said, I seem to see
the river Tiber foaming with
much blood.
On April 20, 1968, the racist British politician Enoch Powell,
recently returned from observing the riotous aftermath of
the assassination of Martin Luther King in the U.S., gave in
Birmingham an infl ammatory diatribe against a proposed race
relations measure which vaulted him to instant prominence. He
warned of a coming race war, stating: “like the Roman, I seem to
see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.” The allusion is
to a prophecy of war uttered by the Sibyl in Book VI of Virgilʼs
Aeneid.
Page 188 [194]
beastly dead
In the fi rst chapter of James Joyceʼs Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus
tells his friend Buck Mulligan that the day after his motherʼs
death, he had overheard Buck say to a visitor, “O, itʼs only
Dedalus, whose mother is beastly dead” (Booker 206, footnote
3). Here the “dead” man has been literally transformed into a
beast.
Page 190 [196]
Maslama
The name alludes to the Arabian “false prophet” known as
“Musaylima the Liar” (Al-ʼAzm 284 & Simawe 186), linked to
Akbar by his unorthodox beliefs.
La-ilaha . . . illallah
The qalmah.
See note above, on p. 105 [108].
universal faith invented by
the Emperor Akbar
Akbar the Magnifi cent ruled over the Mughal Empire in India
(1556-1605), repudiated orthodox Islam, and was deeply
interested in the major beliefs of the worldʼs religions, including
Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity. He fi nally
claimed theological infallibility and promulgated a blended
religion of his own invention called “Teen Ilahi,” Arabic for “the
religion (Diin) of God” or “Divine Faith” (Windsor).
music of the spheres
Infl uenced by the ancient Greek thinker Pythagoras, many
Renaissance thinkers speculated about harmonies inaudible to
mortals produced by the turning of the spheres of the heavens.
Page 191 [197]
bespoke tailoring
Hand-made clothing (very expensive).
milord
French term for an English gentleman.
producing advertising jingles
Like Rushdie himself.
Page 192 [198]
rainbow coalition of the celestial
Borrows Jessie Jackson’s term for his multi-racial coalition.
a walking United Nations of
Gods
Margareta Petersson points out that Gibreel is also compared to
the United Nations on p. 60 (Petersson 273).
Page 193 [199]
Bartica on the Essequibo
Bartica is a city at the mouth of the Essequibo River in Guyana.
Page 194 [200]
Handelʼs Messiah
George Frederick Handelʼs most popular composition is the
“Hallelujah Chorus” from the oratorio Messiah.
Page 195 [202]
bibi
Usually wife, but here, woman (Hindi).
Kachori
Spiced checkpea.
Hi ho, itʼs off to work.
From the song “Hi Ho” in the Disney fi lm of Snow White and
The Seven Dwarfs. See the reference to Snow White earlier in
this paragraph.
Page 196
the old mantra: om mani padmè
hum
A mantra is a formula repeated ritually in Buddhist meditation.
The one quoted here in Sanskrit is the most famous, and means
“The jewel in the lotus,” which refers to the Buddha.
43
[203]
yeti
The “abominable snowman,” a gigantic deadly monster believed
by people in the Himalayas to seek human beings.
Page 198 [204]
Sherpa Pemba
Pemba Sherpa is one of the founders of Asian Trekking, the main
organization that provides guides for Everest expeditions.
Page 200 [206]
dressed in white, like a
mourner at a funeral
In Muslim countries, mourners wear white, not black. It has
snowed.
Note the plays on words in the last sentence of this chapter.
(Notes for Chapter 3)
1 Every year there is in the Netherlands a special week, called the
Week of the Book, in which-- to promote the new titles-- anyone
spending more than $10 in a book store receives an extra book,
which is specially written for the occasion. In 2001 it was Salman
Rushdie who was invited to write the book, and his Woede (i.e.
Fury in English) became the year’s present. He was also invited
to the Gala of authors with which the Week of the Book started.
This year the party was held in a wing of the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam.) It was here that Margot Dijkgraaf, literary critic
of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, interviewed Salman
Rushdie for the series The Crucial Book, in which writers
expound their views on the book that has most infl uenced their
ideas. [K.G.]
THE CRUCIAL BOOK OF:
SALMAN RUSHDIE
“Joyce built a whole
universe out of a grain of sand”
Salman Rushdie, the
author of the “Week of the Book” present,
was carried along by
James Joyce’s Ulysses as though the book
was rocket fuel.
The wing of the
Rijksmuseum looks like a fort. His bodyguards
(beside his own there
are three other of the city of Amsterdam)
have left for a cup of
coffee, and the one walking along Salman
Rushdie watches me with
a slightly disturbed and slightly
concerned expression.
Many images must haunt the head of
the man who wrote this
year’s “Week of the Book” present:
frightening images,
images of the future, images of old myths
and modern internet
legends. Somewhere in that hyperactive
brain also roams the
spirit of the Irish-born writer James Joyce
(1882-1941). Rushdie: “Joyce
is always in my mind, I carry him
everywhere with me”.
Who it was who called
his attention to Ulysses (published in
Paris in 1922) Rushdie
does not remember, but he knows that it
was in the fi rst year
of his study of history.. “Everyone said that it
was such a sealed book,
hard to penetrate, but I did not think so at
all. You never hear
people say that there is so much humor in the
book, that the
characters are so lively or that the theme - Stephen
Daedalus in search of
his lost father and Bloom looking for his
lost child - is so
moving. People talk about the cleverness of
Ulysses and about the literary innovation. To me
it was moving,
in the fi rst place”
Stephen and Bloom, those
were the characters which touched
him immediately. He
quotes from memory: “Leopold Bloom ate
with relish the inner
organs of beasts and fowls”. Those were
the fi rst lines of the
second chapter. “I am myself disgusted by
that kind of organs”, he
grinned. “There are still so many little
things I always have to
smile about when I think of them. That
commercial, for example:
“What is home/without Plumtree’s
Potted Meat?/ Incomplete”.
That is still funny. Joyce used
many stylistic means
which were novel in his time, newspaper
headlines for instance.
Is it not moving that he makes Ulysses
happen on the day that
he met his wife! He kept that newspaper,
carried it always with him and used all of its
details, including the
names of the horses in the races. In short, he
built a universe out
of a grain of sand. That was a revelation to me:
so that is the way
one could also write! To somebody who wanted to
be a writer,
like me, it was so perfect, so inspiring, that
it made one need to
recover. I have thought for some time: I quit
writing, I become a
lawyer. Later I thought that there may be some
little things still
worth doing.”
Such as in the fi eld of linguistic innovation? “Joyce
spoke against
the politisizing of literature, but his language
is a purposeful
attempt to create an English which was just not
a property of
the English. He employs a lot of borrowed words
from other
European languages and creates an un-English
kind of English”.
Was that not also the goal of Rushdie himself? “Certainly.
The
Irish did it, so did the American and the
Caribian writers. While
English traveled around like that, the people
felt the need to
innovate it. So I did. But the Joycean
innovation was the greatest
of all. It is an example that deserves to be
followed”.
And what about Joyce’s famous monologue intérieur ? “That
stream of consciousness was not an invention of Joyce, but he
used it more subtly than anyone else. Bloom’s
inner voices were
about very common things, about a hungry feeling
or so. Joyce
demonstrates that the material of daily life can
be as majestic
as any great epic. The lives of ordinary people
are also worthy
of great art. One can create grandeur out of banality. That was
precisely the criticism Virgina Woolf had on
Joyce. Woolf was a
bit too snobbish for it”.
As the best example of the stream of consciousness Rushdie “of
course” considers Molly Blooms monologue at the
end of the
book. “In the past I could recite whole parts of
it: “and fi rst I put
my arms around him yes and drew him down to me
so he could
feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart
was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” That
conclusion is absolutely
rocket fuel at the end. You have a book behind you in which the
behavior of people is not strictly transparent
and then suddenly
you feel not only the skin of that woman, but
her whole body,
all her fl esh and blood, that is a baffl ing
climax. Of course also
very erotic, although as yet the novel was not
erotic at all. At that
time literature did not extend to erotics, to
the sexual fantasies of
women. Impossible to imagine Virginia Woolf
doing something
like that”.
44
Ulysses is in fact a national epic about Ireland. “It is
a grand
homage to the country that has never understood
him” says
Rushdie. “He was regarded there as a
pornographer and
blasphemer. Now he is viewed as Ireland’s
national monument.
Well, that’s easy. I do understand how Joyce
felt. I am close
to him. I feel a kinship, not so much between
our types of
authorship, but rather between his eye and ear,
his mind and
mine. The way one looks at things”.
Nevertheless, they would not have become
friends, he believes.
“Joyce was not very good at friendship. There is
a story about his
put-down of Samuel Beckett, who adored him and
often came
along his place. He plainly told him that he
only loved two people
in the world: the fi rst being his wife, the
second his daughter.
His only encounter with Proust was also very
comical. Joyce and
Proust met each other when leaving a party.
Proust had his coach
standing at the door and was wrapped up fom head
to foot, afraid
as he was to catch a cold. Joyce jumps into the
coach uninvitedly,
lights a cigar and opens the window widely.
Proust says nothing,
neither does Joyce. It is like a silent movie.
Two masters of the
word, who say nothing to each other and yet
disclose themselves.
Fantastic!”
In Portrait of the artist as a young man Joyce
mentions the
weapons with which a writer can defend himself
against the
outer world: silence, exile, and cunning. Are
those the weapons
Rushdie recognizes? “Well, that was a very good
stratagem in the
time of Joyce. Like Voltaire, Joyce believed
that a writer should
live near a border, so that he could leave
immediately if problems
arose. At present that does not work anymore: I
have experienced
it personally. And silence is an overrated
artform, which people
now too often impose upon you”.
But are writers not regarded more and more as
intellectuals and
are they not continually asked for an opinion? “I
believe that
worldwide there are more and more efforts to
impose silence
upon writers - and that not only applies to me.
It is easy to point
to the Arab world, or to China, but even in the
United States
there are people who want to ban Harry Potter
books from
schools, because they contain something about
witchcraft. Even
something harmless like that provokes an attack.
We live in
a time with an increasing urge to censorship.
Various interest
groups--including antiracist or feminist
movements-- demand
it. When Kurt Vonnegut is banned from public
libraries and not
everywhere it is allowed to teach about
Huckleberry Finn, then
you just cannot assume straight-away that there
is something like
freedom. Against silence it is that now we have
to fi ght. And exile
does not work. Therefore, cunning is the only
thing that remains”.
Translated by K. Gwan Go, reproduced by
permission of Margot
Dijkgraaf.
2 It is interesting to note
that while Chamcha embodies the
demonization process which victimizes the
immigrant, the
Manticore illuminates the purpose of Rushdie’s
appropriative
strategies with even greater subtlety. As
Rushdie himself informs
us, the Manticore is a man-tiger with three rows
of teeth escaped
from Jorge Luis Borges and Margarita Guerrero’s Manual de
Zoologma Fantastica. The entry cites Pliny’s original description,
followed by Flaubert’s reworking of it in the
last pages of La
tentation de Saint Antoine. In his monumental Historia Naturalis,
Pliny the Elder devotes a number of books to the
cataloguing
and description of animals world-wide. Drawing
on Aristotle and
Ctesias among others, Pliny’s inventory happily
mixes fantastic
beings and wild, exotic animals such as
elephants or lions. The
Manticore is mentioned “multaque alia monstri similia” roaming
the wilderness of Ethiopia. Characteristically,
the fabulous beast
is a hybrid, half-human half-animal, with “three
rows of teeth
which intertwine like the teeth of a comb, the
face and the ears
of a human being, blue eyes, the purplish body
of a lion and a
tail which ends with a sting, like a scorpio. It
runs very fast and
human fl esh is its favourite dish; its voice
sounds like the fl ute
and the trumpet mixed together.” Pliny’s
description strikingly
reveals the nature of the collective fantasies
which the center
projects onto the confi nes of the Roman Empire.
Like most
imaginary creatures in the Historia Naturalis, the Manticore
crystallizes the mixture of fear and fascination
the Ethiops
and other “barbaros” inspire to the Romans. What
is more, the
association of difference with monstrosity takes
place in the
naturalizing context of Pliny’s “scientifi c”
enterprise. Through
his allusion to Pliny’s Manticore, Rushdie not
only draws the
reader’s attention to how knowledge is
constructed and what
kinds of fantasies are invested in it, but it
also points to a long
tradition of travel writing starting with
Herodotus (on whom
Ctesias heavily depends) which, by imaginatively
mapping out
unfamiliar places, will inspire colonial
expeditions.
Martine Dutheil.
45
Chapter IV: Ayesha
Plot outline for Chapter IV
Gibreel’s dreams resume with a narrative
imitation of a long
zoom shot focussing in on the fanatical Imam, in
exile in London.
This fi gure is clearly based on the Iranian
Muslim fundamentalist
leader, the Ayatollah Khomeni. His companions
are named after
prominent companions of Muhammad, and his enemy
in his
homeland of Desh is named after Muhammad’s
favorite wife.
Gibreel as angel carries the Imam to the capital
city of Desh,
as the Islamic Gibreel had carried Muhammad to
Jerusalem.
They witness a popular revolution in which the
evil Ayesha dies.
From her dead body springs the spirit of Al-lat,
one of the three
goddesses of the “satanic verses,” but she is
defeated by Gibreel.
The Imam triumphs and tries to freeze time by
destroying all the
clocks in the land. Rushdie provides his own
commentary on this
image in discussing the Iranian revolution: “. .
. the revolution
sets out quite literally to turn back the clock.
Time must be
reversed” (“In God We Trust” 383).
A separate plot now begins, involving Mirza
Saeed Akhtar, his
wife Mishal, and the mystical, mysterious and
beautiful Ayesha
(a quite different fi gure from the Ayesha of
the Desh plot, but in
the long run equally destructive). As Mirza
watches the butterfl yclad
Ayesha, he longs for her. A long fl ashback
tells of Ayesha’s
girlhood and introduces us to several characters
from the village
of Titlipur. Mirza Saeed tries to transmute his
lust for the girl
into passion for his wife, but it is Mishal who becomes
close to
Ayesha. This intimacy is a disaster, for the
seemingly insane girl
claims to have been told by the Angel Gibreel
that Mishal has
breast cancer. The only cure, she pronounces, is
to make a footpilgrimage
to Mecca. Unfortunately, this involves walking
across
the Arabian Sea. The skeptical and furious Mirza
Saeed cannot
stop his wife from going, but decides to
accompany them in
hopes of somehow saving her.
Notes on Chapter IV
Page 205 [211]
a mansion block built in the Dutch style
Note how many foreign, immigrant-related
associations are
made in this paragraph. Kensington is viewed not
as as a
quintessentially English locale, but as the
product of the mixing
of a number of national cultures, a refuge for
exiles. It has long
been noted for its wealthy inhabitants; but many
of them are now
immigrants, especially from the Middle East.
Barkers department store
A famous luxury store at 63 Kensington High
Street.
where Thackeray wrote Vanity Fair
Near Kensington Gardens, at 13 Young Street.
William
Makepeace Thackeray wrote most of his novel
after he moved
there with his daughters in June, 1856 having
previously lived
for some time in France. Rushdie may have become
interested
inVanity Fair because it features two characters recently returned
from India and because Thackeray himself, like
Rushdie, was
born in India.
the square with the convent where the
little girls in uniform are
always going in, but never come out
Although this looks like an allusion, Rushdie
says “The square
I had in mind was a (somewhat fi ctionalized)
Kensington
Square; the allusion to the convent girls is all
mine” (personal
communication from Salman Rushdie).
Talleyrand
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
(1754-1838),
opportunistic and skillful French
bishop/diplomat.
[212]
silence, cunning. Exile
At the end of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man, Stephen Dedalus enunciates his manifesto: “I
will try to
express myself in some mode of life or art as
freely as I can
and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the
only arms I
allow myself to use--silence, exile, and
cunning.” Joyce became
an exile, living in Paris for most of his life. Why do you think
Rushdie has isolated the term “exile?” to
the end of the list?
Elba, not St Helena
Napoleon was exiled to the Mediterranean island
of Elba during
1814-15, but managed to escape to rule France
for 100 days,
after which he was fi nally and defi nitively
exiled to Saint Helena,
The Imam
A title of high respect in Islam, here clearly
meant to depict
someone very like the Ayatollah Khomeni. Oddly
lacking from
most commentary about Khomeni’s denunciation of The Satanic
Verses is any mention of the character of the Imam. See
below, p.
450.
Page 206
enemy of images
Not only are idols forbidden in Islam, pictorial
art of any kind is
suspect in varying degrees for many Muslims.
her profi le of a Grecian statue . . .
Compare with the description of Hind above, p.
113 [116].
What characteristics do the various
Ayeshas in this novel share?
In what ways are they different?
Desh
An Indian place-name, meaning “land of,” but
here used as a
substitute for Iran (Hindi, originally
Sanskrit).
Page 207
[213]
Bilal X
“ Bilal” was the name of the muezzin appointed
by Muhammad
to call the faithful to prayer, hence a suitable
name for a singer
(Fischer 134). The custom of subsituting an X
for one’s fifi nal
name was at one time widely followed by American
Black
Muslims. Bilal X is a caricature of singer Cat
Stevens, who
became a convert to Islam, denounced his earlier
recording
career, and endorsed the fatwa sentencing Rushdie to death for
writing The Satanic Verses. Compare with Mr X, p. 413 [427].
46
gori
Literally, a “light-skinned woman,” used here to
mean an
“English” woman as opposed to an Indian (Hindi).
SAVAK
The notorious secret police of the late Shah of
Iran, one of the
main targets of the Islamic revolution.
Page 208
[214]
no alcohol
Wine is specifi cally forbidden to Muslims and
the prohibition is
usually understood and extending to all
alcoholic beverages; but
some equivocation goes on among certain Muslims.
once and future land
This phrase not only suggests that the Imam will
return to his old
homeland, but alludes to King Arthur’s Camelot
as depicted in T.
H. White’s The Once and Future King.
chapati
Indian unleavened fl at bread (Hindi).
Page 209
[215]
Aga Khan
See above, p. 26 [27].
Page 210
[216]
Salman Farsi
Salman the Persian, the second minor character
to bear Rushdie’s
fi rst name. See above, p. 101 [103].
certain surreptitious radio waves
Khomeni created his revolutionary movement via
clandestine
addresses delivered via audio cassettes recorded
from exile in
Paris.
[217]
the great Shaitan
The great Satan.
What seem to be the main reasons the Imam
hates Ayesha?
Judging by his speech, what are his
values?
Page 211
calendars
Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, had attempted to
replace the
traditional Islamic calendar with one
commemorating the
supposed 2500 years of continuous monarchy in
Iran/Persia
(Fischer 134).
Page 212
[218]
fl y me to Jerusalem
See above, p. 110 [112].
[219]
the Babylonian whore
See Revelation 17, where the decadence of Rome
(here called
“Babylon” is depicted through the metaphor of a
whore riding on
the back of a seven-headed beast. See note on
Babylon for p. 4.
Page 213
a high mountain of almost perfectly
conical dimensions
Compare with Mount Cone in Jahilia, allusion to
Allie Cone (who
climbs mountains).
Page 215
How is the victory of the Imam similar to
the victory of
Mahound?
Page 216
[222]
zamindar
Landlord (Hindi) (Spivak 44).
Mirza Saeed Akhtar
A rearrangement of the name of Indian fi lm
director Saeed Akhtar
Mirza.
[223]
had been reading Nietzsche the night
before--’the pitiless end of
that small, overextended species called
Man’ Source?
Page 217
butterfl ies
The image of a girl constantly accompanied by
butterfl ies is
reminiscent of the character of Mauricio
Babilonia in García
Márquez’sOne Hundred Years of Solitude. But Rushdie may
have been infl uenced even more by the 1983 fi
lm version of
García Márquez’s short story, “Innocent Eréndira
and Her
Heartless Grandmother.” In Ruy Guerra’s Eréndira (though not
in the original story) the heroine encounters a
butterfl y made
out of torn paper which has come to life, lands
on a wall, and
metamorphoses into a painted image. The heroine
of the short
story also embarks on a lengthy foot-pilgrimage
to the sea, like
Ayesha.
familiar spirits
Medieval European term for animals possessed by
demons which
accompanied witches. See below, Matthew Hopkins.
Bibiji
The word for “woman” with the honorifi c suffi x
“ji;” usually
means “wife,” but here probably just a term of
respect (Hindi).
[224]
Peristan
Fairyland.
Titlipur
“Town of butterfl ies” (Suleri 233). Perhaps
inspired by the song
“Titli Udi” from the fi lm Suraj (Fischer 134).
47
Pandora’s imps
According to the myth of Pandora, when her
curiosity led her to
open the box into which had been sealed all the
troubles of the
world they fl ew out like a horde of insects and
created the fl awed
world we know today.
Page 218
zenana
Women’s quarters in a Muslim home (Urdu).
Page 220
[226]
King Charles I
Beheaded in 1649. See note below, on his son,
Charles II, on p
340.
What point is Rushdie making by alluding
to the king’s having
lost his head after using this staircase?
[227]
small enamel animals
Reminiscent of the small candy animals made by
Ursula Buendía
in Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
What might it mean to be too poor to
dream?
Page 222 [228]
panchayat
Traditional village council (Hindi, derived from
Sanskrit).
[229]
untouchables were renamed ‘children of
God’
Mahatma Gandhi attempted to remove the stigma
from
untouchables by renaming them harijans: children of God. Hindu
untouchables have traditionally been drawn to
Islam, with its
anti-caste tendencies.
Page 224 [230]
Hand
In countries where much of the population is
illiterate, voters
often identify the party they wish to vote for
on ballots by its
symbol. In this case the Congress Party which
governed India
until recently uses an open hand as its symbol.
CP(M)
The Communist Party (Marxist), very much opposed
to the
Congress Party.
