Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

254Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsthis possible impossible step [ce pas impossible], beyond hope of transaction,tied to the multiplicity of languages within the uniqueness of the poetic inscription”has Derrida been (impossibly) translated. 17 The sacred texts arenot alone in the dilemma of having something irreducibly untranslatable inthem; the presence of the original context can never be transferred with thetext, thereby the Babel of interpretations is a fact. 18 A religious communityis united by shared values and beliefs. The coexistence of competing andconflicting views and voices has traditionally illustrated hell – as opposed tothe one voice and harmony of heaven. 19 The Satanic Verses uses demonic imageryin ambiguously self-ironic ways to dramatise how profoundly Westernindividualism becomes positioned as “satanic” when it is opposed to fundamentalistreligious ideals.AGAINST THE ORTHODOXYThe criticism of The Satanic Verses has often centred on the discussionwhether the novel is blasphemous, or not. One could make a case that itboth is blasphemous, and not, at the same time. A written text – in this case,a novel – is not just the material object, but (in a much more profoundsense) all the immaterial conditions that shape its reception. In a classicblasphemy trial at Morristown in 1887, Robert G. Ingersoll presented theissue as follows: “[W]hat is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is,unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in onecountry would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing to whereyou are and who is in authority.” David Lawton, who has adopted thisstatement as an epigram in his study Blasphemy (1993) analyses blasphemyas a particular linguistic act, one which makes visible the implicit limits inthe social systems of meaning. Blasphemy is, according to Lawton, “a placewhere one sees whole societies theorising language.” 20 It is, for example,hard to deny the (society’s) unconscious revolt against Christianity in theintense fascination with the fantasy of the “Witches’ Sabbath” in the lateMedieval period. There is an unacknowledged reciprocity between the faithfuland the blasphemer according to Lawton; it seems to be true that thefantasies of communion with the Devil, as described by Norman Cohn inhis Europe’s Inner Demons, could only be conceived from within an intimateknowledge of Christianity. “In every respect they [the witches and theirblasphemous activities] represent a collective inversion of Christianity – and17 Derrida 1992, 408 (orig. Schibboleth: Pour Paul Celan, 1986).18 See Derrida 1985 (“Des Tours de Babel”); see also Gen. 11:1-9.19The traditional symbolism saw the division between peace and prosperity (heaven)and turmoil, despair and alienation from the social unity (hell); in a pluralistic and culturallycomplex modernity the status of heterogeneity has gone through re-evaluation. See:Bernstein 1993 (on the development of ideas concerning hell); Bakhtin 1929/1973 (onthe concept of polyphony, especially pp. 21-26 on Dante).20Lawton 1993, 17.