Saatanalliset s盲keet in Suomalainen lukupiiri

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Saatanalliset s盲keet

Salman Rushdie

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: October 31, 2020

Discussion: Lukupiirikirjat

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What Members Thought

Jan 31, 2017 Chalchihut rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"Rushdie was accused of misusing freedom of speech...", yet it was so correctly using freedom of speech(!) to ask for his head.

Considering all the fights and wars of our contemporary history regarding to religion, the sensitivity of touching the strict commands of a masculine God can drive someone crazy. (We witness the same aspect in patriotism, national values etc. as well.) I remember how a catholic friend of mine started to defend the idea of becoming a nun is one of the most important jobs "Rushdie was accused of misusing freedom of speech...", yet it was so correctly using freedom of speech(!) to ask for his head.

Considering all the fights and wars of our contemporary history regarding to religion, the sensitivity of touching the strict commands of a masculine God can drive someone crazy. (We witness the same aspect in patriotism, national values etc. as well.) I remember how a catholic friend of mine started to defend the idea of becoming a nun is one of the most important jobs in the world. Or a scientific fact as evolution can drive a faithful person crazy, because he/she thinks to be accused of being related to a monkey. It is an idiocy you can't even fight against when the person can not use intelligence at all.

I understand that Rushdie's approach to religion in this book can be very disturbing to some muslims, however the corruption born in the hands of power and cultural dilemma wouldn't light a question mark in their heads. This book is a beautiful combination of many values put together in a fictional yet symbolic world. I don't remember where I happened to read it, but Rushdie adresses something like even if you don't believe or feel a part of that value, it is always with you and you can't get rid of it. That was the main thing he focused on. As an immigrant who has an Islamic background myself, I found more in this book than picking up so called attacks on religion and prophet Mohammed.

The two main characters of the book Gibreel and Saladin give us the two sides of the coin, as good and evil, but it is not that simple either. There's no certain boundries in good and evil, nor in right or wrong. It is rather a complication of the human being surrounded by the past and popular culture, faith and doubt. Even though the concept of religion is very strong in this book, it has a deeper sense to it, i.e. immigration, politics, racism, conservative and hostile policies. Therefore considering this book as a plain critics to religion would be ignorance.

My rating doesn't mean much for this book, I just had an average point of putting it out. This book is very important and nothing else I've ever read. On the other hand I wasn't very fond of the writing style, it was too complicated and tiring. The events are already mingled, therefore I would have liked to read a more clear language for the fluency. But it didn't matter too much after all. I don't have this book in my native language (surprise surprise) thus I had to read it in English. Maybe that was one parameter on breaking my focus from time to time but in the end I send regards to Mr. Rushdie for such a splendid book. ...more

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