The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie

An audio book.

Unintelligible beginning; stuck with it a while to see what all the fuss was about some years ago when Rushdie's life was threatened by some fanatics. This book is what some people like to call "less than accessible." In the end, I came to love it.

Found online: a complete pdf of the book at https://archive.org/details/TheSatanicVerses

Also, this very informative "Notes on Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses (1988)" by Paul Brians, Emeritus Professor of English at Washington State University, from which I'll quote a bit:

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. ...
...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.

And here is a quote attributed to Rushdie himself, from Professor Brians's "Notes:"

When criticism is placed off-limits as “disrepectful,” and therefore offensive, something strange is happening to the concept of respect.

I'm glad to have listened to this excellent reading. Sam Dastor, the narrator did a superb job. He managed to jump between appropriate accents and voice approximations without it being obtrusive or annoying, which often happens in audio books.

One day I hope to get a copy of this in print and read through it that way. I have referred to the pdf copy of it that I mentioned above several times during the audio sessions, just to see how things are spelled, and to remind myself of what I've been listening to. In spite of its difficult beginning -- and overall difficulty-- the book is quite entertaining, thoughtful, and inspiring, in an unusual way.

A History of Future Cities, by Daniel Brook

Dubai, Mumbai, Shangai, and St. Petersburg: all Eastern, yet all Western in conception.

This was not an easy read, it took me a while to get through, and enhanced my library fines a bit, but I am glad I read it. These four cities share an unusual quality: they were all built in the East, but built to be as Western as possible.

I am no student of architecture, and a fair amount of architectural information is imparted here, but it didn't hurt me to read it. The history, on the other hand, was nothing less than fascinating. When Peter the Great desired to build St. Petersburg, he wanted Western architecture, art, and city planning -- but he did not want Western freedom of thought, speech, ideas, and religion. This theme exists to some extent in the other three cities of this book.

Daniel Brook's website

Washington Post review

Interview with Daniel Brook in the New Orleans Review

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

198 pages. Published by Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Co. New York 1999.

In keeping with my habit of seldom reading "new" stuff, here's a book from the free table at work that's eight or nine years old, and I only regret that I didn't find this writer sooner. These stories are all excellent, perfect, what can I say? Find a copy and read it.

Each one of these stories deals with people living or visiting somewhere other than their home. Many are Indian or Pakistani living in the United States of America, others are moved from their home by the partition of the Indian subcontinent.

"A Temporary Matter" is the story of Shoba and Shukumar, a Bengali couple living in Boston. They are notified that their electric power will be interrupted for an hour on the next five evenings at eight PM. These interruptions provide an unlikely respite from ordinary life, an opportunity for them to take stock. The result is bittersweet, complicated.

"When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" is told from the perspective of a young Indian girl living in the USA with her parents in 1971. Mr Pirzada is a neighbor who has left his wife and seven daughters in Dacca, Pakistan, where civil war is raging.

"Interpreter of Maladies" finds a family of first generation Indian-Americans and their children, returning to India on vacation.

"A Real Durwan" is about Boori Ma, a woman displaced to Calcutta by Partition.

"Sexy" tells about an affair between Miranda, an American, and Dev, a Bengali, in New York. This is set against a story told to her by her Indian friend Laxmi, whose cousin's husband has deserted her for a Canadian woman. As a favor to her friend, Miranda watches the cousin's seven-year-old son for a day, which puts her relationship with Dev in a new perspective.

"Mrs. Sen's" is where another young boy, Eliot, goes during the day while his parents work. Mrs. Sen's husband is a mathematics professor. She is adrift in America, unable to drive a car, used to having a "driver" at "home."

"This Blessed House," the Connecticut home of newlywed Hindus is packed full of Christian knicknacks, courtesy of the former residents. Raking leaves, they uncover a large shrine to the Virgin Mary in the yard.

"The Treatment of Bibi Haldar." Bibi Haldar has a disease that sounds like epilepsy, but is not understood. She lives at the mercy of relatives, who tolerate her but before long find her to be too much to handle. Many treatments have been attempted for Bibi, but in the end, she finds her own remedy.

"The Third and Final Continent" is North America. The young man has lived in India, and England, and now Cambridge, Massachusetts. For six weeks he awaits the arrival of his wife, Mala, from Calcutta. During this time he rents a room from a remarkable old lady who opines that the planting of an American flag on the moon is "splendid!"

I have not done justice to these wonderful stories in my brief descriptions. Please don't be put off by my vain attempt to summarize them, but dive in and read them all. The worst thing about this book is the temptation to simply read it all at once, without stopping. It is a feast of reading, and worth savoring.

I look forward very much to my next opportunity to read Jhumpa Lahiri.

A Google search for "Jhumpa Lahiri" is rewarding.