Midnight's Children: A Novel
by Salman Rushdie
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Book Reviews of Midnight's Children: A Novel
Book Review: innovate structuring of the characters
Summary: 5 Stars
He (salman rushide) displays a unique style of writing in his Midnight's children, besides being very playful with his words and sentences. His work is not structured like a typical novel - list of characters, a plot/suspense and a climax..
In his view, after all this is a memoir, he describes how he has organized it. Each chapter is a jar of pickle. Has a raw material (character) and he adds the right amount of spices (characteristics) to make them irresistible.
His characters die before they are born, he has no interest in suspense. While each jar focuses on one character, bits and pieces of other characters are added to enhance/enrich taste of the pickle in making, exhibiting different characteristics. After tasking all the jars, one is only left with awe of characters. they are seasoned so well that one can't be judgemental about them and this applies to both the major and minor. There is no good or bad. They are just there!
Content however is common sense. He captures the pulse of South Asian families. (Indian/Pakistan/Bangladesh) across different economic statures and how they are affected by personal and political views of the day. He is exhaustive with the content (without being boring) that it is hard to notice anything missing from the book. (Of course there will be something missing, because it is a fixed edition and he acknowledges and convinces the reader that it is not his fault...)
What exhaustive book, can be complete without asking the basic question...
"Who what am I?". (Thats right, he plays with the words, makes his own sentences.)
Now who can conjure a new answer to that, and yet has anyone answered this question yet? here he goes...
"My answer (he says) : I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come."
Book Review: Midnight's Children is a classic novel of an Indian family told by a narrator with magical powers
Summary: 5 Stars
Midnight's Children skyrocketed its author Salman Rushdie to fame winning him a Booker Prize. The novel has since been named the best novel ever to win a Booker. it was written in 1980 having every promise of becoming part of the English literature canon of great literature.
The book is long, dense, magic-realistic and episodic. Like David Copperfield the Bombay born narrator states he was born! Saleem Sinai was born on August 15, 1947 the very hour in which India gained her independence from Great Britain. Saleem is one of 1001 children born in this magical hour. All of the midnight children are granted special gifts. Saleem has a large nose and is able to smell better than anyone. He is also able to conjure up in his mind a meeting from time to time of all the midnight children! Saleem is born to a poor Hindu named Wee Winkie. A nurse switches the Aziz baby with Winkie so that Saleem ends up growing up in a well to do Muslim's doctor's home. Triumph but more often tragedy plague this family. Saleem's family is killed in the war between India and Pakistan. Saleem endures child abuse, poverty, impotence and sorrow . He meets many mentors especially women. His life's ups and downs mirror those of his native India in the first years of independence.
Rushdie writes in a vivid style filled with the sounds, colors, smells and volatile emotions of the Indian and Pakistani people. A knowledge of the Muslim religion and the history of India will help the reader understand the complex plot. Each of the thirty chapters is a gem of narration which requires close concentration on the part of the reader.
This book will not be to everyone's taste. It is a wild ride whose tour guide author is the brilliant author. Undoubtedly,much of the book is based on Rushdie's own youth in India. This book can be read allegorically and lends itself to rereading. It warrants discussion and analysis. An excellent novel which is probably the best fiction ever written on India!
Book Review: Oh So Magical
Summary: 4 Stars
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a complex, intricate political and social commentary on India during the mid 20th century, told from the perspective of young Saleem Sinai.
Oh so magical...
- I'm a sucker for magical realsim, therefore its constant presence in this text was right up my alley. It's blatant, sometimes wonderful, often grotesque.
- Saleem Sinai's family is constructed of a cast of eccentric characters, present primarily in the first two books, provide the reader with adventures, tumultuous relationships, and an in-depth look at why Saleem turns out the way he does.
- The concept behind Midnight's Children is fascinating, as is the supernatural bonds that are created amongst its members.
- The writing is of course terrific- humorous, descriptive, and brilliant. Whether you think the confidence Rushdie's text exudes is cockiness or talent is up to you to decide.
Back to Reality...
- This book is long, which is fine, but for me the last "book" (a little over 100 pages) lost a lot of steam. Saleem's family was mostly out of the picture, and his life as a young adult just didn't captivate me.
- I'm not a huge fan of the "I'm going to tell you a story about my past" structure, which is used. I guess the notion of hindsight and retrospect can be effective, but as a whole I definitely didn't look forward to the present snippets between him and Padma.
This is not a quick, easy read, if that's what you're looking for. But if you are a reader with patience that enjoys magical realism you will enjoy this.
Book Review: Delightful read
Summary: 5 Stars
After recently finishing Mistry's 'A Fine Balance' I planned to give myself a break from Indian lit for a while, but finding myself without a book on the other side of the country, the only books in the shop that called out to me were Indian - so I bought three!
Midnight's children is regarded as a classic, and deservingly so. I cannot help but contrast it with 'A Fine Balance' which I so recently read. Both are brilliantly written, inspiring books that intricately intertwine with India's tumultuous history. Yet they are as different as night and day. Midnight's children, although similarly passing through some quite dark hours of history, does not have the deflating, depression quality that the other book has. If anything Rushdie's writing shows symptoms of the 'disease of optimism' that his characters and his country so often succumb to in the novel. Despite the flawed narrator Saleem's neverending series of mishaps and his sense of inevitable doom, I couldn't help but feeling upbeat throughout this novel.
Part of what makes this book so interesting is that it combines history with fantasy. Not just in the usual sense of historical fiction, but in a more magical, mystical sense. I won't go into detail but this makes this book a delight to read. The first person narration is quirky, racing forwards and backwards and admittedly suffering from errors of memory and chronology but never too off-beat so as to get confusing (or rarely so).
Yet another book I highly recommend. Look forward to reading more of Salman Rusdhie's work in the future.
Book Review: Born to Greatness, Mired in Madness: Rushdie Laments India's First 3 Decades.
Summary: 4 Stars
"Midnight's Children" is Salman Rushdie's fictional rumination on the first 30 years of India's independence following British rule. Saleem Sinai, an Indian Muslim born on the stroke of midnight August 15, 1947, at the instant of India's independence, recounts a mystical, doleful tale of his own birth and trials as they coincided with those of India and Pakistan. All children born at the hour of independence were endowed with extraordinary gifts, the great potential of a new nation. Saleem of elephantine nose and dual parentage sees them all in his paranormally perceptive mind as he is witness to the initial optimism, two Indo-Pakistani wars, and India's oppressive State of Emergency instigated by Prime Minister Indira Ghandi.
"Midnight's Children" is an opinionated, critical tour of modern India's struggles with its own diversity and demons. Its overwhelming pessimism seems out of place now, as India has become one of the world's fastest-growing economies. The book must be viewed in the context of the time at which it was written, the late 1970s. Salman Rushdie has a lot to say, and says most of it more than once. He pulls no punches and makes no excuses for anyone. In spite of Saleem's first-person narration, Rushdie's fractured, repetitive prose style impedes its accessibility and slows the reader down. And I would not have thought it possible to pile so many metaphors on top of metaphors and remain coherent. "Midnight's Children" is a long, provocative lament but somewhat overworked.