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

268Demonic Texts and Textual DemonsThe Satanic Verses, contributing to the ways in which the text creates a kaleidoscopicimpression of good and evil changing places and dancing aroundeach other – as Saladin and Gibreel twirl around each other during their fall.Homi K. Bhabha points out that Chamcha is situated in a similar divisionhimself:Translated, by Sufyan [Chamcha’s landlord], for the existential guidanceof postcolonial migrants, the problem consists in whether the crossing ofcultural frontiers permits freedom from the essence of the self (Lucretius),or whether, like wax, migration only changes the surface of the soul, preservingidentity under its protean forms (Ovid). 54In his theory of cultural enunciation, Bhabha has emphasised the split,or “Third Space” between the I and You designated in the statement: theproduction of meaning involves this liminal condition of language – andthus infuses all linguistic meanings with “unconscious” aspects and ambivalencies.55 Bhabha perceives Rushdie’s migrants in terms of transitions andtranslations, of meanings and of identities. Following Walter Benjamin, hepinpoints the element of resistance in the translation; the heterogeneity ofthe migrant culture exposes the uncertainties inherent in the construction ofcultural identity. According to Bhabha, the real source of “blasphemy” inThe Satanic Verses is this indeterminacy: like Chamcha, the demonic goatman,its main characters are subjects of cultural difference, living in “the intersticesof Lucretius and Ovid, caught in-between a ‘nativist’, even nationalist,atavism and a postcolonial metropolitan assimilation.” 56 The hybriditydramatised in the lives of these characters is also the most problematic aspectof the novel; it does not settle in one culture or position, but, instead,explores their limit in repeated transgressions.THE TRANSGRESSIVE NARRATORThe idiomatic voice of the narrator has been strongly present in the abovediscussion of the ambiguous characters in The Satanic Verses. In the beginningof the novel, as the nature of the miraculous fall of Gibreel and Saladinis discussed, the narrator intervenes in the characters’ discourse by commentingon it:‘God, we were lucky,’ he [Chamcha] said. ‘How lucky can you get?’I know the truth, obviously. I watched the whole thing. As to omnipresenceand -potence, I’m making no claims at present, but I can managethis much, I hope. Chamcha willed it and Farishta did what was willed.Which was the miracle worker?Of what type – angelic, satanic – was Farishta’s song?54 Bhabha 1994, 224 (“How Newness Enters the World: Postmodern Space, PostcolonialTimes and the Trials of Cultural Translation”).55 Ibid., 36 (“The Commitment to Theory”).56Ibid., 224-26.