The Satanic Verses At 20: An Appraisal

In 2005, anyone who loves the American language celebrated the 50th anniversary of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, still the greatest American novel of the last half century. In 2007 it was the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, published when Kerouac was living in a tin-roofed bungalow in, of all places Sal Paradise would never dream write about, Orlando. In 2009 it’ll be the 70th for Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which fell on critical hard times since the country started worshipping its Warren Buffets more than respecting its Tom Joads.

This year, I wonder whether there’ll be much stomach, or courage, for celebrating a novel that should rank among the most hilarious and important of the last generation: Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, published in England 20 years ago today--on Sept. 26, 1988. In retrospect, the reaction to the book was a precursor of 9/11 for the burst of Muslim rage it let loose for the first time against the West, just as (ironically) the book’s portrayal of fanaticism run amuck had anticipated that rage. Rushdie wasn’t just imagining it, of course. Nor was he imagining what he termed “the inescapablity of the unforeseeable.” He sensed these things coming.

Read my full "Appraisal of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses."