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

278Demonic Texts and Textual Demonssary and mutually complementary – and the emphasis lies on the demoniclaughter and slander. A demonic ambivalence characterises both of thesenovels; George Krugovoy has referred to the frustration that critics have expressedas Bulgakov’s novel “cannot be reduced to any one-sided conception,either religious or anti-ecclesiastic.” 89 Bulgakov’s Devil, Woland, articulatesthis ambivalence in the novel from his own point of view:You [the messenger of Yeshua] pronounced your words as if you refuse toacknowledge the existence of either shadows or evil. But would you kindlyponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, andwhat would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? 90Krugovoy has made a detailed reading of Bulgakov’s complex symbolismto save The Master and Margarita from accusations of Manichaeism, butthe fact remains that in the end it is the Devil who “saves” the novel’s loversand grants them “rest” (but no heaven, or the divine light).Similar cases could be made of the influence of many other importanttwentieth-century novels; Rushdie himself has spoken about literary “crosspollenation”on an international scale. 91 The Satanic Verses does not portraydevils and angels in the traditional religious sense; it is concerned with thetransformation of the self with the mythical figures as its suggestive means.The literary tradition of metamorphosis supplies Rushdie’s novel with numerousinfluential intertexts, ranging from Ovid to Franz Kafka. 92 Chamcha’ssituation is not only intimately related to Gregor Samsa’s plight inKafka’s “Die Verwandlung” (1915; The Metamorphosis), but to the generalatmosphere and situations depicted in Kafka’s work. Modern anxiety, alienationand the anonymous cruelty of oppressive power structures is Chamcha’sreality as much as an elemental part of Der Prozess (1925; The Trial) orDas Schloss (1926; The Castle).To take yet another example from modern literature, some of the basicnarrative strategies of The Satanic Verses can be traced back into GabrielGarcía Márquez’s Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude),the paradigmatic novel of “magical realism.” The tale of Macondo, aColombian village, interweaves history and fantasy; the babies can have pigtails,people may live hundred of years, but it is equally possible for a bananacompany to murder four thousand workers, while the supreme court rulesthat such workers had never existed. Absurdism, fantasy and historical andsocial commentary are placed in fertile tension, amalgamated, creating acompound that paved the way for such works as The Satanic Verses.89 Krugovoy (1991, 3) is here quoting A. Zerkalov (Evangelie Mihhaila Bulgakova,1984).90 Bulgakov 1966/1997, 305.91 Cornwell 1990, 185; the reference is to Timothy Brennan’s Salman Rushdie and TheThird World (1989, p. 60).92 A novel analysis of this tradition is offered by Kai Mikkonen’s study, The Writer’sMetamorphosis (1997).