Page 225 [232]
Sarpanch
Head of a village council or Panchayat.
Muhammad Din
This is the name of a spoiled little boy who
dies in childhood in
Rudyard Kipling’s “The Story of Muhammad Din” in
Plain Tales
from the Hills (1888).
Khadija
Also the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s fi rst
wife.
Page 228 [235]
Hamlet
Considered as perennially indecisive.
Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1841) was an
outstanding poet who
won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 for
his collection of
love poems entitled Gitanjali.
Ghare-Baire
A 1905 Bengali novel about the Swadeshi movement
translated
asThe Home and the World (1915) in which a progressive young
Zamindar persuades his wife to enter modern
life, with results
to their relationship as disastrous in their way
as in this story.
Tagore’s novel was made into a fi lm by Satyajit
Ray in 1985,
which may have reminded Rushdie of it.
Page 229
What is the zamindar’s real motive for
persuading his wife to
enter purdah?
swadeshi
A campaign led by Gandhi to boycott foreign
(especially British)
goods in preference of Indian-made ones (Hindi,
Bengali).
Some coast . . . some clear
This phrase is modeled on a famous passage in
one of Winston
Churchill’s speeches, made to the Canadian
Senate and House of
Commons in Ottawa December 30, 1941: “When I
warned [the
French] that Britain would fi ght on alone
whatever they did, their
generals told their Prime Minister and his
divided cabinet, ‘In
three weeks England will have her neck wrung
like a chicken.’
Some chicken; some neck” (Ina Westphal).
Percy Westerman
A prolifi c writer of boy’s adventure stories,
popular in the 1930s.
G. A. Henty
American author of numerous inspirational boy’s
novels in which
virtue is rewarded with prosperity.
Dornford Yates
British author of light fi ction, humor,
romance, and thrillers
(1885-1960).
paan
Areca or other nut rolled in betel leaf, a mild
stimulant commonly
used throughout India (often incorrectly called “betel
nut”) which
turns the saliva bright red (Hindi).
Page 230 [237]
the action of the Meerut soldiers
Refers to an 1857 revolt called by Indians as ”The
First Indian
Revolution,” and by the British “the Sepoy
Mutiny” which began
by the soldiers killing British offi cers and
their families as they
emerged from church services.
48
Perownistan
Citizens of former imperial nations often
obscure history by
referring to their former colonies as tropical “paradises”;
thus
Perowne’s old estate has become “Fairyland.”
Page 231
punkahs
Large swinging fans made of cloth stretched over
a rectangular
frame (Hindi).
punkah-wallah
Servant who operates the punkahs.
Page 234 [241]
kahin
A soothsayer of a type abhorred by orthodox
Muslims (see above,
note on p. 113) [116]. One early revolt against
Islam was led by
such a woman, called the Kahinah.
a pir
See above, note on p. 185 [192].
Page 235 [242]
I have fl own with the angel into the
highest heights
Like the Prophet Muhammad, who was fl own to
Heaven, an
event called the miraj (Qur’an 17:1).
to the lote-tree of the uttermost end
See note above on p. 91 [93].
Black Stone
A stone said to have fallen from heaven,
embedded in the wall of
the Ka’aba.
pilgrimage . . to Mecca Sharif
All pious Muslims are required at least once
during their lifetimes
to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, to go on the
Hajj. A person
who has performed this pilgrimage is called a “hajji.”
Part of the
traditional ceremony involves kissing the black
stone embedded
in the wall of the temple called the Ka’aba. For
Sharif, see note
above on p. 156 [160].
Page 236
umra
“Lesser pilgrimage,” a rite performed in Mecca
(Arabic). This
ritual can be performed at any time, but it is
usually a part of the
better-known “greater pilgrimage” (al-hajj) which is much more
complex and can only be performed at specifi ed
times.
[243]
The waves shall be parted
A miracle modelled on the parting of the Red Sea
(or, as some
translate it, the Sea of Reeds) when the Hebrews
left Egypt led by
Moses (Exodus 14).
Page 239 [246]
There is no God but God, and Muhammad is
His Prophet.
The qalmah. See note
above, on p. 105 [108]. Strictly speaking,
the only act necessary to become a Muslim is to
sincerely affi rm
this belief.
Page 239 [247]
What does Osman’s fi nal speech mean?
49
Chapter V: A City Visible but Unseen
Plot outline for Chapter V
Back in contemporary London, the guilt-ridden
Jumpy Joshi
takes the goatlike Saladin Chamcha back to his
apartment above
the Shaandaar Café, dominated by Hind, the wife
of Muhammad
Sufyan. (The name of the cafe means something
like “splendid”
or “glorious.”) This Hind is not as lascivious
as the one in the
“satanic verses” plot, but she is almost as fi
erce. She has two
teenaged daughters--Mishal and Anahita--who will
become
fascinated with the strange man/devil that
Saladin has become.
We pause in the plot to learn more about the
family and its
interrelationships. Hind muses on the disgusting
weirdness that is
London.
A dream provides details of Saladin’s escape
from the “hospital.”
He phones his old work partner, Mimi Mamoulian,
only to fi nd
that he has lost his job. He briefl y encounters
the name of Billy
Battuta, who will fi gure prominently in the
novel later. His old
boss, Hal Valance, explains why his television
series has been
cancelled. He is enraged to learn that Gibreel
is alive, and--far
from helping him out in any way--is claiming he
missed Flight
420 and seems to be engaged into making his “satanic
verses”
dreams into a movie. Meanwhile his wife has
become pregnant
by Jumpy. Everything seems to be conspiring
against Saladin;
and, battered into submission by fate, he loses
his supernatural
qualities after a visit to the bizarre Hot Wax
nightclub. A subplot
involves a series of gruesome murders of old
women for which
the black militant leader Uhuru Simba is
arrested.
The next section returns to the story of Allie
Cone, detailing
her childhood and young adulthood. Her reunion
was Gibreel is
passionate, but it will be spoiled by his insane
jealousy. Again
haunted by Rekha Merchant, a deranged Gibreel
tries to confront
London in his angelic persona, but he is instead
knocked down
by the car of fi lm producer S. S. Sisodia, who
returns him to Allie
and signs him up to make a series of fi lms as
the archangel of his
dreams. Again he tries to leave Allie, but a riot
during a public
appearance lands him back again, defeated, at
Allie’s doorstep. At
the end of the chapter we learn that a most
uncharacteristic heat
wave has broken out in London.
Notes to Chapter V
Page 241 [249]
A City Visible but Unseen
Rushdie says of this chapter title:
it seemed to me at that point that [the London
Indian
community] really was unseen. It was there and
nobody
knew it was there. And I was very struck by how
often, when
one would talk to white English people about
what was
going on, you could actually take them to these
streets and
point to these phenomena, and they would somehow
still
reject this information.
Rushdie: “Interview,” p. 68.
Page 243 [251] Once I’m an owl
A quotation from Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, Book III, Chapter
transform him into an owl seeks reassurance that
he can resume
his own shape. He is instead changed into an
ass, and can only
be changed back into his human form again by
praying to the
goddess Isis.
hajis
People who have gone on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca
(Arabic). See above, note on p. 235 [242].
VCR addicts
Rushdie, like many Indians and Pakistanis calls
videotapes
“VCRs” instead of “videos.” Videotapes of Indian
fi lms,
particularly musicals, are a staple of emigre
entertainment.
in Dhaka . . . when Bangladesh was merely
an East Wing
Before it seceded in the bloody war of 1971, the
territory now
known as Bangladesh constituted the isolated
East Wing of
Pakistan. Its capital is more commonly spelled “Dacca.”
Why does Mr. Sufyan refer to himself as
an emigrant rather than
as an immigrant?
Lucius Apuleius of Madaura
Author of the famous Latin 2nd century satirical
classic, The
Golden Ass. Apuleius was in fact not from Morocco
(Verstraete
328-329). See above, note on p. 243 [251].
Page 244 [252]
satyrs
Proverbially lustful half-men, half goats.
Isis
Originally an Egyptian fertility goddess, she
had been
transformed in Apuleius’ time into the center of
a mystery cult
and was usually called “Sarapis.”
begum sahiba
Honored wife/lady (Hindi, Urdu). [253]
Wing Chun
The name of a Chinese Kung Fu style associated
with a woman
named Yim Wing Chun. It is traditionally
considered a woman’s
form of fi ghting though it is very popular
among men as well.
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee (1940-1973) was the star of many kung
fu movies.
Note how cross-cultural this reference is: an
Indian immigrant
emulating a Chinese hero using the skills taught
her by an Indian
ructor. Lee himself was an immigrant, having
been born in San
Francisco, moved to Hong Kong, educated at the
University
of Washington and moved back to the U.S. His
early death
stimulated a cult surrounding his memory which
is refl ected in
the girls’ pajamas.
Page 245
the new Madonna
The singer Madonna Louise Veronica Cicone, born
1958.
the Perfumed Garden
50
A title for Heaven: orig. Gulistan.
[254]
Bibhutibhushan Banerji
Distinguished author of the Apu Trilogy, memorably made into
fi lms by Satyajit Ray (see below, p. 440
[454]).
Tagore
See above, note on. p. 228 [235].
Rig-Veda
One of the oldest Sanskrit Hindu devotional
texts.
Quran-Sharif
The Noble Qur’an. See Mecca sharif, above, p. 235 [242].
military accounts of Julius Caesar
Caesar’s De Bello Gallico (Gallic Wars) are an account of his
own campaigns in what is now France and Germany,
and were
the beginning text for generations of Latin
students.
Revelations of St. John the Divine
The apocalyptic last book of the Christian
Bible.
Page 246
dosas
Lentil crepes (Hindi). Also called “ dosais.”
uttapams
Thick pancakes of lentil and rice fl ours
containing onions and
chilies.
tola
A very small unit of weight:
Page 248 [256]
Yukè
A pun on U.K. (United Kingdom) and some other
word?
Gitanjali
A book of Bengali songs by Tagore (see above, p.
228 [235]),
published in 1914?
Eclogues
Poems idealizing country life, by the Roman 1st
century BC poet,
Virgil.
Othello
Shakespeare’s play, named after the Moor who is
its leading
character.
[257]
chaat
Narrowly, a combination of diced fruit and vegetables
in a hot
and sour dressing, sometimes including meat or
shrimp; more
broadly, any sort of snack food.
gulab jamans
Fried cheese pastry balls soaked in syrup, a
classic Indian sweet,
more often spelled “gulab jamun.”
Jalebis
See above, note on p. 184 [190].
Page 249
barfi
See above, note on p. 184 [190].
Page 250 [258]
genuine McCoy
The usual expression is “the real McCoy,” said
of anything
genuine and derived from the whiskey smuggled
into the U.S.
during Prohibition by Captain Bill McCoy.
sharif
See note on London shareef above, p. 156 [160].
haramzadi
Female bastard.
girls killed for dowry
In recent years there has been widespread
publicity about cases
in which young brides were killed because their
families did
not deliver large enough doweries. Some Indians
consider the
phenomenon rare and unduly exaggerated in the
press, but others
maintain it is a serious problem.
Page 251 [259]
accepted the notion of mutation in
extremis
Citing an obscure passage in Charles Darwin’s
writings which
would lead him to agree in at least some cases
with his opponent
Lamarck (see above, p. 5 [6]).
What is the point of Sufyan’s musings of
Darwin?
Page 252 [260]
Omens, shinings, ghoulies, nightmares on
Elm Street
These refer to horror fi lm titles (The
Omen[1976], The Shining
[1980)], Ghoulies [1985] and Nightmare on Elm
Street [1984]
and its sequels).
Der Steppenwolf
This 1927 novel by Hermann Hesse, fi rst
translated into English
in 1965 has been a favorite of mystics and
bohemians.
[261]
unauthorized intra-vaginal inspections
Carried out by immigration offi cials in
Britain, looking for
smuggled contraband.
Depo-Provera scandals
In 1973 it was revealed in Congressional
hearings that numerous
poor African-American women had been injected
with the
experimental contraceptive Depo-Provera despite
the fact that
the Food and Drug Administration had not
approved its use,
citing concerns about possible side-effects,
including cancer. The
women were not warned that there was any risk.
The drug was
51
approved for use in Great Britain and in many
poor countries.
Its advocates argued that this simple-to-use
contraceptive
which could be injected once every three months
was ideal for
controlling the population explosion among poor,
uneducated
women. This argument was widely viewed as
racist.
unauthorized post-partum sterilizations
Instances of sterilizing minority women without
their permission
immediately after they had given birth are well
documented.
Third World drug-dumping
Medicines considered unsafe in their own
countries are exported
from the industrialized nations to poorer
countries where they are
freely sold.
Page 253
p
Pence, penny, cent.
yakhni
A kind of spicy stew.
[262]
the complex unpredictability of tabla
improvisations
Performances on the classical Indian drum
involve
improvisations based on extremely complex
rhythms.
Page 254 [262]
Jahannum
The Muslim Hell.
Gehenna
The Jewish Hell.
Muspellheim
The Norse Hell.
juggernauts
Though the word now means any unstoppable
monstrous thing,
the name has Indian origins, being the cart
bearing the image of
Lord Jagannath, an incarnation of Krishna,
beneath whose wheels
fervent worshippers used to throw themselves to
be crushed to
death. By extension, any large, unstoppable
movement or thing.
Page 255 [264]
Hubshees
Blacks.
Page 256
bloody but unbowed
From William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” (1888):
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud:
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
(lines 5-8).
What sorts of thoughts are troubling
Saladin?
Page 258 [267]
masala dosa
Spicy stuffed pancakes made of lentil fl our.
bangers
Traditional British breakfast sausage.
Page 259
Bangladesh
Seceded in a bloody war from Pakistan in 1971.
See above, p.
243 [251].
as the pips went
In the British telephone system, when one is
phoning from a
pay phone and the time paid for in advance
expires, a number
of warning beeps (“pips”) are sounded to alert
the user to insert
more coins or be cut off.
Page 260 [269]
Battuta’s Travels
Ibn Battuta was a Medieval Muslim traveler to
Asia and Africa
whose wanderings took him much farther afi eld
than Europe’s
Marco Polo.
Page 261
love of brown sugar
White men’s erotic attraction toward
brown-skinned women, seen
as exotic. [270] Yassir Arafat meets the Begins
An unlikely meeting at the time this novel was
written: Arafat
was leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front,
devoted foes
of Menachem Begin, former Premier of Israel,
intransigently
opposed to the Palestinians.
Finnegan’s Wake
James Joyce’s last novel, written in a densely
punning dialect
of his own creation, drawing on many
mythologies. Joyce’s
fondness for puns and other wordplay is clearly
infl uential on
Rushdie’s style.
Flatland
Refers to Edwin Abbott’s geometrical fantasy
novel: Flatland:
A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), which depicts a twodimensional
world.
Page 262
she was still protesting too much
When Hamlet has a group of traveling actors
portray a scene
rather like he murder of his father, the Queen
comments on
the protestations of loyalty expressed by the
wife in the play,
ironically (and revealingly): “The lady doth
protest too much,
methinks” (Act III, scene
Vinod Khanna
Vinod Khanna, muscular Bollywood action hero,
born 1947.
Mentioned again on p. 350 [361].
Sri Devi
Female Indian movie star.
Bradford
52
A city with a large Muslim population. It was
here that The
Satanic Verses was burned by protesters in one of the seminal
acts of the “Rushdie affair.”
Page 263 [272]
Dick Turpin
Famous British highwayman.
Ned Kelly
Famous Australian outlaw.
Phoolan Devi
A woman bandit-leader who, after years of
violence and 23
murders, was much romanticized in the Indian
press; but when
she surrendered to the police, she was revealed
to be more
militant and less glamorous than had been
supposed. A fi lm based
on her life, entitled Bandit Queen, was made by Shekhar Kapoor,
over her vehement objections. She ran
unsuccessfully for offi ce
in 1991 and successfully in 1996. She was
assassinated in 2001.
William Bonney
American outlaw, Billy the Kid.
also a Kid
Baby goats are called kids too, of course.
bob’s your uncle.
A common British expression of uncertain
derivation used at the
end of a list meaning something like “and there
you are.”
This place makes a packet, dunnit?
This place makes a bundle, doesn’t it?
Page 264 [273]
La lutte continue
“The struggle continues:” slogan of several
revolutionary
movements.
Hal Valance
A valance is a decorative fl ounce over a window
which performs
no particular function but looks pretty. The
name indicates
Hal’s superfi cial and useless contributions to
the world as an
advertising executive: mere window-dressing.
Page 265 [274]
advice given by Deep Throat to Bob
Woodward: Follow the
money
“Deep Throat” (referring to the notorious
pornographic fi lm by
that name) was the code name assigned to the
main informant
of the Washington Post reporters who uncovered much of the
Watergate scandal by tracking the handling of
money used by
Nixon’s staff to buy silence. The part was
played in the fi lm
version by Hal Holbrook. The Bob Woodward/Carl
Bernstein
book on the scandal, and the movie based on it,
was called All the
President’s Men.
wasted
Excessively thin.
Page 266
White Tower
A fashionable Franco-Greek restaurant at 1 Percy
Street in
London’s West End.
Orson Welles
The famous actor/director who became enormously
fat in later
years.
Maurice Chevalier
French musical performer and actor in both
French and American
fi lms.
[275]
Mrs Torture
A satire on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Commentators
have noted that it is ironic that after Rushdie
far more pointedly
satirized British racism than Muhammad’s
preaching it was the
British government which protected him from
Islamic extremists.
midatlantic-accented
An accent calculated to be neither precisely
British nor precisely
American, but somewhere in between.
Mary Wells
Mary Wells made her reputation in advertising in
1965 by
creating a highly-successful image makeover for
Braniff Airlines
which involved painting its airplanes in seven
different colors
(yellow, orange, turquoise, beige, ochre and two
shades of blue-
-but not pink). See “Braniff Refuels on
Razzle-Dazzle,” p. 110.
For more on Wells’ campaign see Loomis 114-117.
David Ogilvy for his eyepatch
In the sixties the David Ogilvy agency (for
which Rushdie
briefl y worked) created a highly successful
advertising campaign
promoting Hathaway shirts worn by a male model
with a black
patch over one eye.
Jerry della Femina
When della Femina was asked by executives at the
Bates
advertising agency to suggest ideas for an ad
campaign for
Panasonic he jokingly suggested “From those
wonderful folks
who gave you Pearl Harbor.” He thought highly
enough of
this anti-Asian crack to make it the title of
his 1970 volume of
humorous refl ections on the ad business (della
Femina 103).
Since the slogan was never really a part of
della Femina’s “work”
in advertising, one may assume that Rushdie is
recalling it for its
xenophobic thrust.
bums
American “asses.”
Valance in the Blofeld role and 007
nowhere on the scene
Refers to a James Bond villain.
Page 267 [276]
53
Dr Uhuru Simba
Ironically combines the African slogan “Uhuru!”
(freedom) with
a word for “lion” associated with Tarzan fi lms.
Brown Uncle Tom
A complex reference to the legendarily
submissive slave in
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Thomas
Hughes’ Tom Brown’s School Days (1857) set at Rugby, the
British public (private) school which Rushdie
himself attended.
See also below, p. 292 [301].
Page 268
Teuton
German.
quiff
A tuft of hair standing up in front.
Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian-born
body-builder and
action-movie star. Another immigrant.
quantel
A computer-imaging fi rm. The new fi gure is a
latex model whose
image is computer processed.
Rutger Hauer
This Dutch-born actor played the menacing Roy
Batty in Blade
Runner.
shiksa
Insulting Yiddish term for a gentile woman.
Often spelled shikse.
How have the Black protests against the Aliens Show backfi red?
Page 269 [278]
rosbif, boudin Yorkshire, choux de
bruxelles
Ironically French labels for typically boring
English foods: roast
beef, Yorkshire pudding, brussels sprouts.
nymphet
Term invented by Vladimir Nabakov in Lolita to describe a
highly attractive preadolescent girl.
Page 270 [279]
like a goat to the slaughter
The usual phrase is “like a lamb to the
slaughter,” from Isaiah
53:7 or “as a lamb to the slaughter” from
Jeremiah 53:7.
Page 271
Tini bénché achén! . . . Farishta bénché
achén
He’s alive. Farishta (Gibreel) is alive.
Ciné-Blitz
See above, note on Blitz, p. 13.
[280]
michelins sticking out between her sari
and her choli
See above, p. 60. Traditional Indian dress for
women includes a
short bodice called a choli which leaves some bare fl esh below
the breasts and above the waist.
Lambrakis . . . Z
Dr. Gregory Lambrakis was a popular leftist
parliamentary
deputy in the Greek government who was
assassinated on May
22,
seized power in 1967 and began a reign of
repression and terror).
He was widely viewed as a martyr, and protestors
wrote the letter
“Z” on walls, meaning zei, “he lives.” His story was told in a
novel entitled Z by Vassilis Vassilikos in 1966; and the novel was
in turn made into a major fi lm by Constantine
Costa Gavras in
1969.
Page 272
Billy Battuta
See note above, p. 260 on Battuta’s travels.
[281]
The Message
A reverent but inept 1976 fi lm, originally
released as Al-Risalah
(English, Mohammed, the Messenger of God, ) depicting the life
of Muhammad, fi ercely attacked by devout
Muslims, who object
to any pictorial depiction of the Prophet. As
Rushdie notes, the
fi lm avoided ever actually putting the Prophet
on the screen. This
passage clearly refl ects Rushdie’s
consciousness that the story he
was about to tell would strike some as
blasphemous.
Page 273
Why is Saladin so furious with Gibreel?
Page 274 [283] Struwelpeter
Struwwelpeter (the usual spelling) is a wildly
naughty boy who
features in verse stories by nineteenth-century
German children’s
author Heinrich Hoffmann. Mimi has presumably
taken on the
name as a joke.
