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Midnight's Children. Salman Rushdie

by Salman Rushdie

4.03 · rating details · 22,487 ratings · 2,041 reviews

Winner of the Booker of Bookers
Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national

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Paperback, Vintage Classics Edition, 647 pages

Published April 3rd 2008 by Vintage Books (first published 1980)

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Jun 10, 2008

Turhan Sarwar rated it

· review of another edition

Midnight's Children is not at all a fast read; it actually walks the line of being unpleasantly the opposite. The prose is dense and initially frustrating in a way that seems almost deliberate, with repeated instances of the narrator rambling ahead to a point that he feels is important--but then, before revealing anything of importance, deciding that things ought to come in their proper order. This use of digressions (or, better put, quarter-digressions) can either be attributed to a charmingly...moreMidnight's Children is not at all a fast read; it actually walks the line of being unpleasantly the opposite. The prose is dense and initially frustrating in a way that seems almost deliberate, with repeated instances of the narrator rambling ahead to a point that he feels is important--but then, before revealing anything of importance, deciding that things ought to come in their proper order. This use of digressions (or, better put, quarter-digressions) can either be attributed to a charmingly distractable narrator or a vehicle for (perhaps cheaply) tantalizing the reader... or both.

I'll admit that at first I didn't appreciate being so persistently manipulated. Many times in the first few chapters I found myself closing the book in anger, thinking to myself "If the story is worth it, this tactic is utterly unnecessary."

The tactic, it turns out, is unnecessary. The book--the story--is stunning. It's stunning enough that the frustrating aspects of the telling are forgivable and actually retrospectively satisfying (which I suspect is what the author wanted). While the fractional digressions, on the one hand, can have you groping around for a lighter--they, on the other hand, work to accustom you to the novel's epically meandering pace. Also, they effectively allow you to feel a certain urgency near the end of the book, as the narrator "runs out of time."

The imagery is lush; the characters are curiously, magically lopsided; the language is complicated and beautiful; the chapters are nicely portioned despite the initial plodding pace; the narrative is deliberately allegorical, which perhaps suggests an enhanced enjoyment of the work after studying a bit of Indian history. Elements of the story's frame (the narrator writing in a pickle factory with sweet Padma reading along) are particularly amusing, and the chapter entitled "In the Sundarbans" is nothing short of breathtaking.

The book will go slow in the beginning; the book means to; give it patience--it's worth it, I think.(less)

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Aug 11, 2008

Taylor rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Rushdie newcomers, the ambitious, people who love their hometown

Shelves: fiction, own, signed, favorites, golden-years, ramble-on

Back in 2000, lit critic James Wood wrote a huge manifesto on the problem of "the 'big' novel" for the New Atlantic (disguised as a review of Zadie Smith). He basically attacked quirky novels like Underworld, Infinite Jest & White Teeth. There were a lot of things about it that I agreed with - particularly his point that a lot of cutesy things some writers tend towards are in place of good structure. One major thing I didn't agree with was his inclusion of Rushdie in this lot of wacky ...more

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Jan 25, 2012

Tanu Das rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classic, emotional-drama, excellent-prose, human-cruelty, serious-literature, the-eternal-quest, well-developed-plot, why-did-i-fall-for-this, cringe-worthy

Updated on 23 January, 2012
When I originally read this novel, I thought the end was very pessimistic. In the light of Jaipur Festival, it seems ludicrously positive now. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, what a joke!

Original review
If beating around the bush was a crime; then, Salman Rushdie would be charged with aggravated assault and attempt to murder of that bush.

If there was of contest of master of digressions; he would emerge as the undisputed winner.

...more

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Aug 12, 2009

miaaa rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: echa, dahlia

Recommended to miaaa by: prima, icha, vashti

Shelves: ophelia-s-library, favourites

I should not even dare to write a review about this book. It's crazy, emotionally challenging, and able to bring you down and up, loving and hating the protagonist, Saleem Sinai, at the same time. But by recounting his story, no not just recount but Saleem did take me to India, to watch and experience the frenzy of the Independence, to the Midnight Children, to a bloody separation of Pakistan, to a 'meat versus vegetable' war which actually the Bangladesh separation from Pakistan. You know as a ...moreI should not even dare to write a review about this book. It's crazy, emotionally challenging, and able to bring you down and up, loving and hating the protagonist, Saleem Sinai, at the same time. But by recounting his story, no not just recount but Saleem did take me to India, to watch and experience the frenzy of the Independence, to the Midnight Children, to a bloody separation of Pakistan, to a 'meat versus vegetable' war which actually the Bangladesh separation from Pakistan. You know as a reader, I couldn't ask for more. But apparently as a writer Salman Rushdie wants to give more that any reader would expect from him.

Yes Indian or Pakistani or Bangladesh political unrests are not something new, but do we really understand what is going on? I got bits from here and there, mostly from my Indian friends, but somehow now I'm learning that there are more to the fragile issue. The famous name of Gandhi and the Nehru, it looks like someone (read: a family or a clan) has an extra burden on her shoulder, or I'm the only one who think of it as a burden? But hey look politic is merely a game, at least for most politicians. If you're in power then you do anything necessary to keep that power, so when you're not in power you do anything necessary to takeover the power. And on and on and on. And by playing the game these politicians then forget about the people whose interests are the one they should fight for.

