I can only think of a few books in my life that I could not finish: Moby Dick, Dianetics, something by Joyce Carol Oates and, now, Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. I figured if religious people wanted him dead because of this book, I'd love it. 10 pages and I'm falling asleep...for the second time. Maybe I was expecting something more vituperative. Here's a sample:
Exit Pimple, weeping, censored, a scrap on the cutting-room floor. Rhinestones fell from her navel as she went, mirroring her tears ... in the matter of Farishta's halitosis she was not, however, altogether wrong; if anything, she had a little understated the case. Gibreel's exhalations, those ochre clouds of sulphur and brimstone, had always given him - when taken together with his pronounced widow's peak and crowblack hair - an air more saturnine than haloed, in spite of his archangelic name. [...]I just can't take 500+ pages of that. (BTW, that is verbatim, double-checked, even the strange spelling of "sulphur".)
And that was the last book I had on my list. So, if anyone has any suggestions that don't sound like the above please let me know.
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