Page 275
It was so, it was not
A standard opening phrase in Indian fantastic
stories, often used
by Rushdie; equivalent in function to the
European “Once upon
a time” but emphasizing the equivocal nature of
the narrative it
introduces. [284]
baggy salwar pantaloons
Typically voluminous women’s trousers.
bottled djinn
This pun on the Arabic word for “genie” and “gin”
(both found in
bottles) is also repeatedly used in Midnight’s Children.
Elephant Man illness
Neurofi bromatosis, from the circus name of its
most famous
victim, Joseph Carey (John) Merrick (1862-1850).
A 1974 play
about Merrick called The Elephant Man was produced in 1979,
and a movie by the same title appeared in 1980.
Page 276
54
Big Eid
Muslim holiday commemorating Abraham’s
near-sacrifi ce of
Ishmael (in Jewish and Christian traditions,
Isaac), called “big” to
distinguish it from the “little” Eid which ends
Ramadan.
[285]
mullah
In Islam, the spiritual head of a mosque.
Lucretius . . . Ovid
In a passage from De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things,
Book V, lines 670-671) (See Verstraete 231-232).
the fi rst
century BC philosopher poet Lucretius suggests
that life may
have evolved. His contemporary Ovid’s Metamorphoses retell
the classic Greco-Roman myths focusing on the
magical
transformations that people and gods undergo
into new forms.
The passage quoted is from Book 15, lines
169-172 (Verstraaete
331).
Page 277 [286]
cuckold’s horns
In the Renaissance and later cuckolds--men whose
wives are
unfaithful to them--were said to wear horns.
passionate intensity
Alludes to Yeats’ 1920 poem “The Second Coming,”
lines 6-8:
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Page 278
pot and kettle
An old expression applied to those who criticize
people when
they are guilty of the same fault to a greater
degree compares
them to a pot calling a kettle black.
mote and beam
In Matthew 7:3 Jesus similarly criticizes those
who judge others
by saying that they object to the “mote” (dust
speck) in another
person’s eye when thy have a “beam” (plank) in
their own.
the David Carradine character in the old Kung Fu programmes
Refers to a popular but odd 1970s television
series (revived in
1992) featuring a Zen Buddhist monk wandering
the Wild West,
seeking peace but forever forced to do battle
with evil.
Notting Hill
Where Rushdie himself used to live.
lower thumb
Penis.
Page 280 [289]
Freemasonry
The Freemasons is a fraternal organization that
in its early years
combined rationalism with mysticism.
obeah
Caribbean name for a kind of black magic rooted
in African
tradition.
witchfi nding . . . Matthew Hopkins
See note above on p. 182, on Matthew Hopkins.
Martine Dutheil
points out that Rushdie is deliberately
associating with the
English superstitious practices which they
normally attribute
scornfully only to their former colonial
subjects (Dutheil 107, fn.
24).
Gloriana
Name used by Renaissance poets to refer to Queen
Elizabeth I.
When she spoke, people listened.
New Broomstick Needed to Sweep Out
Witches
This would seem to be the title of an article
written by or about
Pamela rather than a real book.
Page 281 [290]
her hair had gone snow-white
Like Ayesha in the Titlipur plot (see p. 225).
Page 282 [291]
mutey
Monstrous mutant, usually the result of exposure
to radiation;
more commonly “mute.”
yellowbrick lane
Alludes to the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz, which
leads to the Emerald City, and Brick Lane in
London, where
many Asians live, and which is transformed into
Brickhall in the
novel (see below, note on Brickhall, p. 283.)
Page 283 [292]
he pronounced no sentences
Pun: didn’t announce sentences of criminals/didn’t
speak.
Kurus and Pandavas
The two families (cousins) whose war is the
principal subject of
the Mahabharata
.
Mahabharata
The classic epic which is a central text of
Hinduism.
Mahavilayet
Great foreign country. See Vilayet, above, p. 4.
National Front
A racist, anti-immigrant British political
organization.
murder of the Jamaican, Ulysses E. Lee
(perhaps incongruously combining the names of
the opposing
chief generals in the American Civil War:
Ulysses S. Grant and
Robert E. Lee.)
The Brickhall Three
“Brickhall” is a blending of the names of two
Asian
neighborhoods in London, Brick Lane and
Southhall (Seminck
8). Protests against the trial of groups of
defendants often refer
55
to them by number, i. e. “The Chicago Seven.”
The example
Rushdie probably had in mind was the “Guildford
Four,”
imprisoned by the British for a series of 1974
pub bombings
after one Gerry Conlon was tortured into
confessing. After many
appeals, the four were fi nally vindicated and
released. The case
was a long-running scandal, described in Gerry
Conlon’s Proved
Innocent (London: Penguin, 1990). The book was made into
a
successful fi lm entitled In the Name of the Father (1993).
Page 284
Jatinder Singh Mehta
This allusion to a tavern murder is meant to be
typical but is
not based on an event involving anyone by this
specifi c name
(personal communication from Salman Rushdie).
[293]
bhangra beat
The popular dance music of London’s Indian and
Pakistani youth,
derived from traditional Punjabi dances
originally performed at
weddings and other celebrations.
Page 285 [294]
Jamme Masjid
A mosque in Brick Lane, formerly a Jewish
synagogue and
a Christian church, refl ecting the changing population
in the
neighborhood. Named after the famous
17th-century Jama, Jami
or Juma Masjid in Delhi which is mentioned on p.
519.
Huguenots’ Calvinist church
Calvinism was founded in Switzerland and the
Huguenots were
French, so even this earliest incarnation of the
building was
doubly immigrant-based.
Page 286 [295]
Sympathy for the Devil
A classically apocalyptic rock song by the
Rolling Stones, from
their Beggar’s Banquet album.
Eat the Heinz Fifty-Seven.
For years the Heinz Foods Company advertised that
it made
57 varieties of canned foods. This parodies the
various slogans
calling for freeing a certain number of
prisoners.
Pleasechu meechu . . . hopeyu guessma
nayym
Phonetic rendering of Mick Jagger’s refrain in Sympathy for the
Devil: “Pleased to meet you . . . Hope you guess my
name.”
[296]
CRC
Community Relations Council.
What social tensions are refl ected in
the transformations that
London is undergoing?
Page 287
‘This isn’t what I wanted. This is not
what I meant, at all.’
From T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock.” (Note
by Martine Dutheil.)
Page 288 [297]
the heart, for obvious reasons, in the
mouth
“To have one’s heart in one’s mouth” is a common
expression for
being terrifi ed.
das Ich
The self, the term which is rendered as “ego” in
English
translations of Freud.
Page 289 [298]
I am . . . that I am.
See above, p. 182.
Submission
See note above, on p. 125.
What does Saladin mean by these two
lines?
baron-samedi
In voodoo, Baron Samedi is host of the dead.
Page 291 [300]
Club Hot Wax
A three-way pun: hot wax means currently popular
music
(records were formerly made from molded wax
masters), a
common method of removing body hair, and the
custom of
literally melting wax fi gurines depicted below.
Rushdie may well
have been inspired by reading in Antonia Fraser’s
life of Charles
II (a person whose life we know he was
interested in--see p. 340)
of an anti-Catholic celebration held in London
on November
17,
Guy Fawkes’ Day ceremony (see below, note on p.
293), wax
fi gures of the pope, attendant devils and nuns
(the latter labelled
as courtesans) were displayed and the fi gure of
the pope was
ceremoniously burned in a huge bonfi re (Fraser
384-385).
Blak-An-Tan
Aside from its obvious racial associations, the
name is the term
assigned by the Irish independence movement to
the occupying
British soldiers based on their uniforms: “the
Black and Tans.”
Page 292 [301]
Hamza-nama cloth
See above, p. 69.
Mary Seacole
A black woman who also cared for the troops in
the Crimean
War, but didn’t gain the same fame as Florence
Nightingale,
popularly known as “The lady with the lamp.”
Abdul Karim, aka The Munshi, whom Queen
Victoria sought to
56
promote, but who was done down by
colour-barring ministers
Abdul Karim served as Victoria’s tutor (“munshi”)
in Hindi and
personal confi dante for many years; but many of
her advisors
considered him a security risk and tried to
discourage the
relationship (Moorhouse, pp. 120-121).
black clown of Septimius Severus
According to the highly unreliable Historia Augusta (written in
late antiquity), when Severus (born in North
Africa and Emperor
of Rome 146-211 AD) encountered a black man
widely reputed
to be a buffoon, he was not amused, but
considered the meeting
an ill omen. He urged his priests to consult the
organs of a
sacrifi cial animal, which they also found to be
black. Not long
after, he died. There are some grounds for
believing that Severus
himself may have been black. See also note on
the Triumphal
Arch of Septimus Severus, on p. 38.
Bust of Septimus Severus in the Granet
Museum, Aix-en-
Provence. Photo by Paul Brians.
Grace Jones
Black model and singer popular in the eighties.
Ukawsaw Groniosaw
He wrote an account of his life in slavery,
published in 1731,
entitled A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the
Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw,
an African Prince,
Written by Himself.
how-we-make-contribution-since-de-Rome-Occupation
The claim is being made that immigrants have
been making
contributions to English civilization since the
Romans colonized
it in the 1st century CE.
Mosley, Powell, Edward Long, all the
local avatars of Legree
Racist British politicans. For Enoch Powell, see
above, p. 186.
“Avatar” is the Hindu term for an incarnation.
Simon Legree is
the slave-owning villain of Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. See above, p. 267 [276].
Page 293 [302]
hells kitchen
Alluding to the popular name of an area on the
West Side of
Manhattan dominated by gangs and crime in the
later 19th
century.
Maggie-maggie-maggie
Margaret Thatcher is melted in effi gy.
the guy
On November 5 English children celebrate the
discovery of the
Gunpowder Plot to blow up the houses of
Parliament by burning
in effi gy the chief criminal, Guy Fawkes. They
go from house to
house asking for “a penny for the Guy” to fi
nance the creation of
the effi gy.
obeah
See above, note for p. 280 [289].
Page 294
Topsy and Legree
The innocent slave girl and the villainous
slaveowner of Uncle
Tom’s Cabin. See above, p. 267 [276] & 292 [301].
[304] melted like tigers into butter
Alluding to Little Black Sambo, a children’s book extremely
popular until objections against the racist
associations aroused
by the illustrations and character names led to
its fall from favor.
In it, the hero cleverly climbs a tree to escape
two tigers and
allows them to chase each other until they melt
into butter which
he proceeds to take home to his mother to serve
on pancakes.
Though most readers imagined the story as set in
Africa, tigers do
not live there, though they do live in India.
Page 295 [305] Cho Oyu
The name is Tibetan, probably meaning “Goddess
of the
Turquoise.”
Shangri-La
A magical kingdom in the Himalayas where no one
grows old,
described in James Hilton’s Lost Horizons.
Picabia
This artist experimented with cubism, dadaism,
and surrealism;
see p. 297 [307].
How does Otto Cone’s philosophy refl ect
themes in the novel?
Page 296 [306]
Father Christmas
British name for Santa Claus.
57
Mao
Chinese Premier Mao Tse Tung. Under his rule the
Chinese
brutally invaded and occupied Tibet.
[307]
In the beginning was the word
The famous opening line of the book of John.
Page 297
kreplach
Jewish noodle dish.
pearl without price
Precious jewel worth sacrifi cing all else for,
from Jesus’ parable
in Matthew 13:45-46; a strikingly Christian
allusion from the
assimilationist Jewish Otto.
“stuffed monkey”
In 1920 Picabia glued a toy monkey onto a piece
of cardboard
and labelled it “Portrait de Czanne, Portrait de
Rembrandt,
Portrait de Renoir, Natures mortes.” (Barràs
202, 229).
Jarry’s Ubu Roi
Alfred Jarry wrote a series of plays, including
this one (Ubu the
King) about a vile-tempered, crude tyrant. He was
hailed by the
surrealists as a genius.
[308]
Polish literature . . . Herbert . . .
Milosz . . .Baranczak
Zbigniew Herbert, Czeslaw Mislosz, Stanislaw
Baranczak.
mid-off
In cricket, the mid-off (short for mid-wicket
off) stands on the
off-side, at the other end of the pitch from the
batter, near the
bowler. He is there mainly to stop the off-drive
from the batsman
(a shot played straight down the wicket), as
well as to assist in
catching the throws from other fi elders to the
bowlers end in case
of attempted runouts (David Windsor).
Widow of Windsor!
A term used by Rudyard Kipling to refer to Queen
Victoria after
the death of Prince Albert. British monarchs
live in Windsor
Castle. Victoria made something of a career out
of being a widow.
pantomime member
British pantomimes are satirical dramatic
productions, usually
produced at Christmas. They are not pantomimes
in the American
sense at all, including as they do dialogue. The
equivalent
expression would be “cartoon member.”
Page 298
tsimmis
Traditional Jewish stew.
London W-two
W2 is the postal code of Paddington, where they
live.
Chanukah
The Jewish festival of lights, also spelled
Hanukkah, celebrated
in December.
imitation of life
The 1959 remake of a 1934 fi lm based on a
Fannie Hurst novel
by the same name, in which the light-skinned
daughter of a black
woman “passes” for white. Lana Turner stars as
an ambitious
actress Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson performs
in a bit part.
lift-shaft
British for “elevator shaft.” Yet another
suicide by jumping.
survivor of the camps
The Nazi death camps.
[309]
Cecil Beaton
Famous British fashion photographer. He designed
costumes for
stage and fi lm productions, winning an Oscar
for his costume
designs for the 1964 fi lm of My Fair Lady.
Page 299
chimeran graft
Blend of two different plants.
puddings
Desserts.
Gurdjieffi an mystics
Mystics infl uenced by the Russian Georgy S.
Gurdjieff (1872?-
1949), himself infl uenced by Indian thought.
[310]
gift of tongues
The miraculous ability to speak foreign
languages (tongues),
often manifested as the recitation of apparent
nonsense syllables.
The classic instance of this phenomenon is the
fi rst Pentecost
(Acts 2:1-15).
p-a-c-h-y
Elephants are pachyderms.
Page 300
Moscow Road
A fashionable street northwest of Kensington
Gardens.
elephant joke
There was a vogue for elephant jokes in the fi
fties. The
most famous: “Where does an elephant sit down?”
Answer:
“Anywhere he wants.”
In what ways are both Gibreel and Allie
made to feel they are
outsiders in England?
Page 301 [311]
chimera
In mythology, a beast made up of the parts of
various animals.
The theme of hybridization and transplantation
refers to Gibreel’s
own immigrant status, of course.
58
[312]
Singer Brothers dybbukery
Her mother interprets Allie’s obsession with
Gibreel in Jewish
terms. Isaac Bashevis Singer featured a dybbuk (in Jewish
folklore, a demonic spirit which can take
possession of a human
body) in his novel Satan in Goray , where it behaved much like
an incubus, a creature which has wild sex with
sleeping women.
Visions of similar creatures haunt Jegor, a
character in The
Family Carnovsky, by I. B. Singer’s older brother, Israel Joseph
Singer.
Page 302
L’Argent du Poche
“Small Change,” a 1976 François Truffaut fi lm
about a group of
schoolboys.
Page 303 [313]
land’s attempt to metamorphose into sky
Refl ects the recurrent theme of metamorphosis.
they were there
When the New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund
Hillary, who
had been the fi rst to climb Mount Everest in
1953 (with the
Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgay), was asked why
he climbed
mountains, he replied, “Because they are there.”
The sherpas are
a people who live in the Himalayas and who make
much of their
living from helping mountain climbers.
Namche Bazar
One of the last villages in Nepal in which
mountain climbers stop
for supplies before attempting to climb Mt.
Everest.
Page 304 [315]
Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell
William Blake’s mystical work combines
traditional biblical
elements with an enthusiastic celebration of
eroticism as a
vehicle of spiritual revelation. Like some other
romantic poets, he
considers the demonic realm depicted in Milton’s
Paradise Lost
to be not a source of wickedness, but of
creative and regenerative
energy suppressed by Christianity’s traditional
obsession with
virginity and chastity. He argues for a reunion
of the polarities
traditionally radically split off from each
other by Christian
dualism, as in this passage from p. 3: “Without
Contraries is
no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason
and Energy,
Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
From these
contraries spring what the religious call Good
& Evil. Good is
the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the
active spring from
Energy.” Compare Blake’s approach to good and
evil with that of
Rushdie, who blends demonic and angelic
characteristics in his
two protagonists.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God
This saying is characteristic of the many
unorthodox “Proverbs
of Hell” (see p. 8 of The Marriage of Heaven & Hell) praising
the whole-hearted enjoyment of life, such as “The
road to excess
leads to the palace of wisdom” and “He who
desires but acts
not, breeds pestilence.” Goats are traditionally
associated with
carefree natural sexuality through their
connection with satyrs,
but are symbols of the damned in Christianity
(See Matthew
25:32-33). This ambiguity is much played with
throughout the
novel.
Additional note by Martine Dutheil:
Among the “Proverbs of Hell,” some are
strikingly relevant to
Rushdie’s artistic project, such as “Drive your
cart and your
plough over the bones of the dead” (as an image
of postcolonial
writing’s relation to Western culture); “Prisons
are built with
stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion”
(which
anticipates the “brothel” sections in Rushdie’s
novel); “You
never know what is enough unless you know what
is more than
enough” and, even more signifi cant for Blake
and Rushdie’s
vision of art, “Every thing possible to be
believ’d is an image of
truth”.
The ancient tradition that the world will
be consumed in fi re at
the end of six thousand years is true
17th-Century Irish Archbishop James Ussher (here
spelled
“Usher”) famously calculated the date of
creation, based on
biblical chronology, at 4004 BC, and predicted
the end of the
world in 1996, as referred to on p. 305 [315].
This passage occurs
at the top of p. 14 of The Marriage of Heaven & Hell. This
statement is followed by these words: “For the
cherub with his
fl aming sword is hereby commanded to leave his
guard at tree
of life, and when he does, the whole creation
will be consumed,
and appear infi nite and holy whereas it now
appears fi nite &
corrupt.” There then follows the phrase quoted
at the top of p.
305 [315]: “This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual
enjoyment.”
What are the main themes of the section
during which Gibreel
examines Allie’s copy of The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell?
Page 305
I saw no God, nor heard any, in a fi nite
organical perception; but
my senses discover’d the infi nite in
every thing.
This sentence is actually the second on p. 12 of
The Marriage
of Heaven & Hell, earlier than the preceding passage quoted by
Rushdie. It occurs just before the passage
quoted on p. 338 [348].
the Regenerated Man
The image described is on p. 21 of William Blake’s
The Marriage
of Heaven and Hell.
59
I have always found that Angels have the
vanity to speak of
themselves as the only wise. . . .
This is the fi rst line of p. 21 of The Marriage of Heaven & Hell.
golden chain-mail Rabanne
Alluding to one of the bizarre clothing designs
of Paco Rabanne.
Page 306 [316] crashpad
“Crashpad” was a hippie term used in the sixties
to refer to an
apartment or house (“pad”) where homeless young
people could
live--”crash”--for free.
sugar-lump
LSD was commonly distributed in sugar cubes in
its early days.
no shortage of brain cells
It was widely reported in the sixties that
taking LSD destroyed
brain cells.
trying, in the idiom of the day, to fl y
Because being drugged was called “getting high,”
there were
many allusions to fl ying in hippie drug slang.
Elena’s suicide
is linked through this term to the other deaths
by falling in the
novel.
[317]
virgin queen
One of the titles of Queen Elizabeth I, who
never married.
virgo intacta
Intact virgin.
Page 307
‘ACID BATH’ She drowned while high on LSD (“acid”),
but in
various industrial processes metals are dipped
into a literal “acid
bath.”
Page 308 [318]
parachute silk
Allie has bedsheets made of recycled parachutes,
making an apt
symbol of arrival for a man who has plummeted
from the sky.
Page 309
What are the Allie’s main
characteristics, and how do they
sometimes cause confl ict in her life?
Page 310 [320] isn’t it?
Typical Anglo-Indian expression, meaning “aren’t
there?”
Page 311 [321]
Luzhin
Main character in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel
dealing with chess,
Zashchita Luzhina (The Defense).
[322]
Marinetti
Filippo Tommasso Marinetti (1876-1944), leader
of the Italian
Futurist art movement, attracted to machinery
and speed, aligned
with Fascism.
kathputli
Hindi for marionettes.
Page 312
one-off
Unique item, or here, event.
[323]
Guantanamera
Popular Cuban song by Jose Marti, associated
with the Castro
revolution.
best minds of my generation
(opening of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. (1956). The poem begins:
I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical
naked, dragging themselves through the
negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fi x,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient
heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in
the machinery of night. . . .
Allie is mocking the pretensions of young men
who claim to be
revolutionaries but exploit women.
Page 313
Discuss Allie’s contention that truth has
fl ed to the mountains.
What do you think she means? Note that
her father explains a
related theory on the next page. Do you
agree with her? Explain.
Page 314 [324]
O but he’s dead, and at the bottom of the
sea.
This sounds intriguingly like a line from an
Elizabethan play,
but is in fact entirely Rushdie’s own invention
(personal
communication from Salman Rushdie).
locus classicus
Originally, classic passage in a literary work;
here, classic place.
Page 315 [325]
the Angel of the Recitation
The Angel Gabriel is said to have dictated the
Qur’an to
Muhammad.
now that Shaitan had fallen
In Islam, Shaitan is a Jinn, cast down from
heaven for refusing to
fall down before Adam. In Jewish and Christian
belief Satan is
said to have been an Angel, cast down from
Heaven for rebelling
against God.
[326]
as Iago warned, doth mock the meat it
feeds on
From Shakespeare’s Othello III: iii lines
165-167: O. beware,
my lord of jealousy; / It is the green-eyed
monster which doth
mock / The meat it feeds on. . . .” The line
suggests that jealousy
destroys those who harbor it, devouring them.
60
Page 316
like Brutus, all murder and dignity. . .
