I’m halfway through the Satanic Verses. Literally starts with a bang by having two characters falling off an exploding plane, assuming 69 position mid-air, and then one of the characters grabbed the balls of the other and forced him to flap his arms like wings and the two miraculously survived (while transforming into… things). It only gets better from there.

The infamous parts are just minor subplots but I can see why they are very incendiary under specific social contexts, though IMO it shouldn’t be. Reminds me a lot of The Master and Margarita, which also contains a subplot about Jesus, and which Rushdie confirmed as his inspiration. The main theme has nothing to do with religion at all however, and mostly about the immigrant experience, racism, changing (and non-changing) identities and so on.