Les versets sataniques : roman, théologie, histoire

Abstract

The Satanic Verses : Novel, Theology, History Back in the days of the Inquisition : a religious authority condemns to death a so-called “ heretical author ”. This archaic judgement causes nothing but the usual excitement in the world. But beyond a man, a continent, a policy, the attack is against the novel, the western form of the narrative. A scandalous homage paid to literature, the experience of all perils. A blasting homage, : everyone will talk of the text (to condemn or to defend its liberty), no one will read the coherence of the signs. Rushdie reminds us that History can be formalised through theologi¬ cal disputes, in which the novel does not want to find its finality : there can be traced its source, its different narrations, its initiatory, fantastic, mythical episodes. The novel deals with the difficulties of handing down cultures, with the impossibility to define identities ; with the dizziness of death instincts, the final act of faith in a destruc-ted ideal. It asserts that our systems of signs are indeed systems of beliefs and systematizations of the sacred.