. The picture of an
honourable man
Refers to Antony’s funeral oration in Act III,
Scene 2 of
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, where he ironically calls the
assassinsóincluding Marcus Junius Brutus, one of
Caesar’s
closest associatesó”honourable men.”
wpb
Wastepaper basket.
one day men shall fl y
Leonardo da Vinci, now mainly famous for
paintings like the
Mona Lisa, spent a great deal of time and ingenuity trying
to
design a fl ying machine.
Page 317 [327]
Yoji Kuri
His darkly comic fi lms are more infl uenced by
Western cartoons
than most Japanese animation. Titles in English
include “Vanish”
and “Manga.”
Page 318 [328]
for Blake’s Isaiah, God had simply been
an immanence, an
incorporeal indignation
Alluding to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 12:
The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me,
and I asked
them how they dared so roundly to assert. that
God spake to
them; and whether they did not think at the
time, that they
would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of
imposition.
Isaiah answr’d. I saw no God, nor heard any, in
a fi nite
organical perception; but my senses discovr’d
the infi nite
in every thing, and as I was then perswaded,
& remain
confi rm’d; that the voice of honest indignation
is the voice of
God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.
[329]
a man of about the same age as himself
Gayatri Spivak notes that the following
description resembles
Rushdie himself
(48).
Ooparvala . . . ‘The Fellow Upstairs.’
God.
Neechayvala, the Guy from Underneath
The Devil.
Page 319 [330]
masala movie
Melodramatic Indian fi lm, see note on “exotic
spices” p. 166
[171].
Page 320
‘Ad or Thamoud
Two tribes mentioned in the Qur’an as having rejected prophets
from God; ancient mighty peoples who vanished
through
wickedness. For further information, see Haykal
31.
Page 321 [331]
the thirteenth-century German Monk
Richalmus
This crochety monk was obsessed with demons,
blaming them
for all of the petty irritants that surrounded
him in his Liber
Revelationum de Insidiis et Versutiis
Daemonum Adversus
Homines, fi rst printed by Bernard Pez in his Thesaurus
Anecdotorum Novisisimus (Wittenberg?: Philippi, Martini &
Joannis Veith, 1721-29), vol. 1, part 2, columns
373-472.
Semjaza and Azazel
Identifi ed in the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch, Chapters 6-9,
as wicked leaders of the angels (“sons of God”)
mentioned in the
passage from Genesis 6:4 cited immediately
below. Azazel is also
identifi ed in Leviticus 16:6-10 as a spirit to
whom a sacrifi cial
goat must be offered by driving it into the
wilderness. This ritual
sacrifi ce is part of the famous “scapegoat”
ritual often alluded
to but seldom understood. Azazel is sometimes
interpreted as a
demon who lives in the desert.
lusting after the daughters of men
Genesis 6: 4, tells of the Nephilim, mighty offspring of “the sons
of God” mating with “the daughters of men.”
the Prophet, on whose name be peace
The ritually orthodox way to refer to Muhammad.
In what way does Gibreel compare himself
with Muhammad?
Page 322 [332]
a part of town once known . . .
London’s Soho district.
[333]
ka
Sanskrit term often used to refer to an unnamed
divine source of
being, literally “who.”
Page 323
Janab
Honorifi c title like “sahib.”
[334]
O, children of Adam
This passage comes from the Qur’an, Sura 7,
verse 27. The
context insists on God’s goodness as contrasted
with Shaitan’s
wickedness.
Jahweh
One rendering of the sacred name of God in
Judaism, also often
spelled “Yahweh.”
61
Deutero-Isaiah
“Second Isaiah,” the name assigned to the
presumed author of
Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah. He is said to have
lived long after
the writer of the fi rst thirty-nine chapters.
His work, completed
toward the end of the exile of the Jews in
Babylon, would have
been added to the book in order to update it.
The very use of this
term refl ects modern Biblical scholarship
appealing to a skeptic
like Rushdie.
Shall there be evil in a city and the
Lord hath not done it?
Amos 3:6. This and the following citations make
the point that
God was depicted at fi rst as a source of evil
as well as good,
and that Satan was only gradually differentiated
from him. The
dualism characteristic of later religions like
Islam is seen as a
“pretty recent fabrication.”
What relevance does this discussion of
the relationship between
good and evil have to the rest of the
novel?
Page 324
Ithuriel
In Milton’s Paradise Lost,Book IV, Ithuriel’s golden spear
transformed Satan from his disguise as a toad
back into his
original form (Joel Kuortti).
Zephon had found the adversary squat like a toad
by Eve’s ear in Eden, using his wiles
to reach
The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams.
From John Milton: Paradise Lost, Book IV, lines 800-
passage which links demonic temptation and the
imagination in a
way that fi ts the context.
Lives there who loves his pain?
This and the following lines are from Paradise Lost, Book
IV, lines 888-
reproached him for rebelling against God, by
saying anyone
would want to escape from Hell.
felo de se
Suicide.
Page 326 [336]
seize the day
This traditional expression, meaning “do it now,”
comes from the
Latin carpe diem (Horace: Odes, I:21, line 8).
pukka
Racially pure. Bigoted British colonial slang
derived from Hindi
pakka, meaning “ripe.” [337]
Levantine
From the Levant: the Middle East.
Page 327
Wildernesse
The Wildernesse Golf Club is located in
Sevenoaks, Kent,
southwest of London.
Iblis
From Greek diabolos, “the
slanderer;” name of the rebel angel/
devil in the Qur’an.
Tchu Tché Tchin Tchow.
Gibreel is trying to remember Chamcha’s name;
but this
succession of syllables may well be a veiled
allusion to a British
musical comedy entitled
in 1916 (script by Oscar Ashe, music by Frederic
Norton), and
fi lmed twice (in 1923 and 1934). A great
success in its original
staging, the production was a spectacular
musical based on a
much older pantomime (see above, p. 297 [308])
telling the
story of Ali Baba and Forty Thieves. The musical
remained
popular enough to receive a production on ice
under the same
title in 1953. Whichever version he encountered,
the Arabian
Nights’ setting of the tale would have attracted Rushdie’s
attention; and the fact that the lead thief,
named Abu Hassan in
the play, was also called by the very
Chinese-sounding name of
“
that Europeans have long engaged in, and to
which Rushdie
frequently alludes in the novel. (Sources:
Dimmitt 279, Sharp
179, 1136, Enciclopedia 170, Times 9, Variety,
Wearing 656-657.
See note on thirty-nine stone urns below, p. 377 [389]. [338]
Wren’s dome
The massive dome of London’s St. Paul’s
Cathedral, designed by
Christopher Wren.
Page 328
Underground
Subway.
the Council
Local British government body.
swing them by their necks
The French Revolutionaries hung the hated
aristocrats from the
Parisian lampposts.
Orphia Phillips
As the following lines make clear, she is the
sister of Hyacinth
Phillips, whom Saladin met on p. 169 [170].
[339]
I cyaan believe I doin this
Orphia, Uriah and Rochelle all speak Caribbean
dialect.
Page 330
[341]
sure as eggsis
Abbreviation of a British colloquialism, “eggs
is eggs,” perhaps a
pun on the alegebraic expression of equivalence:
“X is X.”
obeah
See above, note for p. 280.
Page 331
mashin up
In Caribbean dialects “mash up” is used to
describe the creation
of all sorts of damage--here, for “crumpling,”
and below, “mash
up” means “wreck.” [342]
62
dabba . . . dabbawalla
See note above, on p. 18, on dabbas.
travelling mat
See above, note on p. 108 [111].
Page 332 [343]
pour encourager les autres
“To encourage the others,” a famous sarcastic
remark from
Voltaire’s Candide. At the
end of Chapter 23 of that novel, the
protagonist happens upon the execution of of an
English admiral,
accused of cowardice for not having approached
the enemy
suffi ciently closely. Candide objects that his
French opponent
must have been equally guilty, but his informant
casually
remarks, “That’s undeniable, but in this country
it’s a good thing
to kill an admiral from time to time to
encourage the others.” This
is Voltaire’s satire on the execution of Admiral
John Byng, which
he had tried unsuccessfully to prevent in 1757.
something straaange in the neighbourhood
The children are playing at being Ghostbusters,
quoting the
refrain of the title song from the 1984 fi lm by
that name: “If
there’s something strange in your neighborhood,
who ya gonna
call? Ghostbusters!”
gulag
Acronym for the prison camps of the Soviet
Union.
fairy-queen
One of the many titles associated with Queen
Elizabeth I, but
here probably an anti-gay insult.
Page 333
Bachchas
Children (Hindi).
rude rhymes
“Rude” is a much stronger term in Britain than
in the U.S. Do
these count as Satanic Verses? [344]
redeeming the city like something left in
a pawnshop
The Judeo-Christian tradition of a redeemer
(Hebrew goël) is a
fi gure who pays the amount due in order to
liberate whoever or
whatever has been condemned. In Christian
theology Christ is the
sacrifi cial lamb who, echoing the Passover lamb
of the Jews, dies
to free his followers from sin and damnation.
Thus the use of the
term “redeem” to refer to liberating an item
left at a pawnshop is
historically accurate, if irreverent.
calm-calm
In Indian dialect, adjectives are sometimes
repeated thus to
emphasize them. Other examples are “big-big” (p.
68 [69]) and
“bad-bad” (p. 334 [344]).
Page 334
three-little-words
“Three Little Words” is the title of a popular
song written in 1930
for an Amos and Andy fi lm, Check and Double Check, by Harry
Ruby and Bert Kalmar. The words are, of course, “I
love you.”
Instead, Gibreel replies with another, very
unsatisfactory, three
words.
tamasha
Show, circus, celebration (from the name for a
very popular form
of bawdy Indian folk theater). [345]
harmonium
Box-like portable organ somewhat like an
accordion introduced
into India by Christian missionaries and widely
adopted for the
playing of traditional Indian music.
The gazals of Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Faiz (1914-1978), born in what is now Pakistan,
was one of
South Asia’s most distinguished and infl uential
modern poets.
Much of his Urdu poetry was Marxist-inspired
political poetry
in support of the poor. In his acknowledgements,
Rushdie
cites Mahmood Jamal as the source of this
translation, slightly
emended by himself. For gazals, see note on p.
3.
the fi fties classic Mughal-e-Azam
(Dir. K. Asif, starring Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip
Kumar, &
Madhubala, 1960) A spectacular historical
fantasy in which the
son of the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great falls
in love with a
dancing girl.
Cleopatra’s Needle
An Egyptian obelisk, now located on the Victoria
Embankment
by the Thames. It has nothing to do with
Cleopatra, having been
created about 1500 BC.
Page 335 [346]
There is no God but God.
See note above, on p. 105 [108].
Page 336 [347]
In the pages that follow, try to decide
how literally we are to
take Gibreel’s transformation. Does he
actually change, or is the
transformation only in his mind? Explain.
mala’ikah . . . malak
The former is the plural, the latter the
singular term for “angel” in
Arabic.
as the Quran clearly states
From the Qur’an Sura 18 (“The
Cave”), verse 50. Iblis, a
rebellious spirit, refuses the commandment to
bow down to Adam
and is damned, becoming Shaitan, or Satan. See also Qur’an,
Sura 2 (“The Cow”), verse 34 and Sura 17 (“The
Night Journey,
Children of Israel”), verse 61.
Wilt thou place in the earth such as make
mischief in it and shed
blood?
Qu’ran Sura 2, verse 30. When God announces his
intention of
creating humanity, the angels reply with what
the narrator implies
is justifi ed skepticism.
Page 337
colossus-style
One of the seven wonders of the ancient world,
the Colossus of
Rhodes, a hundred-foot-high statue of Helios,
stood in the harbor
of Rhodes.
63
[348]
I’m papa partial to a titi tipple;
mamadam, my caca card
S. S. Sisodia’s stammer produces a variety of
obscene and fairly
obvious puns.
to a degree
British colloquialism for “to a great degree.”
iscreen
The British call auto windshields “windscreens,”
so Gibreel is
literally “on the screen.”
Page 338
What is the point of the story about the
man who believed he was
Napoleon?
Blake again, Allie thought.
The quotation that follows is taken from The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell: p. 12. See notes on p. 304 [315]. The point of
Blake’s
dialogue is that inspired revelation is genuine,
though not limited
to biblical prophets. Allie is mentally
countering her mother’s
skepticism about Gibreel.
[349]
plug him in
Electroshock therapy, once widely used to treat
schizophrenia,
was accused of tranquillizing patients by
destroying part of their
brains and turning them into zombies.
Page 339
early bath
As opposed to an “early grave.” “Taking an early
bath” is
a euphemism in British sport for being “sent-off,”
that is,
dispatched from the playing arena for an act of
foul play. It is
a phrase associated with soccer and rugby
(although more with
working-class rugby league, than the
middle-class, Rugby School
associated, rugby union). As the players indulge
in a communal
bath post-match (ghastly as that sounds), a
player sent-off before
the end of the game takes a bath before everyone
else. It was
popularized (invented?) by the late BBC sports
commentator
Eddie Waring and, to be honest, Allie’s mother
would more
probably have heard the phrase on television,
rather than read it
in the sports pages, as Allie believes (Paul
Harmer).
Page 340 [350]
Charles II’s terror after his
Restoration, of being sent “on his
travels” again
After Charles I was executed and the British monarchy
was
abolished on January 30, 1649 by Puritan
revolutionaries, his
son, Charles II, was forced to roam from court
to court on the
Continent, seeking refuge and income from
various foreign
governments. Although he was often portrayed as
a careless
playboy, there were many times of hardship and
anxiety during
this period. After Puritan leader Oliver
Cromwell’s death in 1658,
Charles was invited home and the monarchy
reestablished, an
event known as “The Restoration.” Although not
all historians
agree, Antonia Fraser maintains in her popular
biography of
the king that he was fearful and depressed at
many points in
his life, especially toward its end. She
recounts that he told an
Englishman living in Brussels, “I am weary of
travelling, and am
resolved to go abroad no more. But when I am
dead and gone,
I know what my brother may do: I am much afraid
that when
he comes to wear the crown he will be obliged to
travel again.
And yet I will take care to leave my kingdoms to
him in peace.
. . . (Fraser 441) The theme of Charles II as an
exile is one more
example of the English being depicted in this
novel as outsiders,
foreigners, exiles.
Lives there who loves his pain?
See above, note to p. 324 [334].
the Beckettian formula, Not I. He.
The text of Samuel Beckett’s 1972 play Not I, contains this
passage: “...and she found herself in
the--...what?..who?..no!..
she!” However, Rushdie probably meant only “Not
I” to be the
“Beckettian formula,” in which case he is simply
referring to the
title of the play (Beckett 73).
[351]
‘These are exalted females whose
intercession is to be desired’
From the Satanic Verses.
Mr Hyde
The evil alter-ego in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jeckyll and
Mr. Hyde.
Page 341 [352]
bhel-puri
Deep-fried pancakes made of lentil noodles and
puffed rice.
raitas
Vegetables cooked in milk curds or yogurt.
khir
Rice pudding.
sivayyan
Thin noodles, cooked with milk, sugar, raisins
and almonds,
especially by Muslims in Northern India and
Pakistan.
Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti, the world’s most popular
operatic tenor.
lassi
Thick yogurt drink which can be made either
sweet or salty.
Vanessa
[Redgrave], the British actress. See above, note
on “Trotskyist
actresses, p. 49 [50].
Amitabh
Amitabh Bacchan, the most famous male Indian
movie star.
Dustin
[Hoffman], the American actor.
Sridevi
See note above, on p. 262 [270].
64
Christopher Reeve
Star of the Superman fi lms.
soosoo
Childish term for “penis” (Hindi), just as “tata”
is a childish name
in English for breasts, and “pipi” for
urination.
Page 342
he had made a string of ‘quality’
pictures on microscopic budgets
Sisodia is based on Ismail Merchant, who with
his partner James
Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has
made such fi lms
as A Room With a View, paying his actors more with prestige than
cash.
Charulata
Not the name of an actress, but of the starring
role in a fi lm by the
same name, directed in 1964 by Satyajit Ray, and
better known in
English as The Lonely Wife. The fi lm starred Madhabi Mukherjee
as Charulata, a neglected wife who falls in love
with her brotherin-
law.
Ocean of the Streams of Story
Compare with the title of Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea
of Stories. This is an allusion to the Kashmiri classic
Kathasaritsagara, the “Ocean of Stories” by Somadeva. [353]
Hong Kong-based kung-phooey producer Run
Run Shaw
The Shaw studio has been responsible for an
immense number of
low-budget kung fu movies. See note on p. 24
[25].
Page 343
The trouble with the Engenglish . . .
This is one of the most commonly quoted
passages in the novel.
Explain its meaning. [354]
Ché Ché Chamber of Horrors
Madame Tussaud’s “Chamber of Horrors” is a
famous wax
museum in London, featuring among other grisly
scenes the
crimes of Jack the Ripper, whose career “the
Granny ripper’s”
deeds are modeled on. Sisodia’s stammer alludes
to the Cuban
revolutionary and companion of Fidel Castro, Ché
Guevara
(1928-1967)
mad barbers
Refers to Sweeney Todd, the legendary barber who
was said
to have killed many of his customers and made
them into meat
pie fi lling. Todd is often compared to the real
historical serial
murderer, Jack the Ripper, whose name is alluded
to in the
character of the “Granny Ripper” in this novel.
The Todd legend
was made famous in modern times by Stephen
Sondheim in his
1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street
by .
etc. etc. etera
“Etc.” is of course the conventional written
abbreviation for “et
cetera,” but Rushdie turns it into a stammer.
Page 344
crores
See note aboveabove, on p. 63 [64].
Page 346 [356]
Pagal Khana
Insane asylum.
A star is reborn.
Allusion to A Star Is Born, a classic 1937 fi lm about a selfdestructive
movie star, remade in 1954 and 1976.
[357]
Christ-image on the Turin Shroud
A famous “miraculous” picture of Christ
mysteriously impressed
on a cloth said to have been wrapped around his
dead body.
The shroud’s reputation was severely damaged
shortly before
the publication of The Satanic Verses when traces of a typical
Medieval paint were detected on it.
St. Lucia
A small island in the Caribbean chiefl y known
as the birthplace
of poet Derek Walcott.
Page 347
That Berlin Wall . . . might well be more
rapidly rebuilt.
The Berlin wall was torn down in September 1988,
shortly after
the publication of the novel.
Page 348 [359] Boniek
Probably an allusion to the name of Zbigniew
Boniek, Czechborn
player of the popular Turin soccer team,
Juventus--another
immigrant.
Frankenstein and geeps
Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s 1818 novel
creates a monster
out of parts from various bodies. Rushdie is
here pairing his deed
with an experiment carried about by Cambridge
scientists in
which they combined genetic material from a goat
and a sheep
embryo to produce a chimera which they called a “geep”
(Time
February 27, 1984, p. 71). For the scientifi c
details, see Fehilly.
Page 349 [360]
Dark Star
Punning on the astronomical term explained in
the note for p. 61.
Page 350
Filmmela
Film gala? Joel Kuortti suggests that perhaps
the term puns on
the name of Philomela, who in Greek mythology
was raped by
Tereus and had her tongue cut out in an attempt
to prevent her
reporting the crime.
[361]
burqa
All-enveloping veil worn by conservative Muslim
women,
reaching to the ground.
the ‘disco diwané set’
“Disco diwané” means literally “mad about disco,”
and was the
title of a Hindi disco record of the late 70s by
the London-based
singer Nazia Hasan. Used here to refer to “Westernized”
Indians.
65
Mithun
Mithun Chakravarti, a popular male actor in both
Hindi and
Bengali fi lms.
Kimi
Kimi Katkar, Bollywood actress.
Jayapradha
Another actress, sometimes spelled “Jayaprada”
or “Jaya
Pradha.” Elected to the Indian parliament in
1996.
Rekha
Major Bollywood star in the 80s.
Vinod
See note above, on p. 262.
Dharmendra
Another Bollywood action hero.
Sridevi
See note above, on p. 262 [270].
[362]
a voice crying in the wilderness
Maslama is presenting himself as John the
Baptist to Gibreel’s
Jesus, quoting Matthew 3:2-3, which in turn
quotes Isaiah 40:3-4.
He is a sort of demonic prophet.
Page 352 [363]
Pandemonium
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the capital of Hell; by extension any
place in which evil is concentrated.
Page 353
I’m back!
Spoken fi rst with a less ominous meaning on p.
351 [362]. This
line was memorably uttered by the seemingly
indestructible
demonic Jack Nicholson character in The Shining
(1980).
tcha
In Hindi, tea is called chai.
Shah
The former dictator of Iran, overthrown by the
Islamic revolution,
used the title. Gibreel is trying to remember
Chamcha’s name.
Shatchacha
Popular dance, usually spelled either “cha-cha”
or “cha-cha-cha.”
[364]
The native is an oppressed person whose
permanent dream is to
become the persecutor
Franz Fanon, Caribbean psychiatrist who worked
in the Algerian
revolution and radical theorist, from The Wretched of the Earth,
Chapter 1 (“Concerning Violence”), p. 52 of the
American
translation.
Chichi? Sasa?
Nicknames for Chamcha and Saladin.
My other, my love . . .
(from a song, poem?) Suggested: “Mere Humdrum,
mere dost,” a
poem by Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
Page 354
that Tree
See Genesis 2:9.
a different Tree
Qur’an 7:20.
apples were not specifi ed
The fruit hanging from the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good
and Evil was not specifi ed in Genesis either;
but came to be
considered apples in the Middle Ages, though the
infl uence of a
pun on malum meaning
either “evil” or “apple.”
the Death-Tree
The tree of forbidden fruit which brought
damnation (spiritual
death) into the world is often compared by
Medieval Christian
thinkers to the cross, which bore the fruit of
life in the form of
Christ’s sacrifi ce. In Genesis 2:9 and 3:22
there is mention of a
mysterious “tree of life,” which apparently
could have overcome
physical death had Adam and Even eaten of it.
