Grateful to have finally made the time to read this infamous work.

Like so much of Rushdie’s writing, Satanic Verses moves so quickly and ambiguously between its symbols, motifs, and semi-dream states of magical realism, that one has barely an opportunity to take a breath, let alone pause to reflect upon all the connections made.

Most of these connections are themselves left as more complex questions, of course. Anyone hoping to have a neat and tidy closure to any of the multiple storylines will be disappointed. Instead, we are left with questions of faith and believability, of immigrant identity, of the supernatural, of madness both personal and societal. We are not a clean or easy-to-solve people; our histories and complexes of meaning-making crowd together into mashes of chaos and regret. We are not angels or devils, entirely, but people making our choices and haphazardly meeting our consequences.

The controversy roused by this book is obvious enough from its content: it is something the book itself addresses and anticipates. But at the same time, those who might condemn the work wholly or simply likely fail to see the larger mash-ups of human experience I just mentioned.

Enter the water as so many for centuries have before you and will afterwards; how we emerge on the other side is entirely out choice.