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Can men fly?
‘Fly,’ Chamcha shrieked at Gibreel. ‘Start flying, now.’ And added, without knowing its source, the second command: ‘And sing.’
How does newness come into the world? How is it born?
Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?
How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the extermination angel, the guillotine?
Is birth always a fall?
Do angels have wings? Can men fly?
- Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