Gibreel is arguing
that the Qur’anic tree, though called “the Tree
of Immortality,”
comparing it to the second Biblical tree,
functions more like the
fi rst, as “slayer of men’s souls.”
[365]
morality-fearing God
Since in Genesis God forbade Adam and Eve to eat
of the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he may be
thought of as fearing
morality. Indeed, Genesis 3:11 can be
interpreted as refl ecting his
displeasure in Adam’s having developed a sense
of shame. The
ambiguities present in this section of Genesis
have fascinated
many thinkers, and are naturally of great
interest to Gibreel, who
is out to invert many traditional religious
beliefs.
Abracadabra! Hocus Pocus!
Although both of these are magician’s
incantations, the fi rst is
associated with traditional alchemy and an
attempt to perform
actual magic, whereas the second is associated
with fraud and
deceit.
juggernaut
See note above, on “juggernauts,” p. 254 [262].
Page 355
coir
Fiber made from coconut husks, used for making
rope.
66
Chapter VI: Return to Jahilia
Plot Summary for Chapter VI
This chapter, the most controversial in the
novel, returns us
to Jahilia, from which Mahound had fl ed (historically
this
corresponds to the Prophet Muhammad’s fl ight
from Mecca to
Medina). Mahound is returning to his home city,
having gained
many followers while he was away. The monstrous
Hind,
miraculously unaged, continues her reign of
terror over the city.
The cynical Poet Baal encounters Salman, now
disillusioned
with Mahound. He says that in Yathrib the
prophet has become
obsessed with laying down various restrictive
laws, some of
which parallel parts of the Sharia, traditional Islamic law.
This passage has been widely attacked by Muslim
scholars
as inaccurate and blasphemous, but clearly
Rushdie was not
attempting a scholarly discourse on Islamic law.
It is, however, a
satire on restrictive moral codes. He also
describes what he takes
to be the origins of the religion’s restrictions
on women.
Salman, noting that the revelations Mahound
received were very
convenient for the Prophet himself, has begun to
test him by
altering the revelations given to Mahound when
they are dictated.
He has realized that Mahound is far from
infallible; and, terrifi ed
that his changes to the sacred text will be
discovered, he has fl ed
to Jahilia. Muslims who see this as a satire on
the dictation of
the Qur’an fi nd it highly offensive, for the
sacred scripture of
Muslims is held to be the exact and perfectly
preserved word of
God in the most literal sense.
The aged Abu Simbel converts to the new faith
and surrenders
the city of Mahound. At fi rst Hind resists, but
after the House
the Black Stone is cleansed of pagan idols (as
the Ka’ba was
similarly cleansed by Muhammad), she submits and
embraces the
new faith as well. Bilal manages to save Salman
from execution;
but Baal fl ees, hiding in a brothel named Hijab. The prostitutes
there have blasphemously taken on the names of
the Prophet’s
various wives. No scene in the novel has been
more ferociously
attacked, though as Rushdie points out it is
quite inaccurate to
say that the author has made the Prophet’s wives
into whores.
Rather the scene is a commentary on the tendency
of the profane
to infi ltrate the sacred. Nevertheless, the
imagery and language
of this section has offended readers mightily.
Baal becomes a sort
of pseudo-Mahound, by making love to each of the
prostitutes in
turn. Salman visits Baal and tells him a story
that implies the real
Ayesha may have been unfaithful to Mahound.
The brothel is raided, Baal sings serenades to
the imprisoned
whores and is himself arrested and condemned to
death. Hind,
meanwhile, retreats to her study, evidently
practicing witchcraft.
It is revealed that her “conversion” was a ruse
to divert
Mahound’s attention while she trained herself in
the magical
powers necessary to defeat him. Ultimately she
sends the goddess
Al-Lat to destroy the Prophet who, with his
dying breath thanks
her for killing him.
Notes for Chapter 6
Page 359 371]
House of the Black Stone
See above, note on p. 94 [97].
Page 360 [373]
How has Jahilia changed?
bulls
Offi cial pronouncements of the Pope.
Page 361 [373]
four hundred and eighty-one pairs of ruby
slippers
While the number of slippers is doubtless meant
to recall the
huge shoe collection of the infamous Imelda
Marcos, wife of the
deposed dictator of the Philippines, Ferdinand
Marcos, their color
is an allusion to Dorothy’s magic shoes in the
fi lm version of The
Wizard of Oz.
old women were being raped and ritually
slaughtered
As in London by the “Granny Ripper.”
the Manticorps
Pun on “manticore,” a mythical Indian beast with
the head of a
man, body of a tiger or lion, and feet and tail
of a scorpion or of a
dragon; from Persian mandchora: “man-eater.”
Page 362 [374]
hashashin
The word “assassin” is derived from this Arabic
term meaning
“eater of hashish,” based on tales of such
drugged men carrying
out murders.
Page 363 [375]
The Persian. Sulaiman.
Salman is being treated as an immigrant, like
Salman Rushdie.
The Arabic “Sulaiman” is the same as English “Solomon,”
the
wise king of ancient Israel. But Salman points
out that his name,
like other words containing “slm” like “Islam”
and “Muslim”
connotes “peaceful” in Arabic.
Page 364 [376]
What do the laws proclaimed by Mahound
tell us about his
attitudes and character? Why do you think
Rushdie chose to
relate these particular laws?
Page 365 [377]
Salman had persuaded the Prophet to have
a huge trench dug
See above, note on p. 101 [103]. The telling of
the story given
here seems to question the high reputation for
cleverness which
Salman’s tactic earned him.
Page 366 [378]
Oh, such a practical angel
Joel Kuortti presents the most plausible
parallel in Muhammad’s
67
career: “A similar tradition is recorded, where
Muhammad
employed ‘Abd-Allah Ibn Abi Sarh as his scribe;
but the latter
began to make changes in the recitation and fi
nally lost his
faith as these verses were accepted by Muhammad.
Later ‘Abd-
Allah was sentenced to death and pardoned in the
same way as
Salman Farsi. The most notable difference
between Salman and
‘Abd-Allah in this is that Salman makes the
changes without
Mahound’s consent, or knowing about it” (Dashti
98, Muir xv
& 410, Watt Bell’s Introduction 37-38). See also Armstrong, pp.
244-245. Saadi A. Simawe notes that Salman’s
suspicions of
the genuineness of Mahound’s revelations may
also be inspired
by certain criticisms made by his wife Ayesha of
the historical
Muhammad: “When the Qur’an allowed Muhammad to
marry as
many women as he wished, she protested with
cynicism, “Allah
always responds immediately to your needs . . .”
(185).1 See also
Armstrong, p. 196.
Page 368 [379]
Present arguments for and against the
proposition that the story
of Salman’s distortion of the texts
dictated to him by Mahound is
an attack on the infallibility of the Qur’an.
Page 369 [382]
What kind of idea . . . does Submission
seem today
Refers back to p. 335 [345]: “WHAT KIND OF AN
IDEA ARE
YOU?” One of the major motifs of the novel,
dealing as it does
with the problem of self-defi nition.
Page 370
chimeras
See note on p. 301 [311].
Page 371 [384]
balcony scene
Alluding to the famous scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, scene ii.
Dajjal
Literally “hypocrite,” “liar,” but referring to
an anti-messianic
fi gure in Islamic tradition comparable to the
Christian Antichrist
who is predicted to mislead many at the end of
time by
disseminating lies and half-truths. Also spelled
Dadjdjal (Arabic).
Page 373 [385]
Exalted Birds
The three false goddesses, also known as the “banat
al-Llah.” In
Arabic, the Qur’an calls them “gharaniq.” See
Karen Armstrong’s
comment on this point (p. 114).
[386]
colossus of Hubal
Al-Kalbi in his Book of Idols describes this statue depicting
Hubal (Biblical Abel) as being made of as a red
agate (Faris 23).
See Al-Kalbi, p. 23.
How does Khalid’s slaying of Uzza
symbolize the triumph of the
new faith? Note the traditional Islamic
title given to the “Most
High” (God).
Page 374
All who Submit are spared.
According to tradition, Muhammad forgave the
historical Hind
for her mutilation of his uncle (Haykal 411).
[387]
takht
Throne (Farsi).
Page 375
Why is Mahound so angry with Khalid when
he asks what is to be
done to Baal?
Page 376 [388]
The Curtain, Hijab
Literally “veil,” (Arabic) as in the facial
covering worn by many
Muslim women; but also the curtain behind which
Muhammad’s
wives retreated from public view. At fi rst the
institution of the
hijab was applied to Muhammad’s wives only; but
later it was
adopted by many women. Karen Armstrong argues
that veiling
and the seclusion of women in general are not
Qur’anic, but
infl uenced by earlier Persian and Byzantine
customs (197). In
sufi metaphysics the term refers to the veil
separating the divine
and human realms. This episode has called down
more wrathful
denunciation than any other, with many Muslim
critics stating
that it portrays the wives of Muhammad as
whores. Defenders
of Rushdie point out that these are only whores pretending to be
his wives, which is true, but somewhat beside
the point, since
the effect is almost equally blasphemous to a
believer. Rushdie
himself explains his intentions in creating this
episode:
If you can remember, Jahilia is presented as
being this
debauched zone of licentiousness into which this
new idea,
which had all kinds of notions of purity and
abstinence
and so on, had just been introduced. So it’s the
fi rst clash
between those two very, very incompatible ways
of looking
at the world. The old debauched world creates
for itself a
kind of debauched image of the thing that’s just
arrived,
and that image is eventually destroyed. That is
simply my
way of concentrating the reader’s mind on what
was really
happening here and reminding them that after all
the harem
is also a place where women have been bought and
sold.
So it may not be a place where they are plying
their sexual
favours . . . but certainly the harem is a place
to which
women have been sent for reasons other than
desire, so
that there are two kinds of ways of locking up
women, if
you like. One for the pleasure of one man and
the political
good of many other men, whose families they came
from.
In the other case you lock up women in order to,
as it were,
make them available for the pleasure of many
men. The
two worlds just seem like strange
positive-negative echoes
of each other and a way of showing that was to
make them
physically mirror each other. The same number of
women,
this little degraded fellow, this poet, in one
world and the
Prophet in the other. That’s why I thought of
it. I suppose I
68
underestimated its explosive content.
Rushdie: “Interview,” p. 64.
[389]
Circassian eunuchs
Circassians, inhabitants of the northern
Caucasus on the border
between the former Soviet Union and Turkey, were
much prized
as slaves in ancient times. Slaves used as harem
guards were
castrated to protect the women they guarded.
Information on
Circassians.
Page 377 [389]
thirty-nine stone urns
Of course, in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves there was someone
in each jar. See Tchu Tché Tchin Tchow. above, p. 327 [337].
[390]
butcher Ibrahim
Rushdie may have given this name to his butcher
because the
Qur’anic Ibrahim (Biblical “Abraham”) slew a ram
after having
been prevented from slaying his son.
Page 378 [391]
great temple of Al-Lat at Taif
An object of pilgrimage, like Mecca, in
pre-Islamic Arabia. The
other goddesses also had their temples, Uzzah at
Naklah, and
Manat at Qudayd. All of them were overthrown by
Muhammad.
(Armstrong 64-65)
Page 380 [393]
Solomon’s-horses
Muhammad’s favorite wife, A’isha (Ayesha) was
still a child
when he married her. According to tradition,
when he asked her
what her the toys were that she was playing
with, she answered
“Solomon’s Horses” (Watt 323 & Armstrong
157).
Page 385 [398]
sweet wine made with uncrushed grapes
This alludes to a wine-growing technique
developed by Arabs in
Andalusia (personal communication from Salman
Rushdie).
Page 387 [399]
Salman’s story
This story of a potential scandal concerning
Ayesha is retold by
Haykal, emphasizing her innocence (332-332).
More details are
provided in Armstrong (pp. 200-201).
Page 388 [401]
a dead woman
When the Ayesha of H. Rider Haggard’s She died, she similarly
aged all at once after having miraculously
preserved her youth for
centuries.
Page 389
Umar
Probably alluding to the name of one of Muhammad’s
followers
who became the second of the Caliphs who ruled
after his death:
‘Umar b. al-Khattab (c. 591-644) (Netton 35).
Page 392 [405] the La-ilaha
The qalmah (Arabic).
See note above, on p. 105 [108].
Pages 393-394 [406]
the death of Mahound
This account closely follows the biographies of
Muhammad.
Mahound lies with his head on the lap of his
favourite wife,
Ayesha. In Islamic tradition, the words she
utters at the end of the
chapter are ascribed to Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s bosom
friend and
Ayesha’s father, who consoled the mourning
believers with them
after Muhammad’s death. See Ibn Ishaq, p. 683.
(Joel Kuortti)
See also Armstrong, pp. 255-256.
Azraeel
In Islam, the angel of death who will blow the
last horn at the
end of the world. In addition, when someone is
fated to die,
God causes a leaf inscribed with his or her name
to fall from the
lote tree beside the divine throne, and forty
days later Azraeel
must separate his soul from his body. His Arabic
name is more
commonly rendered Izra’il (Gibb “Izra’il”).
Notes
1The “Satanic Verses,”
a note by Joel Kuortti
One of the most controversial topics in the Satanic Verses
“affair” is the question of the “satanic verses”
themselves. The
title of the novel refers to an incident which is
on the disputed
terrain between fi ction and fact. The “satanic
verses” are, in
transliteration from Arabic, tilk al-gharaniq al-’ula wa inna
shafa’ata-hunna la-turtaja, and translate into English as “these
are exalted females whose intercession is to be
desired” (Satanic
Verses p. 340). (Note on the translation of these
verses.) The
verses comprising this sentence are said to have
been added
to the 53rd sura of the Qur’an entitled Surat-annajm, The Star
(53:19ff)in order to acknowledge the validity of
the goddesses
Lat, Manat, and ‘Uzza. The tradition goes on to
say that the
verses were later withdrawn and denounced as “satanic.”
But the historicity of the incident is disputed
by some of the
early Muslim historians, especially (Muhammad
ben Yasar)
Ibn Ishaq (d. 768 CE), (Muhammad Abu ‘Abdullah
Ibn Umar)
al-Waqidi (747-822 CE), (Muhammad Ibn Muslim Ibn
Shihab)
al-Zuhri (d.741 CE), Muhammad Ibn Sa’d (d. 845
CE), al-Tabari
(c. 839-923 CE), Ibrahi. Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq’s
editor, omits
the passage, but it is preserved as a quotation
from al-Tabari, in
Guillaume’s translation of Ibn Ishaq (Ishaq
165-166. See Muir,
pp.lxxix-lxxx).
Some Islamic and most non-Muslim Western
commentators on
the Qur’an have accepted this story of Muhammad’s
momentary
acceptance of the verses; others have repudiated
it. But the
prevailing Muslim view of what is called the “Gharaniq”
69
incident is that it is a fabrication created by
the unbelievers
of Mecca in the early days of Islam, and, Haykal
comments,
afterwards the “story arrested the attention of
the western
Orientalists who took it as true and repeated it
ad nauseam.”
(Haykal 105) The main argument against the
authenticity of the
two verses in Haykal and elsewhere is that “its
incoherence is
evident upon the least scrutiny. It contradicts
the infallibility of
every prophet in conveying the message of His
Lord.” (Haykal
107) In other words, since Muslims believe
Muhammad to have
faithfully reported God’s word, it is surprising
that Muslim
scholars have accepted such a discreditable
story, and not at all
surprising that it might have been invented by
Islam’s enemies.
In his analysis of the passage, Haykal comes to
the conclusion
that “this story of the goddesses is a
fabrication and a forgery,
authored by the enemies of Islam after the fi
rst century of
Hijrah” (Haykal 144). Zakaria Bashier shares
this view, though
he further argues that even if the verses were
to be regarded as
being genuine, they would not impugn the Prophet’s
infallibility
because they were in fact uttered by Satan.
(Bashier 175). He also
refers to similar observations by al-Suhayili
(see Bashier 173).
The argument that W.M. Watt, for his part,
provides for the
inarguable authenticity of the verses is that “it
is inconceivable
that any Muslim would invent such a story, and
it is
inconceivable that a Muslim scholar would accept
such a story
from a non-Muslim.” (Watt xxxiv). Similarly, in
his highly
controversial book Twenty-Three Years, the Iranian ‘Ali Dashti
concludes that “the evidence given in
well-attested reports and
in the interpretations of certain commentators
makes it likely
that the incident occured.” (Dashti 32). As
evidence for the
possibility of such a recitation and its
subsequent withdrawal, the
following passage from the Qur’an is often
cited: “And We did
not send before you any apostle or prophet, but
when he desired,
the Shaitan made a suggestion respecting his
desire; but Allah
annuls that which is cast” (22:52). As the suras
of the Qur’an
are traditionally not presented in chronological
order (and just
what that order might be is generally under
dispute), it could be
possible that this passage is referring to such
a withdrawal.
The verses were perhaps fi rst named “satanic
verses’ by Sir
William Muir, as Ahsan notes (Ahsan 139,
footnote 2). Later
the term was widely adopted, for example by Watt
in his book
Muhammad at Mecca. Daniel Pipes explains that as
the term
“satanic verses” does not occur anywhere else
than in Western
Orientalists’ works, and states that Rushdie “unwittingly
adopted
a part of the orientalist tradition.” (Pipes
116) Rushdie maintains
that the term “comes from al-Tabari, one of the
canonical Islamic
sources.” (Rushdie: “Choice between Light and
Dark” 11)
A list of references to the “satanic verses”
in the novel.
Page 24
the incident of the Satanic verses in the
early career of the
Prophet
Page 114
The Star ... At this point, without any
trace of hesitation or doubt,
he recites two further verses.
Have you thought upon Lat and Uzza, and Manat,
the
third, the other?’ . . . ‘They are the exalted
birds, and their
intercession is desired indeed.’
Page 123 the three winged creatures, looking like
herons or
swans or just women
‘It was the Devil . . .’
Page 124
He stands in front of the statues . . .
After the repudiation of the Satanic verses
. . .
Page 340
he would still speak, at nights, verses
in Arabic . . .
Page 366
What fi nally fi nished Salman with
Mahound: the question of the
women; and of the Satanic verses.
Page 368
I went on with my devilement, changing
verses . . .
Page 373
Have you heard of Lat, and Manat, and
Uzza . . .
There are allusions in the London plot from time
to time which
connect the verses to Gibreel:
Page 285
it proved impossible to identify the
verses
Page 445
the return of the little, satanic verses
that made him mad
Page 459
What does a poet write? Verses. What
jingle-jangles in Gibreel’s
brain? Verses. What broke his heart?
Verses and again verses
Page 544
But I heard verses/You get me Spoono/V e
r s e s
The transliteration is given without diacritical
marks. The
translation in The Satanic Verses here is closest to the one in
William Muir, The Life of Mohammad from Original
Sources 81).
Another translation can be found in M. M. Ahsan:
“These are
the high-soaring ones (deities) whose
intercession is to be hoped
for!” (Ahsan 132). Arabic variants appear on
pp.132 & 141 of the
same source, and there are variant
transliterations in Muhammad
Husayn Haykal, p.111.
Rushdie’s own most extended discussion of this
issue appears in
his Critical Quarterly interview, pp. 59-62.
Karen Armstrong, in her Muhammad: A Biography of the
Prophet, speculates about what truth might lurk behind
this tale
without necessarily alleging that Muhammad
recognized the three
goddesses as in any way comparable to God
himself:
The gharaniq were probably
Numidian cranes which were
thought to fl y higher than any other bird.
Muhammad, who
may have believed in the existence of the banat al-Llah as he
believed in the existence of angels and jinn, was giving the
“goddesses” a delicate compliment, without compromising
his message. The gharaniq were not on the same level as
al-Llah--not that anybody had suggested that
they were--but,
hovering as it were between heaven and earth,
they could be
valid intermediaries between God and man, like
the angels,
whose intercession is approved in the very next
section of
70
Sura 53. The Quraysh spread the good news
throughout
the city: “Muhammad has spoken of our gods in
splendid
fashion. He alleged in what he recited that they
are the
exalted gharaniq whose intercession is approved.
(p. 114)
71
Chapter VII: The Angel Azraeel
Plot Summary for Chapter VII
This is by far the most eventful chapter in the
novel, and the one
in which readers are most likely to get lost.
The Saladin/Gibreel
plot resumes as the former meditates on his two
unrequited
loves: for London and for Pamela, both of whom
have betrayed
him. He calls on his wife, now pregnant by Jumpy
Joshi, and
says he wants to move back into his home,
although he seems
to have fallen out of love with her. Back in his
room at the
Shaandaar Cafe, he watches television and muses
on various
forms of transformation and hybridism which
relate to his own
transmutation and fantasizes about the sexy
teenaged Mishal
Sufyan. The fi rst-person demonic narrator of
the novel makes
one of his brief appearances at the bottom of p.
408 [top of 423].
The guilty Jumpy coerces Pamela into taking
Saladin home. The
pair is involved in protests against the arrest
of Uhuru Simba for
the Granny Ripper Murders. Saladin goes with
them to a protest
meeting where an encounter with Mishal makes him
feel doomed.
Jumpy mentions Gibreel to him. After hearing
evangelist Eugene
Dumsday denounce evolution on the radio, he
realizes that his
personal evolution is not fi nished.
A heat wave has hit London. At a bizarre party
hosted by fi lm
maker S. S. Sisodia, Saladin meets Gibreel
again. He starts out
to attack him, furious at the latter’s having
abandoned him back
when the police came to Rosa Diamond’s house;
but enraged by
the beautiful Alleluia Cone, he more effectively
avenges himself
accidentally by blurting out the news of his
wife’s unfaithfulness,
unaware of the effect this will have on Gibreel,
who is extremely
prone to jealousy. Gibreel insanely assaults
Jumpy Joshi, whom
he fears is lusting after Allie.
