Salman Rushdies book belongs in the rubbish heap of literature. It is amongst the most utter cack ever written. The author has by international notoriety and Islamic distemper, been issued an accolade that demeans the very award itself. By default it caused inflamation of Moslems at a time when every attempt should be made to reduce such occurences. The award was ill timed, unearned, and indicates a general lack of intelligence involved in international affairs. After reading about a third of his book, I returned it to the library, and found myself thinking that he would be better off dead than writting such crap.