Category: Books

Coinciding with a return to a Survivor era of my life, I received this book a couple months into 2025 after pre-ordering it last year. I rarely pre-order books, but Stephen Fishbach promised me more “Blood in the Clocktower” YouTube videos if I did that, but as the show that popularized him taught me: trust nobody.

I can praise Escape! as being a page-turner. Fischbach commits to escalation of plot and introduces a varied enough cast of characters with potential arcs you’ll want to see close out, much like Survivor does. He has flashes of damn good writing, particularly in the final act when his characters are really pushed into moments of existential reflection.

But it’s important to see this as something of an absurdist plot and I wonder how it will play to people who haven’t been following pop culture discussion of “the edit” or even to fans of reality TV that don’t follow survival shows. At times it feels like Fishbach gave in to a thought exercise and the conclusion feels like something unearthed rather than purposefully crafted. Still, a good airplane read, as I made significant progress on my five-hour flight from California to North Carolina.

Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte

feel like I was told this would not be the stodgy 19th century romance that I expected, but I was still surprised at how much Bronte was committed to writing bad people who do bad things.

I do think my experience was helped by still finding ounces of sympathy for Heathcliff, Catherine the elder, and all of them. Even Joseph. Bronte excelled at setting up the internal motivations and the traumatic experiences that built these people up act as they do.

I was a little harangued by the narration model and I didn’t care to see the world through Lockwood’s eyes at the beginning. Thankfully, the narrator MVP is Nelly Dean, who I think should have started and ended the whole thing.

Our book club theme for September was “banned books” and our nominations list included this one, Looking for Alaska by John Green, Sold by Patricia McCormick, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.

Interestingly, the one we settled on by a substantial margin was the book that wasn’t banned by a typical Western and Christian-influenced censorship apparatus. Whereas books like “Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Fun Home” are banned for exploring queer identities, “Verses” was censored in over 20 countries due to controversy over its portrayal of Islamic mythology. The book’s place in history is anchored by the fatwa declared by Iranian religious leaders more than thirty years ago. The bounty placed on Rushdie’s head did eventually lead to an assassination attempt by a random New Jersey man just a few years ago. (Rushdie survived and published a memoir revolving around the violence).

The uncomfortable thing about online discourse of this book is that there seems to be a micro cottage industry of people who use this book as a way to grind an axe against Islam as a faith. Looking for videos on the book will often surface a dark muttering of commenters who say that the fatwa controversy surrounding “Verses” justifies everything they think about Islam and Muslims.

A befitting irony for the novel’s themes of narratives that are imposed on people and events is that this is hardly a book dedicated as a polemic or committed to poking a finger in the eye of Muslims. It can be irreverent – cheekily so. There’s cynicism about organized religion and since Rushdie was born into a Muslim family, he uses the backdrop of Islamic history to make some points. But if you’ve ever read a satirical retelling of Christian Biblical events, like Lamb by Christopher Moore or seen The Life of Brian movie, you’re already familiar with this approach from writers emerging from Christian worldviews.

Ultimately, my favorite chapter of Satanic Verses is one of the several allegorical visions that alternate with the main plot. It involves a village that has become extremely devout due to the power of a prophetess and is now embarking on an arduous pilgrimage on foot to Mecca. The chapter’s title, “The Parting of the Arabian Sea,” indicates what the final obstacle will be for these pilgrims. I suppose one could walk away from this chapter and say “wow, Rushdie really portrayed some truths about the darkness of religious extremism,” but I came away feeling like this was Rushdie’s acknowledgment about the power of faith and some of the downsides of steadfast skepticism.

Faith is a well. One can draw strength from it, but that well can be poisoned. In a desert with no other reservoirs, one can become so dependent that it leaves you vulnerable to corruption. But in the harsh conditions of reality, an oasis can still be the only reason we preserve and find respite.

I guess I just felt like Rushdie’s views on the faith background he came from are a little more nuanced and complex than the discourse would have you think.