Allie, driven to distraction by Gibreel’s
jealousy, invites
Saladin to stay with her and the sedated Gibreel
in Scotland.
The two lovers are bound in an intensely sexual
but destructive
relationship which makes Saladin more than ever
determined
to take his revenge on Gibreel, whom he takes to
the Shaandaar
Café, where they encounter drunken racists. On
the way back
to Allie’s fl at Saladin plants the seeds of his
campaign against
Gibreel’s sanity by telling him of the jealous
Strindberg. He
begins to use his talent for imitating many
voices to make
obscene and threatening phone calls to both
Allie and Gibreel,
and he succeeds in breaking the couple up.
Gibreel, now driven completely insane, is
suffering under the
delusion that he is the destroyer angel Azraeel,
whose job is to
blow the Last Trumpet and end the world. A riot
involving both
Blacks and Asians breaks out when--after Uhuru
Simba dies
in police custody--it is made clear that he was
not the Granny
Ripper. Gibreel is in his element in this
apocalyptic uprising. It is
not always clear in what follows how much is
Gibreel’s insanity
and how much is fantastic reality: but he
experiences himself as
capable of blowing streams of fi re out of his
trumpet to incinerate
various people, including a group of pimps whom
he associates
with the inhabitants of the Jahilian brothel in
his dream. On a
realistic level, the ensuing fi res are probably
just the result of the
rioting that has broken out around him. Jumpy
Joshi and Pamela
die when the Brickhall Community Relations
Council building is
torched either by Saladin, or by the police.
When Saladin returns
to the Shaandaar Café he fi nds it ablaze as
well, and plunges in
to try to rescue the Sufyan family, but instead
he is rescued by
Gibreel. As an ambulance takes the two men away,
Gibreel lapses
back into madness and dreams the next chapter.
Notes for Chapter VII
Azraeel
Azraeel, or more commonly “Izra’il” is the
principal angel of
death in Islam (Netton: Text, p. 35).
Page 397 [411]
love, the refractory bird of Meilhac and
Halévy’s libretto for
Carmen
The fi rst lines of the Habañera in Act I of Georges Bizet’s 1857
opera Carmen are “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle / Que
nulle ne
peut apprivoiser”
(“Love is a rebellious bird which nothing can
tame”). The libretto was written by Henri
Meilhac and Ludovic
Halévy, based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée.
Rushdie’s
erudition let him down here, however; for the
words to the
Habañera were in fact written by Bizet himself (The Lyric Opera
Companion, 67).
Khayyám FitzGerald’s adjectiveless Bird
of Time (which has but
a little way to fl y, and lo! is on the
Wing)
Edward Fitzgerald’s very loose “translation” of
the Rubáiyát by
Persian poet Omar Khayyam is a classic of
English romantic
poetry, and contains these lines in its seventh
stanza:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fl utter--and the Bird is on the wing.
a letter written by Henry James, Sr, to
his sons
The passage here quoted comes in fact from Henry
James,
Sr.’s book, Substance and Shadow (1866), p. 75. It is quoted in
William James’ introduction to his father’s
writings, collected
in the volume entitled The Literary Remains of the Late Henry
James (1884) but is not presented by him as a letter.
The passage
is most readily available in Matthiessen (156).
David Windsor
points out that Rushdie evidently encountered
the passage as
the epigraph to José Donoso’s novel, The Obscene Bird of Night
where the quotation is (mis-) attributed thus: “Henry
James
Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William.”
This isn’t the only
mistake Donoso makes: a comma gets misplaced,
and a number
of elisions are made as well of the quote that
William James uses.
But William himself is misquoting his father: in
Substance and
Shadow the sentences are in a different order, and
there’s a bit
that William puts in that isn’t there in the
original. So Rushdie
has to be quoting the misquote (Donoso’s) of the
misquote (of
William’s) of Henry James. Donoso’s novel tells
of a horribly
deformed son (called “Boy”) born to an important
politician, who
sets him up on a remote family estate where, but
for one person,
all of the people will be “freaks of nature,” so
that he will never
grow up feeling abnormal. The one “undeformed
person” (who is
also writing the story of “Boy”) is thus the one
“freak” that will
further reinforce Boy’s “normality.”
72
Bright Elusive Butterfl y
Bob Lind’s recording of his song “Elusive
Butterfl y,” was an
international hit in 1966. The last line of each
stanza is “I chased
the bright elusive butterfl y of love.”
Skinnerian-android
From B. F. Skinner (b.1904), developer of
experimental behvioral
psychology, which focusses on responses to
stimuli.
Page 398 [412]
Othello . . . Shylock
Two Shakespeare characters; the fi rst the Black
protagonist of
the play by the same name, the second the
villainous Jew in The
Merchant of Venice.
the Bengali writer, Nirad Chaudhuri
Bengali by birth, writes in English; author of a
genial travel
book based on his broadcasts for the BBC
entitled A Passage to
England.
Civis Britannicus sum
I am a British citizen, in Latin to suggest the
colonial’s allegiance
to the empire.
the Golden Bough
Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, fi rst published in 1890,
grew through many editions into a massive survey
of world
mythologies intended to demonstrate an
underlying pattern
which he fi rst discerned in the legend of the
Priest of Diana at
the temple of Nemi, who could only gain that
post by slaying his
predecessor.
[413]
Goan
Goa is a former Portuguese colony on the
southwest coast of
India. Indian claimed it from the Portuguese in
1961.
Page 399
hospitality . . . the Buster Keaton movie
of that name
Keaton’s 1923 comedy is actually called Our
Hospitality. The
hapless Keaton fi nds he is the guest of a
family which has carried
on a deadly feud with his own family for generations.
As good
southerners, their sense of hospitality forbids
them from killing
him while he is actually in their home, so much
of the fi lm
consists of their efforts to get him to leave
and his frantic efforts
to prolong his stay.
Ho Chi Minh to cook in its hotel
kitchens?
The future Vietnamese leader did in his youth in
fact work in the
Carlton Hotel as a dishwasher and cake maker.
huddled-masses
Allusion to the Emma Lazarus verses (entitled “The
New
Colossus”) on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me
your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free.”
are-you-now-have-you-ever-been
Applicants for immigration, among others, are
frequently asked
to sign forms asking whether they are now or
have ever been
members of the Nazi or Communist Parties.
Ho Chi Minh
Leader of the communist National Liberation
Front during the
Vietnam War.
McCarran-Walter Act
A law which for decades forbid those with
radical political views
entry into the United States.
Karl Marx
Marx lived and worked for many years in London.
Zindabad
Long live (Urdu & Farsi), meaning the same
thing as “Viva.”
Briefl y summarize what Saladin admires
about England and what
Pamela objects to about it.
Page 401 [415]
Niccolò Machiavelli
Author of Il Principe (The Prince, 1513), a pragmatic and
ruthless guide for the Medici, who ruled
Florence during the
Renaissance. The revisionist view that The Princeis a satire rather
than a set of serious proposals has become
fashionable in recent
years. The Discorsi are The Discourses on the First Ten Books of
Titus Livius (1513-21).
Labyrinth
1986 fi lm directed by Jim Henson and involving
Muppet
characters of his creation.
[416]
Legend
A 1985 fi lm directed by Ridley Scott in which
demons seek to
annihilate unicorns.
Howard the Duck
A 1986 satire on superheroes which cost millions
because of its
special effects but was a spectacular fl op at
the box offi ce.
Page 402
Not since Dr. Strangelove.
The mad scientist in the fi lm by that name
(played by Peter
Sellers) has an unruly arm which keeps giving
the Nazi salute,
and which ends by strangling him. The character
is a satire on the
way in which the U.S. Army adopted a number of
scientists who
had worked for the Nazis in developing German
rockets so that
they could help develop the American missile
program.
Stephen Potter’s amusing little books
Potter popularized the concept of One-upmanship in his bestselling
book by that title (London: Hart-Davis, 1952)
and in
several sequels. When one has gained an
advantage over someone
else one is said to be “one up.” To be at a
disadvantage, hence, is
to be “one down.”
73
denied him at least thrice
Alluding to the Apostle Peter’s three-fold
denial of Christ
(Matthew 26:69-75).
Page 403 [417]
Bentine, Milligan, and Sellers
Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan, and Peter
Sellers were the stars
of the long-running BBC radio comedy series, The
Goon Show.
See below, p. 406 [417], “the Goons.”
Page 404 [418]
a short-story
[419]
Sunt lacrimae rerum
They are tears for misfortune. From Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 1, line
462 (Latin). (See Verstraete 333.) The John
Dryden translation of
the Aeneid.
Page 405 [419]
Procrustean bed
In Greek mythology Procrustes laid out travelers
on his bed,
stretching them until they fi t (if they were
too short) or cutting off
the parts that extended (if they were too tall).
Mutilasians
Pun on mutant (mutilated?) Asians; alluding to
the tendency of
popular culture to create Asian villains.
[420]
lycanthropy
Werewolves.
‘I Sing the Body Eclectic’
Punning on the title of a poem by Walt Whitman: “I
Sing the
Body Electric.”
What is the common theme running through
this paragraph and
the following one?
Page 406
chimera
See above, note to p. 301 [311]. All the
following examples are to
some extent artifi cial blends which Saladin
judges failures.
the names of the two trees
According to p. 299 [309], they were laburnum
and broom.
Esperanto-like vacuity of much modern art
Esperanto is an artifi cial language designed to
be an easy-to-learn
international communications medium. Aside from
the fact that
its roots are entirely European, it has never
been very widely
adopted and is therefore a failure at
communicating, as is much
modern art.
Coca-Colonization
An expression which uses the spread of Coca-Cola
to almost all
the corners of the earth as a symbol of the
exportation of cheap
and tasteless American (or Western) culture.
[421]
‘the Goons’
See Bentine, Milligan, and Sellers above, on p. 403 [421].
Page 407
Shree 420
See note on p. 5 on “My shoes are Japanese.”
This fi lm contains
some of the most popular of Indian fi lm songs.
Parker-Knoll
The British fi rm of Parker Knoll makes
luxurious modern
furniture.
[422]
Why does Saladin’s agent compare him to
Dracula?
Page 408
crazed homosexual Irishmen stuffi ng
babies’ mouths with earth
Is this based on some real incident?
‘Why demons, when man himself is a demon?’
the Nobel laureate
Singer’s ‘last demon’ asked from his
attic in Tishevitz
In Isaac Bashevis’ story “The Last Demon,” he
portrays a demon
who has been sent to plague an obscure Polish
town inhabited
entirely by Jews. He fi nds himself stranded
there for eternity
when the Nazis destroy the entire population in
the Holocaust.
man is angelic . . . the Leonardo Cartoon
The Leonardo da Vinci cartoon is a large,
elaborate drawing he
made for a never completed painting of the
Virgin Mary and
the infant Jesus with St. Anne and the infant
John the Baptist.
Though the children have cherubic smiles,
neither one is literally
an angel.
Page 410 [424]
Mughlai
In the north Indian Muslim tradition.
pack it in
Shut up.
Discuss Pamela and Jumpy’s differing reactions
to Saladin.
Page 411 [425]
Why do you think Jumpy has the same dream
that Saladin used to
have? (See above, p. 400 [414].)
74
Page 412 [426] Ascot
Scene of a famous horse race called “the Royal
Meeting”
attended each June by royalty and nobility, decked
out in high
fashion.
Page 413 [427] the black man who changed his name to Mr X
and sued the News of the World for libel
London tabloids like the sensational News of the World are prone
to label someone involved in a scandal and whom
they hesitate
to name in person “Mr. X” because British libel
law restricts
publishers much more than it does in the U.S.
Black Muslims
used to substitute “X” for the family names
which their ancestors
inherited from their slavemasters. See note
above on Bilal X, p.
207 [213].
Brickhall Friends Meeting House
The “Religious Society of Friends,” popularly
referred to as
“Quakers,” have “meeting houses” instead of
churches.
Page 414 [428] the young Stokeley Carmichael
Radical leader of the the U.S. Student
Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, later of the Black Power movement;
born in
Trinidad--another immigrant.
Walcott Roberts
Perhaps named in tribute to the famous Black
Caribbean Nobel-
Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott.
the World Service
The BBC’s foreign broadcasting service, whose
announcers are
famed for their cultivated “proper” accents.
Leviathan
Biblical name for a whale or mythical sea
monster, associated
with apocalyptic prophecies (see, for instance,
Isaiah 27:1).
we shall ourselves be changed . . .We
have been made again .
Phrases with vaguely religious connotations, the
fi rst perhaps
alluding to Paul’s comment on resurrection, “We
shall all be
changed” (I Corinthians 15:51-52) and the second
to the Christian
concept of being “born again” (that is, saved).
hewers of the dead wood and the gardeners
of the new
Reversing the connotations of the phrase “hewers
of wood and
drawers of water,” which refers in the Bible to
slaves (See Joshua
9:21)
Page 415 [429]
Nkosi sikelel’ i Afrika
“ God Bless Africa,” Xhosa hymn, used by the
Transkei and
some other African countries as a national
anthem. The fi rst verse
was written by Enoch Sontonga in 1897. Often
sung at rallies to
support South African blacks.
What is it that Saladin objects to about
this rally at the end of the
full paragraph on this page? What do you
think of his objection?
[430]
I Pity the Poor Immigrant
This Bob Dylan song contains such lines as “that
man who with
his fi ngers cheats and who lies with every
breath” and “who falls
in love with wealth itself and turns his back on
me.”
Page 416 [430]
a blazing fi re in the center of her
forehad
Forecasting the disastrous fi re on p. 466
[481].
bun in the oven
Britishism for “pregnant.”
[431]
Mephisto
Brilliant Hungarian fi lm (1981) based on a
novel by Klaus Mann.
Page 417
--Who art thou, then?
--Part of that Power, not understood,
Which always wills the Bad, and always
works
the Good.
The demonic Mephistopheles offers this defi
nition of his role to
Faust in Goethe’s play (Part I, lines 1345,
1348-1349), arguing
the ambiguity of good and evil. It is also the
epigraph of Mikhail
Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and Margarita, which Rushdie has
identifi ed as an important inspiration for The Satanic Verses (see
below, p. 457 [472], Petersson 288).
Gondwanaland . . . Laurasia
Names assigned by paleogeologists to the early
protocontinents
which, according to the theory of continental
drift, broke apart
millions of years to form today’s continents.
The theory given
here of the origin of the Himalayas is widely
accepted. Note that
in a sense India itself is an immigrant to South
Asia.
Page 418
Fair Winds
This punning store name alludes to the saying “’tis
an ill wind
wind that blows nobody good.” Rushdie is not the
fi rst to link
this saying to wind instruments. It is a common
joke among
musicians that the oboe is an “ill wind that
nobody blows good.”
Ave atque vale
“Hail and farewell;” from Catullus’ Ode 101,
line 10.
phoney peace
Reversing the phrase “phony war” used to label
the long pause
in the winter of 1939-1940 between Hitler’s
conquest of Poland
and his invasion of France. Many observers felt
that a war which
would spread widely was unlikely, and denigrated
what they
viewed as war hysteria with this term.
75
Page 421 [435]
Friend!
Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. The title satirizes the
tendency of musicals to shorten the titles of
literary works, so
that, for instance, the musical version of
Dickens’ Oliver Twist
became simply Oliver!
Jeremy Bentham
The name of an English pragmatic philosopher
(1748-1832), not
usually associated with entertainment.
Page 422 [436]
the Stucconia of the Veneerings
The Veneerings are a pretentious newly wealthy
couple in Our
Mutual Friend. Their name suggests a veneer of elegance above
a crass reality. Stucconia is their mansion,
whose name suggests a
structure built of cheap stucco rather than
noble stone.
Gaffer Hexam
A ghoulish fi gure in the novel who makes his
living dragging
drowned bodies from the Thames and robbing them.
dry-ice pea-souper
When coal was widely used in London, the city was
plagued with
notoriously thick smogs which were said to be “as
thick as pea
soup.” Such a fog is here recreated for the
stage with dry ice.
[437]
London Bridge Which Is Of Stone
The fi rst paragraph of Our Mutual Friend introduces Gaffer
Hexam as follows:
In these times of ours, though concerning the
exact year there is no need to be precise, a
boat
of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two
fi gures in it, fl oated on the Thames between
Southwark Bridge, which is of iron, and
London Bridge, which is of stone, as an autumn
evening was closing in.
Icequeen Cone
The pun on “icecream cone” must have been in
Rushdie’s mind
much earlier, when he fi rst began referring to
her as the “ice
queen.”
Page 423 [437]
a Curiosity Shop
Alludes to the title of a Dickens novel: The Old Curiosity Shop.
Page 424 [438]
Ours is a Copious Language
These lines are a verse arrangement of a passage
from Our
Mutual Friend. Martine Dutheil notes that in the original
context
“the fatuous Podsnap condescends to a Frenchman
who is at
pains to make sense of the conversation. Instead
of engaging
with his questions, Podsnap keeps correcting his
pronunciation: :
‘”Our language,’ said Mr. Podsnap, with a
gracious consciousness
of always being right, “is Diffi cult. Ours is a
Copious language,
and Trying to Strangers. I will not Pursue my
Questions.”’”
Clearly Rushdie is plucking a passage about
British insularity in
regard to foreigners out of this very English
novel (Dutheil 77).
Rex-Harrisonian speech-song
The brilliant actor Rex Harrison was no singer,
but he developed
his own manner of talking his way through songs
when he starred
as Professor Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady.
mongoose to her cobra
Mongeese are valued in India for their ability
to attack and kill
deadly cobras unscathed.
[439]
What follows is tragedy.
Margareta Petersson suggests that this passage
echoes a similar
passage in Apuleius’ Golden Ass: “Readers are warned that what
follows is tragedy not comedy, and that they
must read it in a
suitably grave frame of mind” (Apuleius 239,
Petersson 334).
in which clowns re-enact what was fi rst
done by heroes and by
kings
Alludes to the opening lines of “ The 18th
Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte” by Karl Marx: “Hegel remarks
somewhere that all
great world historical facts and personages
occur, as it were,
twice. He has forgotten to add the fi rst time
as tragedy, the second
as farce.”
Page 425 [440]
mutton dressed as lamb
An older woman dressed to look younger.
Page 426 [441]
neo-Procrustean
See above, note on Procrustean bed, for p. 405
[419].
Page 427
altered states
Allusion to the title of the 1980 fi lm in which
the main character
is transmuted into a violent beast.
[442]
intentionalist fallacy
In literary criticism, the phrase “intentional
fallacy” refers to
the view that a work’s meaning should be judged
by its author’s
intentions. A short defi nition.
76
Page 428 [443] I follow him to serve my turn upon him
A quotation from the villainous Iago in Act I,
Scene 1, line 42 of
Shakespeare’s Othello, explaining that the former serves the latter
only so he can work his revenge upon him.
Page 429
Fury-haunted
The bird-women who punished those who commmitted
certain
crimes; their most noted victim was Orestes.
[444]
Oresteian imagination
Orestes returned from exile to kill his mother and
her lover for
betraying and murdering his father, dramatized
in Aeschylus’ The
Eumenides.
quixotic
Like that of the very vulnerable would-be
knight, Cervantes’ Don
Quixote.
Shabash, mubarak
Well done, congratulations (Urdu & Persian).
Page 430
That is no lady
Variation on the old joke: “Who was that lady I
saw you with last
night?” “That was no lady; that was my wife!”
What effect does Saladin’s revelation
about his wife’s pregnancy
have on Gibreel?
[445]
that bridge Which Is Of Iron
See note, above, on p. 422 [437] on London Bridge Which Is Of
Stone.
Page 431 [446]
Hadrian’s Wall
A wall built to defend Roman Britain from
invading northern
tribes.
the old elopers’ haven Gretna Green
Gretna Green used to be famous throughout
England as the fi rst
town across the border in Scotland in which one
could be married
without the delays required elsewhere; hence it
was a popular
destination for eloping couples.
Lockerbie
Scottish town, seemingly mentioned at random,
but by
coincidence the site several months after the
novel was published
of the Pan Am 103 explosion (see above, p. 4).
Page 432 [447]
character isn’t destiny any more
The saying “character is destiny” is attributed
to the ancient
Greek philosopher Heraclitus.
Discuss the disagreement between Allie
and her mother over
modern history.
Page 433
Persepolis
The ancient capital of Persia (modern Iran).
[448]
woz ear
Cockney version of “was here.”
Page 434 [449]
some rakshasa kind of demon
The Rakashas (Sanskrit), ruled over by Ravana,
have the power
to change their shape into those of animals and
monsters.
bilkul
Completely (Hindi).
Page 435
Captain Ahab
The obsessed captain who hunts Moby Dick in
Herman
Melville’s novel and is ultimately destroyed by
the great white
whale.
trimmer Ishmael
Ishmael is the narrator of Moby Dick, and is the sole survivor
of the shipwreck which ends Ahab’s quest. A “trimmer”
is one
who refuses to take sides, who trims his sails
to suit the winds of
popular opinion.
[450]
the Grand Panjandrum
A pompous offi cial, from a 1755 story by Samuel
Foote.
Page 438 [453]
bhai-bhai!
Brother and brother (Hindi).
Page 439
a Crusoe-city marooned on the island of
its past, and trying, with
the help of a Man-Friday underclasss, to
keep up appearances
In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe the shipwrecked mariner tries
to recreate his civilization in miniature, using
as his servant the
marooned native he calls “Friday.” The British
are now marooned
on their own island home, and the natives of
their former colonies
have come to live and work, often at menial
jobs. The Defoe
77
novel is a favorite object of allusions by
postcolonial anglophone
writers.
[454]
Covent Garden
Formerly a famous outdoor produce market, now
specializing in
handicrafts and souvenirs.
yoni
Vagina (Sanskrit). The traditional female counterpart
to the male
lingam (see below, p. 517 [531]).
Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein’s revolutionary 1925 fi lm, The Battleship
Potemkin about the 1905 Russian revolution, highly
innovative
and widely admired.
Kane
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), also much
admired for its
innovative camera techniques.
Otto e Mezzo
The original Italian title of 8 1/2, the autobiographical fi lm by
Federico Fellini (1863).
The Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa’s infl uential 1954 fi lm.
Alphaville
See above, p. 4.
El Angel Exterminador
Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (1962).
Note that each of
these fi lms was made by a director from a
different country.
Page 440
Mother India
A spectacular 1957 fi lm about rural poverty
directed by Mehboob
Khan. Rushdie says of the fi lm that it was
the big attempt to make a kind of Gone With the Wind myth
of the nation, and took the biggest movie star
in India at the
time, Nargis, and asked her, basically, to
impersonate the
nation. And the nation was invented a a village
woman who
triumphed over horrible hardships. At the
beginning of the
fi lm, she has two children, and her husband is
working in the
fi elds and a boulder rolls down the hillside
and crushes his
hands. And she is required, therefore, to take
over the male
role, to run the family, to work in the fi elds
and so on, and
there is the usual run of wicked land owners.
She has a good
son and a bad son. There is quite an
interestingly suppressed
incest theme. Some of this crops up in The Moor’s Last Sigh.
Anyway, the point about Mother India is that it had a success
on a scale that is almost unimaginable. It
became a sort of
gigantic event in the history of the country,
and it did become
a kind of nation-building.
Rushdie goes on to comment on Nargis’ later
career:
. . . after she played Mother India it’s as if
she couldn’t
get rid of the part. She had been so stamped
with that
part that not only was it diffi cult for other
people to see
her differently, it became diffi cult for her to
see herself
differently. So she started pontifi cating, and
there’s an
extraordinary passage which is recorded in the
biography
of Satyajit Ray, in which Nargis lays into him
and says that
his fi lms are terrible, because they are
anti-nationalist. And
the reason they are anti-nationalist is because
they show
“negative aspects” of India. Whereas she, in her
fi lms,
always tried to concentrate on the positive
aspects. I think
this passage is very illuminating. It indicates
how Ray
was never really popular in India, and the way
in which
the people who had been involved in Bombay
cinema’s
sentimentalisation of the national ideal were
actually quite
hostile to that kind of art cinema--they thought
it was
negative.
Rushdie: “Interview,” pp. 53-54.
Mr India
A science-fi ctional 1987 thriller directed by
Shekhar Kapoor,
starring Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Amrish Puri.
Shree Charsawbees
Shree 420 (Hindi). See note on p. 5 on “My shoes
are Japanese.”
Ray
Satyajit Ray, director of The World of Apu and other fi ne Indian
fi lms not widely appreciated in his homeland.
See Rushdie’s “
Mrinal Sen
A Bengali fi lmmaker whose 1969 feature Bhuvan
Shome was
widely viewed as harbinger of a “new cinema
movement,”
featuring low-budget, serious fi lms.
Aravindan
Art fi lm director from Kerala.
Ghatak
Ritwik Ghatak is a distinguished Bengali
director.
aubergines
Eggplants.
sikh kababs
Skewered roasted meat.
aubergines
Eggplants.
seth
Member of a subcaste of businessmen stereotyped
as greedy.
Page 441 [456]
Strindberg
August Strindberg, Swedish playwright
(1849-1912).
78
Page 442
Harriet Bosse
Married to the notoriously jealous and
misogynistic Strindberg
1901-1904.
Dream
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Cliff Richard
Hugely popular British pop star of English
ancestry, but born in
India. See Nazareth, p. 170.
Page 443 [458]
How does the anonymous caller know the
intimate details of
Allie’s body and preferences in
lovemaking?
Page 444 [459]
something demonic
Suggesting that these, too, are Satanic verses.
Page 446 [460]
Knickernacker
“Knickers” are panties and a “knacker” is a
person who
slaughters worn-out horses to sell them for dog
food; so this
invented word has an aggressive sexual
connotation.
Page 447 [462] Glory of the Coming of the Lord
Allusion to the apocalyptic opening line of
Julia Ward Howe’s
Battle Hymn of the Republic: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the coming of the Lord./He has trampled out the
vintage where
the grapes of wrath are stored.” (These lines
allude to a passage
at the beginning of Isaiah
compared to the crushing of grapes.)
Fleet-Street diarists
Popular newspaper columnists. Most London
newspapers used to
have their offi ces on Fleet Street.
Page 448 [463]
trumpet Azraeel
The legendary trumpet to be blown by the
archangel Gabriel at
the end of the world.
Page 449 [464]
It appeared that Dr Simba . . .
This account satirizes the tradition of police
murdering radical
captives in prison, then claiming they died
either through highly
improbable accidents or by committing suicide.
Why do you suppose that Rushdie has
chosen to have Gibreel go
on his apocalytpic mission just as the
reaction to this incident
breaks out? How are the two actions
connected with each other?
Page 450 [465]
John Kingsley Read
Leader of the neo-Fascist National Party, Read
was tried in
1978 under the 1965 race relations act for
incitement to racial
hatred when he reacted to the murder of a young
Southall Asian
boy by saying “one down, a million to go.” A
sensation was
created when the judge at his trial instructed
the jury to fi nd
him innocent. A motion calling for the judge’s
removal from
the bench was signed by 100 Labor Party members
(See “Judge
Defends Racial Slurs”). Rushdie fi rst referred
in print to this
episode in his essay “The New Empire within
Britain” in 1982.
Qazhafi
One of several possible spellings in English of
the name of
Libya’s ruler, Muammar Khaddafi .
Khomeni
The Ayatollah is here alluded to by name, a fact
ignored by
most of those who have discussed the Rushdie
controversy. See
“Freethought Traditions in the Islamic World”
for a discussion of
this topic.
Louis Farrakhan
The vituperative Black supremacist American
leader. All three of
these fi gures are the sort of extremists that
the “moderate” press
would call on a radical to repudiate.
[466]
Inspector Kinch
The name is probably an allusion to the nickname
of Stephen
Dedalus in James Joyce’s Ulysses. On p. 455 [470] we learn that
his fi rst name is Stephen.
Page 453 [468]
Crowds began to gather
The riots which follow are based on the black
riots in several
British cities in 1980-1981 and 1985. See
Solomos, pp. 175-233.
Page 454 [469]
testudo
A military formation invented by the ancient
Romans, in which a
mass of men covered themselves with their
shields to form a solid
roof, resembling a turtle (Latin testudo).
Page 455 [470]
pint
Pint of bitters=beer.
not by a long chalk
Americans say instead, “not by a long shot.”
79
Page 456 [471]
Billy the Kid, Ned Kelly
See note for p. 262 [272]. All of the outlaws
mentioned in this
passage had something of a reputation as popular
heroes.
Butch Cassidy
Founder with Harry Longbaugh (“the Sundance Kid”)
of the Wild
Bunch, which robbed banks and trains in the
1890s in the Rocky
Mountains. More on Butch Cassidy.
James brothers
Jesse and Frank James robbed banks,
stagecoaches, and trains in
the decades following the Civil War.
Captain Moonlight
In the nineteenth century this term referred to
rural gangs that
often robbed and burned English farms in
Ireland. They were
popularly regarded as resistance fi ghters, and
thus this reference
is much more closely related to anticolonialism
than the others.
“Captain Moonlight” is also included by James
Joyce in the
“Cyclops” chapter of Ulysses in a long list of famous heroes and
heroines (Comerford, p. 45).
Kelly gang
The gang led by Australian Ned Kelly (see above,
p. 263 [272]).
Page 457 [472]
Gibreel who walks down the streets of
London, trying to
understand the will of god.
Rushdie provides his own comment on the scene
which follows:
It should . . . be said that the two books that
were most
infl uential on the shape this novel took do not
include the
Qur’an. One was William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and
Hell, the classic meditation on the interpenetration
of good
and evil; the other The Master and Margarita by Mikhail
Bulgakov, the great Russian lyrical and comical
novel, in
which the Devil descends upon Moscow and wreaks
havoc
upon the corrupt, materialist, decadent
inhabitants and turns
out, by the end, not to be such a bad chap after
all.”
(“In Good Faith” 403). See Radha
Balasubramanian, “The
Similarities between Mikhail Bulgakov’s The
Master and
Margarita and Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic
Verses.”
Page 458 [473]
what is to be done?
Title of a number of important Russian works,
most famously
a 1902 pamphlet by Lenin about the organization
of revolution.
Like Lenin, Gibreel is contemplating his own
violent plan for
redemption (Kuortti).
Page 459 [474]
Airstrip One
The name George Orwell gave England in his
nightmarish novel,
Nineteen-Eighty-Four.
Mahagonny
Brecht and Weill’s decadent American city, see
above, p. 3.
Alphaville
See above, p. 4.
Babylondon
Babylon crossed with London; see above, p. 4.
[475]
Queen Boudicca
Queen of the English tribe the Iceni; led a
revolt against the
Romans in Britain and sacked several cities,
including London.
More often spelled Boadicea.
Page 460 [475]
pussies-galore
Prostitutes, but alluding to character of that
name played by
Honor Blackman in the James Bond fi lm Goldfi
nger.
Who do you say that I am?
Jesus’ query to his disciples in Mark 8:29.
Compare with the
refrain, “What kind of an idea are you?”
Page 461 [476]
genie of the lamp
The spirit that inhabited Aladdin’s lamp in The Thousand and
One Nights.
the Roc
See above, note on p. 117 [119].
‘Isandhlwana’, ‘Rorke’s Drift’
On January 22, 1879, the Zulus attacked and
annihilated a British
force in the South African village of
Isandhlwana infl icting one
of the greatest defeats on Britain in modern
history. Later that
same day, 4,000 Zulus who had failed to arrive
in time for the
fi rst battle turned on the nearby mission
station of Rorke’s Drift
and assailed it in waves in a battle that lasted
for many hours.
The heroic defense of the station by a handful
of British troops is
celebrated in the 1964 fi lm Zulu (featuring, among others, Chief
Mangosuthu Buthelezi as his own ancestor), which
probably
brought the battle to Rushdie’s attention. The
fi lm is interesting
as a post-colonial document since it portrays
the Zulus (defi nitely
“worthy enemies”) as almost unimaginably brave
and extremely
intelligent, their defeat being made possible
only by the fact that
they had few rifl es. But Rushdie’s white
residents have chosen
these names for their apartment buildings as
symbols of white
resistance to black encroachment. The 1979 fi lm
Zulu Dawn
depicts the battle of Isandhlwana. Compare with
American
“Remember the Alamo!”
80
Mandela
Nelson Mandela, long-imprisoned member of the
African
National Party of South Africa, symbol of
resistance to apartheid.
Mandela’s freedom and election to the presidency
occurred after
the publication of the novel.
Toussaint l’Ouverture
Black leader of the successful Haitian
revolution during the
French Revolution.
Page 462 [477]
chimeras
See above, p. 406 [420].
a river the colour of blood
Fulfi lling Enoch Powell’s prophecy, cited
earlier, Chapter 3, p.
462 [477].
Page 463 [478]
there he blows!
The traditional cry of the whaler upon spotting
a spouting
whale--”There she blows!” is here punningly used to refer to the
blowing of the apocalyptic last trumpet. Gayatri
Spivak notes that
Gibreel’s patronymic, Ismail Najmuddin, contains
a reference to
the Biblical fi gure called “Ishamel,” which is
also the name of the
narrator of Moby Dick (47).
Page 464 [479]
‘most horrid, malicious, bloody fl ames’
From Samuel Pepys’ description of the Great Fire
of London,
September 2, 1666: “When we could endure no more
upon the
water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside
over against the
Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark
almost and saw
the fi re grow; and as it grow darker, appered
more and more, and
in Corners and upon steeples and between
churches and houses,
as far as we could see up the hill of the City,
in a most horrid
malicious bloody fl ame, not like the fi ne fl
ame of an ordinary
fi re” (Pepys).
Why is the style of the Communications
Relations Council
signifi cant?
own goal
In soccer (English “football”), when a player
inadvertantly puts
the ball into his own team’s goal. The police
are suggesting that
the victims have blown themselves up by accident
in trying to
carry out a terrorist bombing.
Page 465
What do the narrator’s questions imply
about the fi re at the CRC?
Page 466 [481]
‘I look down towards his feet,’ Othello
said of Iago, ‘but that’s a
fable.’
Shakespeare: Othello V:ii:286. Othello says this
just after
learning that he has been tricked into jealously
killing his wife by
the villainous Iago. He means that he thinks
Iago must be a devil,
so he looks at his feet to see whether he has
demonic cloven
hooves. But he dismisses this test for a grimmer
one when in the
next line he says “If that thou be’st a devil, I
cannot kill thee,”
and stabs him shortly before killing himself.
Page 468 [483]
like the red sea
See above, p. 236 [242], and the next chapter, “The
Parting of the
Arabian Sea.”
fi re . . . smoke
The fl eeing Hebrews were led by a pillar of fi
re by night and a
pillar of cloud by day (Exodus 13: 21-22).
Compare to the Hijab
in the preceeding chapter. See note above, on p.
376 [388].
Page 469 [484]
The Ten Commandments
The 1956 fi lm uses spectacular special effects
to depict the fl ight
of the Hebrews from Egypt, including the parting
of the Red Sea
and the death of all the fi rst-born Egyptian
children. Gibreel is
beginning the dream
81
Chapter VIII:
The
Parting of the Arabian Sea
Plot outline for Chapter VIII
It is important to know that the events in this
chapter are based on
a real occurrence. In 1983 thirty-eight
fanatical Shi’ites walked
into Hawkes Bay in Karachi (the site of the
Rushdie family home
in Pakistan). Their leader had persuaded them
that a path through
the sea would miraculously open, enabling them
to walk to the
holy city of Kerbala in Iraq (Ruthven 44-45).
The story of the mystical Ayesha from the end of
Chapter IV
resumes. One disaster after another assails the
pilgrims following
Ayesha in her march to the sea; but she insists
on continuing, as
does Mishal, Mirza Saeed’s wife, despite his
repeated attempts
to dissuade her. He tries to persuade Ayesha to
accept airplane
tickets to complete the pilgrimage to Mecca
(which is in fact
the most common way for pilgrims to make the
hajj today); but
she refuses. Her fanaticism makes her more and
more ruthless,
unmoved even by the deaths of fi fteen thousand
miners nearby.
She behaves like the evil Ayesha of the Desh
plot when an
Imam announces that an abandoned baby is a “Devil’s
Child,”
and allows the congregation of the mosque to
stone it to death.
Finally, the horrifi ed Mirza Saeed watches as
his wife and others
walk into the sea and are drowned; though all
other witnesses
claim that the sea did miraculously open as
Ayesha had expected
and the group crossed safely. Mirza Saeed
returns home and
starves himself to death, in his dying moments
joining his wife
and Ayesha in their pilgrimage to Mecca, though
probably only in
his mind.
Notes to Chapter VIII
Page 471 [484] The Parting of the Arabian Sea
See above, pp. 236 [243], 468 [483].
Page 473 [487]
sanyasi
A devout Hindu who has sworn to relinquish the
things of this
world and wander the world in poverty, living
off what he can
beg (Sanskrit, Hindi).
Page 474 [488]
looking like a mango-stone had got stuck
in his throat
Most uncomfortable since mangoes have very
large, sharp-edged
seeds.
potato burtha
Spicy mashed potatoes (Hindi).
parathas
Flat bread fried in ghee, often stuffed with
spiced peas or
potatoes.
Page 475 [489]
arré deo
Hey, you! (Hindi)
Family Planning dolls
Explained on p. 224-225 [231].
mausi
A respectful term for one’s mother’s sister
(Hindi).
RSS
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (“National
Self-Service”
Organization); a fanatically Hindu political
organization with
close ties to the Bhartiya Janata Party. The
assassin of Mahatma
Gandhi was a member.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (“World Hindu Council”),
another Hindu
fundamentalist organization which often works
closely with the
RSS.
Page 476 [490]
communal
In Indian usage, this term refers to
sectarianism, and is often used
in phrases such as “communal violence,” refering
to violence
between Hindus and Muslims.
Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai
Hindus and Muslims are brothers. A slogan made
famous by
Jawaharlal Nehru (Jussawalla, “Dastan” 57)
shakti
The divine power or energy often personifi ed as
female, for
example Kali, Durga, Lakshmi (Sanskrit). Mirza
Saeed is arguing
that that they are merely metaphors for a purely
spiritual reality.
Page 477 [491]
Sarpanch
See above, note on p. 225 [232].
Page 478 [492]
windscreen
British for windshield.
Page 479 [493]
pugri
Turban (Hindi, Urdu).
biri
82
An Indian cigarillo, contains tobacco wrapped in
a leaf of another
plant (Hindi).
Page 482 [496]
her silver hair was streaked with gold
The reverse of the usual process.
Bibiji
See above, p. 217 [223].
Page 483 [497]
butterfl y clouds still trailed off her
like glory
Alluding to William Wordsworth’s poem: “
Intimations of
Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood:
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
(stanza 5, lines 7-9)
Page 484 [498]
lemmings
According to (inaccurate) legend, lemmings
periodically
stampede suicidally into the sea.
Circe
See above, p. 24.
pipe-player
The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Devil’s verses
More Satanic verses.
a choice . . . between the devil and the
deep blue sea
Formerly a common expression for a situation
with no good
choices, here made literal. Mirza Saeed is
probably quoting the
refrain of of Harold Arlen’s popular song, “Between
the Devil
and the Deep Blue Sea” (lyrics by Ted Koehler).
Page 485 [499]
refused to sleep beside him
This may not be merely a personal reaction,
since when
a Moslem man disavows Islam or becomes a
heretic, it is
incumbent upon his wife to refrain from sexual
intercourse with
him (Massud Alemi).
Page 486 [500]
banghis
Literally “sweepers,” but more generally,
untouchables, low-caste
people (Hindi).
Page 487 [501]
The entire discussion about love at the bottom
of this page is
conducted in clichés.
all for love
Title of John Dryden’s (1677) play based on
Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra.
Love . . . is a many-splendoured thing.”
A popular song from the 1955 movie of the same
name.
The next two commonplaces are immigrants,
translations from
foreign languages:
Makes the world go round
Originally a line from an old French folk song.
Love conquers all
Translation of Vergil’s Eclogue no. 2, line 68: “Omnia vincit
amor.”
[502]
isn’t it?
Isn’t that so? See above, p. 310 [320].
Page 488
What is the point of the pamphlets being
handed out by extremist
Hindus?
yatris
Travelers, pilgrims (Sanskrit, Hindi).
hoardings
Billboards.
Page 492
[506]
Venetian scene of devastation
Although the streets and squares of Venice are
often fl ooded in
modern times during high tides, this more likely
refers to the fact
that the city is threaded with numerous canals:
any city whose
streets are fi lled with water could be called a
Venice.
Page 492
The water had an odd, reddish tint that
made the sodden
populace imagine that the street was fl
owing with blood.
Another version of Enoch Powell’s vision come
true; see note on
p. 186 [192].
Page 493
[507]
mining disaster
Mining is a dangerous occupation, but the
fantastic scale of this
disaster makes clear that it is miraculous
punishment for the
miners’ opposition to the march (see above, pp.
489 [503], 492
83
[505]).
kauri
Hindi for cowrie shells, which were used as
currency throughout
much of Asia and Africa in ancient times. There
is a common
phrase, “kana kauri,” which refers to a coin of such a small
denomination as to be virtually valueless
(Hussain).
dam
“Value,” used in both the monetary and
philosophical senses
(Hindi). But also punning on the English
expression “Not worth
a damn,” which may in fact have been derived
from the Indian
word (Windsor).
Page 496 [510]
The Imam
The recurrence of the title here reminds us of
the ruthless Imam
of the Desh plot, and shows us how Ayesha’s
idealism has
turned to evil. It is as if the cruelty of the
earlier Ayesha and
the fanaticism of the earlier Imam have now
joined forces. Yet
another Imam, in Delhi, is depicted on p. 519
[533].
Page 497 [511]
stoned the baby to death
According to Srinivas Aravamudan, this scene
recalls “the bloody
and unsuccessful campaign conducted after
Muhammad’s death
by his favourite wife, Ayesha, against the
fourth Khalifa, . . . Ali--
a historical reference often cited by
fundamentalists . . . as a proof
that women should not enter public life” (13).
Page 498 [512]
fi lmi ganas
Popular fi lm tunes: the staple of popular music
in India (Hindi). A
history of fi lmi music.
nautch-girl
Indian secular dancer in a tradition going back
to the Mughal
courts (from Sanskrit-Hindi naach: dance).
‘Ho ji!’
A vaguely celebratory exclamation meaning something
like
“Hurray!” (Hindi). A common refrain in popular
songs.
Page 499 [513]
In this plot, Mirza Saeed plays the role
of the doubting tempter
which was played by Salman in the Jahilia
plot. Compare the two
in terms of how sympathetically they are
portrayed: their motives,
attitudes, and deeds.
Page 501 [515]
Shangri-La
See note on p. 295 [305].
thela
A four-wheeled cart used by street vendors
(Hindi).
Partition was quite a disaster here on
land.
The 1947 partition of the former British colony
into India and
Pakistan was marked by violent riots, looting,
and enormous
bloodshed.
Page 503 [517] dancing on a fi re
Walking on hot coals is a traditional practice
of certain Hindu
mystics called “fi rewalkers.”
Page 504
kiss of life
Mouth-to-mouth artifi cial respiration.
[518]
CID man
Plainclothes detective from the Criminal
Investigation
Department. The acronym is often jokingly said
to stand for “cop
in disguise.”
Page 505 [519]
punkahs
See above, p. 231 [237].
What evidence is there that the seas
really parted and spared the
pilgrims? What evidence is there that
they simply drowned? What
is Rushdie trying to convey by presenting
this confl ict evidence?
Page 505
What is the signifi cance of the
destruction of the tree in the
garden?
84
Chapter IX: The Wonderful Lamp
Plot outline for Chapter IX
A year and a half later, Saladin fl ies home to
be with his dying
father. He has heard that Gibreel is now making
fi lms based
on the “dreams” which have alternated with the
present-day
plot throughout the novel. On the plane he reads
of various
scandals and disasters taking place in India:
clearly it is no
utopia. Whereas Saladin resents the former
maidservant who
has married his father and taken on his mother’s
identity, his
lover/friend Zeeny Vakil immediately sympathizes
with her. After
years of hostility to his father, Saladin fi nds
no support in those
surrounding him for his attitude. As he sits by
his father’s bedside
the two are fi nally reconciled. Saladin has
inherited his father’s
estate and is now rich. Meanwhile a dispute over
a fi lm on Indian
sectarianism has become the center of a
censorship controversy in
a way that ominously forshadows the treatment
which Rushdie’s
Satanic Verses was to receive upon publication.
Gibreel has also returned to Bombay, depressed
and suicidal. The
movie he tries to make is a “satanic” inversion
of the traditional
tale from the Ramayana, refl ecting his disillusionment with love
after having been rejected by Allie. Ultimately
he goes entirely
mad, kills Sisodia and Allie (hurling the latter
symbolically from
the same skyscraper from which Rekha Merchant
had fl ung
herself). Visiting Saladin, he confesses, then
draws a revolver
from the “magic” lamp Saladin had inherited from
his father, and
shoots himself. Zeeny Vakil’s fi nal words to
Saladin, “Let’s get
the hell out of here,” may be ambiguous: they
could mean only
“Let’s leave,” but she may also be inviting him
to leave the the
realm of the Satanic in which he has been living
for so long.
Notes for Chapter IX
Page 509
[523]
A Wonderful Lamp
Alludes to the Arabian Nights tale, “ Aladdin and the Wonderful
Lamp.”
Page 511
[525]
GP
General practitioner (doctor).
[526]
Khalistan zealot
Sikh separatist, many of whom have been involved
in terrorist
acts, including the assassination of Indira
Gandhi.
Page 513
[527]
pooja
See note above on p. 68 [69].
Page 514
[528]
Solan
The ancestral home of Rushdie’s family is in
Solan, called the
“Anees Villa Estate.” When the Rushdies moved to
Pakistan,
it was declared “evacuee property” and seized by
the state and
converted into the offi ce of the district
education offi cer, then
made a magistrate’s residence. After a lengthy
legal battle, the
family regained title to the house. See J. N.
Sadhu, pp. 20-23.
(Joel Kuortti)
Page 516
[531]
islands in the stream
The title of a novel by Ernest Hemingway.
Page 517
[531]
Shiva lingam
The lingam, or
phallic stone associated with Shiva, is one of the
most commonly venerated objects in Hinduism
(Sanskrit).
[532]
bride suicide
Murder reported as suicide; see above, p. 250
[258].
Gaffer Hexam
See above, p. 422 [436].
Page 518
massacre of Muslims
In late May of
Meerut, purportedly by police forces. (David
Windsor)
once-popular Chief Minister
Farooq Abdullah. There was a riot against him in
Kashmir in
1987 during the Eid celebrations (which took
place on May 29).
Page 519
[533]
HISTORY SHEETERS
Indian English for people with a criminal
record.
Juma Masjid in Old Delhi
The largest mosque in India, built in the 17th
century, more often
spelled “Jami Masjid.” The walled city of Old
Delhi is a Muslim
stronghold, as opposed to Hindu-dominated New
Delhi.
Bandh
General strike used as a political protest
(Hindi).
member of the mile high . . . club
According to modern legend, anyone who has
successfully
performed intercourse in an airplane in fl ight.
85
Page 520
[534]
sugar . . . brown
“Brown sugar” is heroin, but these can also be
read as racist
slogans (see above, p. 261 [269]). The phrase
was popularized in
a song by that title by the Rolling Stones on
their album “Sticky
Fingers.” “Brown sugar” can also refer to sex
with women of
color.
Why do you think Rushdie has chosen to
tell the story of Saladin’s
father’s death in this fi nal chapter?
How does it relate to the rest
of the novel? What functions does it
serve at the end of the book?
Page 523
[538]
perhaps in the parallel universes of
quantum theory
Some scientists have speculated that at each and
every moment
in which one thing rather than another might
have happened,
both do in fact happen, reality forking at that
point into separate
universes. Many “parallel” universes would then
coexist
simultaneously differing more or less from each
other. The idea
has been a commonplace in science fi ction
stories for decades.
Page 525
[539]
this pharmaceutical Tamburlane
London theater critic Kenneth Tyanan concluded
his 1960
review of an Oxford University Dramatic Society
production
of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (directed by
John Duncan) with this whimsical parody, which he
introduced
as follows: “The supporting cast, studded as it
is with constantly
repeated names like Usumcasane, Theridamas,
Mycetes,
Celebinus and Callipine, got blurred in my mind,
rather as if they
were a horde of pills and wonder drugs bent on
decimating one
another” (Tynan 26).
Page 526
[540]
Eek, bhaak, thoo
Noises indicating something distasteful being
spit out, also used
as an expression of disgust (Hindi).
Abba
Father (Urdu).
The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac’d
loon
A casually racist rebuke uttered by the besieged
Macbeth to his
servant in Act V, scene 3, line 11.
Page 528
[542]
Finnegan’s wake
James Joyce’s novel, Finnegan’s Wake, is based on a popular
Irish ballad about a man who loved to drink so
much he refused
to stay inert at his own wake.
[541]
achkan jackets
Long formal jacket associated with
turn-of-the-century Muslim
nobility, now rapidly disappearing (Urdu,
Hindi).
allsorts
Assorted hard candies.
Page 529
[543]
the lamp
See above, p. 509 [523].
Page 530
[545]
Urdu
The language most commonly spoken by Muslim
Indians.
the world, somebody wrote, is the place
we prove real by dying in
it
The “somebody” is Edward Bond, a British
playwright. The last
paragraph of the “Author’s Preface” to his play Lear reads as
follows: “Act One shows a world dominated by
myth. Act Two
shows the clash between myth and reality,
between superstitious
men and the autonomous world. Act Three shows a
resolution of
this, in the world we prove real by dying in it”
(p. xiv).
Page 532
[547]
Claridge’s Hotel
London’s most famous and luxurious hotel.
Page 534 [549]
How has Saladin changed after his father’s
death?
Page 536
[550]
Childhood’s End
Probably a sly reference to the title of Arthur
C. Clarke’s science
fi ction novel. Clarke has lived for some years
in Sri Lanka.
Page 536
[550]
George Miranda
Perhaps alluding to the character in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest.
See above, p. 53 [49].
Dhobi Talao Boozer
A tavern in the Dhobi Talao district of Bombay.
Fundamentalists of both religions had
instantly sought
injunctions
Rushdie’s earlier novel Shame was banned in Pakistan, and
Midnight’s Children condemned in India.
86
Page 537
[551]
Gateway of India
An impressive arch built near the harbor to
commemorate the
visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.
Shiv Sena
See note above, on p. 55.
Page 539
[554]
dadas
Literally “brothers,” but here, pimps (Hindi).
Page 542
[556]
All-India Radio
The offi cial government radio network.
“language press”
Newspapers and magazines in the many languages
of India other
than English.
Page 545
Why do you think the novel ends with
Gibreel’s suicide?
87
The Unity of The Satanic Verses
Paul Brians
The Satanic Verses has been attacked by many critics as
incoherent, as a disorganized mixture of plots,
themes, and
characters. Even a cursory survey of the
preceding notes reveals
that Rushdie has sought to knit together the
various threads of
his novel by introducing a host of
cross-references, repeating
the names of characters, catch phrases, and
images in a complex
network of allusions and echoes. Yet these might
be viewed as
desperate attempts to give a surface appearance
of unity to a
basically chaotic work.
I am persuaded that The Satanic Verses is indeed unifi ed by a
related set of topics, all of them widely
acknowledged in earlier
criticism, but perhaps not arrayed in the way I
do here. This is
my personal understanding of what holds the
various plots of the
novel together in a way that articulates a
consistent world view.
Rushdie says that novels do not lay down rules,
but ask
questions. In fact he claims that by asking
questions, good fi ction
can help to create a changed world. Novels like The Satanic
Verses don’t settle debates: they articulate the terms
of debate
and ask hard questions of the opposing sides,
thereby helping
to usher “newness” into the world. One of the
unifying themes
of The Satanic Verses is newness, or change. It attacks rigid,
self-righteous orthodoxies and celebrates doubt,
questioning,
disruption, innovation. This much is obvious.
But Rushdie is focussing on a particular set of
issues relating
to rigidity and change: those identifi ed with
what is sometimes
called “identity politics.” It is unfortunate
that this term is
primarily associated with the opponents of such
politics because
it so aptly sums up what feminism, Afrocentrism,
gay pride,
national liberation movements and a host of
other causes have in
common.
People who fi nd themselves excluded or
suppressed by dominant
groups try by various means to fi nd an
effective voice and tools
for action to create power and authority for
themselves. It is these
struggles that are the basic underlying matter
of Rushdie’s novel.
The question that is asked throughout this novel
is “What kind
of an idea are you?” In other words, on what
ideas, experiences,
and relationships do you base your defi nition
of yourself--your
identity?
People who fi nd themselves identifi ed as “foreigners”
or
“aliens” often fi nd unwelcome hostile
identities imposed upon
them. The common catch-phrase in literary theory
these days is
“demonization,” and it is this term that Rushdie
makes concrete
in his novel by turning Saladin, the immigrant
who is most
determined to identify with the English,
literally into a demon.
(Of course he is also able to earn his living
only by taking on
the guise of a space alien.) The other
immigrants who assume
horns later in the novel express the same
satirical view of English
bigotry. But this is only the beginning of
Rushdie’s exploration of
the theme of identity.
In the distant past, European observers writing
about people
in colonized nations often distinguished between
“unspoiled
natives” who dwelled in childlike, ignorant
innocence which was
part of their charm, and others who had been “spoiled”
by contact
with a European civilization they could mimic
but never truly
master. This formula not only justifi ed the
colonial domination of
colonized “children” as a form of parental
concern, even charity
(“the white man’s burden”), but rationalized
measures taken to
prevent inhabitants of the colonies from gaining
the education
and jobs they would have needed to rule
themselves in the
modern world.
Less obviously vicious but still prejudicial was
a later
formula according to which writing about what is
now called
“postcolonial” literature emphasized the
position of writers from
the “third world” writing in English as exiles,
uprooted and
stranded in alien, often hostile cultures far
from home, working
in a language that may not have been their own.
Immigrants
were called “exiles” whether they had actually
been driven from
their homeland or--as was much more common--they
had sought
increased opportunity by voluntarily moving
abroad. “Exile” is a
weak image, and Rushdie rejects it. His
immigrants are sources
of energy and creativity, busily redefi ning the
culture of their
adopted homelands.
In a more recent period, the standard formula
has referred to
the “center” and the “periphery.” Europe and the
U.S. constitute
the center, writers from nations like Nigeria,
Jamaica, and India
belong to the periphery. Their voices are said
to have been
“marginalised,” thrust from the center, forced
into the margins.
People using this language do so with more or
less irony; but
all too often it becomes just another way of
saying that we
should pay attention to our less fortunate
fellows. The challenge
of “marginalised” voices is to fi nd the center,
or shift it to
themselves, seize the podium, and speak their
piece.
What Rushdie does in The Satanic Verses is to reverse these
terms. He challenges the English/European/white
sense of
identity. He rejects its claims to centrality.
London is changed
into an exotic land where people follow strange
customs (wiping
themselves “with paper only” and eating bony fi
sh). People of
traditional Anglo-Saxon stock are almost
entirely absent from
the London of The Satanic Verses. Instead the city swarms with
immigrants: Indians, Bengalis, Pakistanis,
Jamaicans, German
Jews, etc. He reminds the English that they too
were colonized,
by the Romans and the Normans.
The only major character with a traditional
English heritage is
Pamela, who is striving mightily to escape that
very heritage and
mistakes Saladin for an exotic “alien” who can
link her to India,
when the main reason he is drawn to her is that
she represents
escape from the Indianness he is trying to fl
ee. (This same sort of
cross-purposes Indian-European relationship is
also dealt with in
a Raja Rao’s remarkable 1960 novel The Serpent and the Rope.)
Rosa Diamond is an Englishwoman yearning to
become Latin
American or to be conquered by invading Normans.
The bigots
who beat Chamcha in the police van are all--as
he notes--no more
English in their heritage than he, but his color
and identity as a
postcolonial immigrant allows them to treat him
as a complete
alien.
Minor Anglo-Saxon characters are venal (Hal
Valance), bigoted
(the punks who spit on the food in the Shaandaar
Café),
tyrannical (Margaret Thatcher), or stupid
(Eugene Dumsday).
88
Rushdie has turned the tables on
Anglo-Americans. Their travel
writers have for generations dwelt on the
failings of the benighted
natives of far-off lands: it is now their turn
to become a set of
cartoons, to provide the background for the
thoughts, feelings,
and actions of the really important characters.
But Rushdie does not engage in this sort of
caricature to
privilege his immigrants as somehow morally
superior. They
are all morally fl awed as well, though treated
in a more complex
manner. He is not saying that being from a
former colony of
Britain grants one any particular virtue; it is
only that he is
interested in focussing on such people. Of
course he is perfectly
aware that by doing so he is disorienting his “mainstream”
English and American readers, giving them a
taste of what it feels
like to be bit players in a drama which is not
essentially about
them.
Further, he is not asking how immigrants can
become “English”
(in the way that Otto Cone strove to become
English); he
is instead asking how immigrants can create an
identity for
themselves in England which is richer, newer,
more interesting
than the traditional stereotypes associated with
the old center of
empire.
One traditional strategy of oppressed or
marginalised groups is
to try to create a sense of identity by dwelling
on their shared
history. Sometimes this takes the form of
referring back to a
historical period of suffering, as in the case
of African-Americans
fi nding a common ground in their heritage of
slavery. This can
be a powerful move when one belongs to a
minority with a
commonly recognized shared past of suffering.
But this strategy
has some often-noted unfortunate by-products.
For one thing,
it relies for its effectiveness on the hope that
members of the
majority group will accept the responsibility
for their ancestors’
deeds. Even when majorities acknowledge the
injustices of the
past, guilt is not an emotion that can often
motivate action to
atone for those injustices. The Hindu miners in
the Titlipur story
who hark back to their suffering under Islamic
rule to justify
their attacks on the Muslim pilgrims illustrate
the all too common
phenomenon of historical grievances being used
by one group
to justify atrocities against another. Another
instance in the
novel is the group of Sikh terrorists who blow
up the plane at
the beginning. During the riot, whites emblazon
their apartment
houses with references to nineteenth-century
wars in South
Africa, posing as beleaguered English South
African settlers
surrounded by hostile Zulus (461). In our time
Northern Ireland
and the Balkans have provided vivid European
examples of the
deadly effects of this sort of thing.
The politics of shared grievance also focus
attention on the past
rather than on the future. Rushdie wants people
to remember that
Union Carbide’s neglect cost the lives and
health of thousands of
Indians in the Bhopal disaster (and he clearly
wants the company
held responsible), but he does not want the very
identity of
India to be defi ned only by a chain of
misfortunes. The most
important aspect of the Indian cultural heritage
for him is its rich,
creative variety. Its history is more than a
mere list of the crimes
committed against it by others; and he is
prepared to add the
crimes committed by Indians against each other
to its portrait as
well.
Another approach to identity politics is to hark
back to a positive
historical heritage instead of to a time of
suffering. Thus the
black Caribbean immigrants in the novel seek to
emphasize an
African heritage which is actually very distant
from their lived
experience. Chamcha mentally mocks them for
singing the
“African National Anthem.” The black leader
originally named
“Sylvester Roberts” has chosen the absurd name “Uhuru
Simba”
in an attempt to “Africanize” his identity. It
seems clear that
Rushdie shares at least some of Chamcha’s
reservations about
Afrocentrism in the scene of the defense rally
for the arrested
Dr. Simba (413-416). Choosing Chamcha as his
point of view
character allows him to critique the limits of
such ideas even as
he acknowledges the justness of their cause.
In the fi rst chapter of the book, George
Miranda and
Bhupen Gandhi match Zeeny’s proud references to
Indian
accomplishments and her list of crimes against
Indians with
their own examples of atrocities committed by
Indians (54-57).
Bhupen ends his tirade against modern India
(56-57) by asking
the emblematic question, “Who do we think we
[are]?”
Rushdie seems to be trying to say that Indians,
like all human
beings, are both victims and criminals, both
creators and
destroyers. He is not proposing a sort of bland
homogenized
theory of original sin according to which all
people are
equally guilty and none specifi cally to blame:
clearly he cares
passionately that wrongs be righted and
criminals identifi ed and
punished. Rather he rejects both martyrdom and
triumphant
nationalism as inadequate foundations for a
satisfactory selfidentity.
Another common source of identity is, of course,
religion.
Who would have thought that in the latter part
of the twentieth
century, so many confl icts would come to be
defi ned in religious
terms? Israeli Jews vs. Palestinians, Sikhs vs.
Hindus, Hindus
vs. Muslims, Serbs vs. Croatians, Irish
Catholics vs. Irish
Protestants--we seem to be embroiled in a new
age of Wars of
Religion. For Rushdie, orthodox religion signifi
es intolerance,
repressiveness, rigidity. Dumsday represents the
know-nothing
Christian right and the Imam fanatical Muslim
extremism. The
Imam’s hatred of the former Shah of Iran and
SAVAK is no doubt
shared by Rushdie; but his alternative is even
more monstrous:
a giant insatiable maw devouring the people it
claims to save. It
is one of the more poignant ironies of “the
Rushdie affair” that
Khomeni evidently died without ever realizing
that the novel he
had denounced contained a devastating portrait
of him.
If Rushdie had only denounced such fanaticism,
few in the
Muslim world would have endorsed Khomeni’s
fatwa. But
Rushdie goes on to call into question the
credibility and
benefi cence of orthodox, traditional Islam.
Gibreel’s dreams
challenge the Qur’an’s claims to infallibility,
accuse Islam of the
repression of women, call into question the probity
and honesty
of the Prophet himself.
Rushdie does not create these dreams out of a
simple desire
to blaspheme for blasphemy’s sake. He is
following in the
footsteps of the great eighteenth-century
Enlightenment critics of
religion like Voltaire who sought to undermine
the authoritarian
power structures of their day by challenging
their religious
underpinnings. So long as the Church endorsed
slavery, the
89
divine right of kings, and censorship, the sort
of liberating
changes the rationalists yearned for could not
come to pass,
unless the Church’s authority could be called
into question.
Similarly, Rushdie sees modern societies like
Iran and Pakistan as
cursed by religious convictions that bring out
the worst qualities
in their believers. (In The Moor’s Last Sigh he challenges Hindu
fanaticism as well.)
The entire novel strives to break down
absolutes, to blur easy
dichotomies, to question traditional assumptions
of all kinds.
There are to be no simple answers to the query, “What
kind of
an idea are we?” Demons can behave like angels
and vice versa.
High ideals can lead people to commit terrible
crimes. Love can
be mixed with jealous hate. Exalted faith can
lead to tragedy. Just
as Rushdie strives to destroy the distinction
between center and
periphery, so he challenges easy distinctions
between good and
evil.
At the end of the novel, Saladin returns to
India, fi nally to
reconcile himself with his father. But this is
no simple return to
his roots. The father with whom he is reconciled
is a changed
man. Saladin could not have loved him until he
had become the
enfeebled, benign shadow of his former self on
his deathbed. Part
of his heritage--the lamp--proves deadly. His
inheritance does not
include the home he grew up in. Zeeny, who
elsewhere warmly
urges his Indian roots on him, has little use
for sentimental
attachment to Peristan. Let it make way for the
new, she says.
Saladin seems fi nally to agree. He is ready to
put aside not only
the “fairy-tales” of religion but his personal
history as well. In the
end he opts for newness, for “If the old refused
to die, the new
could not be born” (547).
In the end, despite the postmodern trappings of
Rushdie’s
narrative, the values of the novel seem
remarkably traditional:
belief in individual liberty and tolerance, freedom
of expression,
skepticism about dogma, and belief in the
redemptive power
of love. Lest we too quickly claim triumphantly
that these
are distinctively European values, Rushdie
reminds us of the
remarkably intelligent and innovative Mughal
ruler of India,
Akbar, who challenged the orthodoxies of his
time and brought
more than his share of newness into the world
(190).
One could derive from the book a sort of
existentialist morality:
there are no absolutes, but we are responsible
for the choices
we make, the alliances we forge, the
relationships we enter into.
Our choices defi ne us. We cannot shift the
responsibility for our
actions to God or history. “What kind of an idea
are you?” is a
question addressed not only to immigrants, but
to all of us.
90
Selected Sources
I have drawn on these books and articles in
creating these notes.
However, this is far from being a comprehensive
bibliography of
scholarship on The Satanic Verses, nor is it intended to be a list
of the best sources. Rather it consists primarily
of sources which
provided assistance in tracking down allusions
in the novel.
Many fi ne interpretive articles and books are
not listed.
Unfortunately I cannot cite some of my most
useful sources,
since they involved personal communication with
persons who
did not wish to be cited by name. However, out
of many others
I am happy to thank Massud Alemi, Martine
Dutheil, Paul
Harmer, Azfar Hussain, Suzanne Keene, Joel
Kuortti, Sudhakar
Chandrasekhara, Ina Westphal, Mel Wiebe, David
Windsor and
James Woolley for identifying various
references.
Special thanks are due to Salman Rushdie, who
kindly answered
some particularly knotty questions and made a
number of helpful
suggestions about this project. His
contributions are marked
“personal communication from Salman Rushdie.”
This statement
should not, however, be taken to imply his
endorsement of this
site either in its entirety or in detail.
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