And so who can provide insights to all these Independence, Separations, State of Emergency situations, class and religious clashes, as well as political vulnerability than the two mightiest Midnight Children of all, Saleem and Shiva, who were cheated since born which occured at the stroke of midnight the very moment of India's Independence. Name-tags are switched so that the heir of a Moslem and wealthy family was raised in poverty as a Hindu whilst the son of a Hindu fortuneteller/singer took his twin-not-really-a-twin place to be raised as a Kashmiri Prince of whom the Indian first Prime Minister wrote a personal letter regarding his birth.

Oh how one wishes she could write her stories the way Salman Rushdie reflected his nation in such masterpiece like this Midnight Children.

***

Butuh keberanian luar biasa untuk mereview buku ini, apalagi untuk memasangnya untuk dibaca orang lain seperti ini. Saat mengecek variasi bintang plus review dari beberapa orang yang telah membacanya di Goodreads, yang awalnya untuk mencari ide, malah membuatku semakin bingung.

Sulit, ini buku yang sulit untuk dibaca. Dan tidak hanya itu. Secara emosional isinya menantang karena aku bisa membenci namun juga menyukai tokoh utama cerita ini, Saleem Sinai, di saat yang bersamaan. Saat ia menceritakan kisahnya, aku tidak hanya sebagai pendengar tapi persis berada di sebelahnya saat India merayakan kemerdekaannya, kemudian ke pertemuan para Midnight Children. Aku, bersama Saleem, menyaksikan pertumpahan darah yang terjadi saat Pakistan memisahkan diri dari India, atau perang 'Daging lawan Sayuran' menurut seorang anggota pasukan khusus Pakistan ketika mengira perang yang ia jalani adalah melawan India padahal ternyata berujung pada pemisahan Bangladesh dari Pakistan.

Memang pergolakan politik di India, Pakistan maupun Bangladesh bukan sesuatu yang baru lagi bagi dunia, tapi apa lantas kita menerimanya begitu saja tanpa ingin tahu kenapa hal itu terus terjadi? Jelas ada banyak hal dalam pertikaian politik mereka dan isu tersebut begitu rapuh. Nama Gandhi dan darah Nehru, bagiku pribadi adalah beban yang luar biasa berat, tapi sepertinya tidak bagi seorang perempuan. Jelas panggung politik itu semacam permainan bagi kebanyakan politisi. Jika sedang berkuasa, semua cara dilakukan untuk mempertahankannya sebaliknya ketika belum memegang kekuasaan makan semua cara dilakukan untuk merebut kekuasaan itu. Dan terus begitu hingga para politisi melupakan rakyat biasa yang seharusnya mereka perjuangkan.

Lantas siapa lagi yang bisa menceritakan semua kisah ini, mulai dari Kemerdekaan India ke Pemisahan Pakistan dan Bangladesh, perselisihan antar kelas dan agama, termasuk rentannya panggung politik di ketiga negara ini selain dua anak terkuat dari Midnight Children, Saleem dan Shiva? Kedua sengaja ditukar sejak mereka lahir, sehingga pewaris sebuah keluarga Khasmir yang beragama Muslim dibesarkan dalam kemiskinan oleh seorang Hindu dan kembaran-bukan-kembar-sesungguhnya yang beragama Hindu dibesarkan layaknya seorang pangeran dan kelahirannya secara khusus dicatat dalam sejarah oleh Perdana Menteri India pertama lewat sepucuk surat.

Membacanya sungguh membuat seseorang berharap dia punya kemampuan untuk menceritakan kisahnya, sama seperti Salman Rushdie merefleksikan negaranya di buku ini.(less)

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Dec 02, 2007

Ben rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone who reads fiction written after 1965

This was an extremely good book; one which, for some reason, I couldn't quite fall in love with. I was, however, more and more impressed with Rushdie's master over his novel as I made my way through it.

Midnight's Children is as much a tale of history and nationhood as it is of a person. I think, in some sense, the book was a sort of authorial attempt to bring into the realm of substantial palpability everything that had happened to the Indian subcontinent since Independence in '47 (o...moreThis was an extremely good book; one which, for some reason, I couldn't quite fall in love with. I was, however, more and more impressed with Rushdie's master over his novel as I made my way through it.

Midnight's Children is as much a tale of history and nationhood as it is of a person. I think, in some sense, the book was a sort of authorial attempt to bring into the realm of substantial palpability everything that had happened to the Indian subcontinent since Independence in '47 (or thereabouts). In so doing, Rushdie had to deal with many of the themes that have been the standards of world literature in the passing decades: the richness of pre-modern superstition falling away to the antiseptic light of post-colonial progress, the upheavals of third-world political instability, magical realism, the individual as a link in the hereditary chain.

I don't know for sure, but I'm certainly willing to grant the benefit of the doubt to the notion that Rushdie (along with with Gabriel Garcia Marquez) was among the first to employ these literary devices. And in some ways, he does it best. I was repeatedly impressed by the fact that Midnight's Children didn't just talk about history, patterns, and the past and the future interlinking. No -- its author had done the hard and uncommon work of planning the book so that those patterns would really be there. So that images from the beginning of the book would effectively and reliably return to haunt at the apex and at the climax of the tale. I *often* lose patience (and Marquez is on this list) with books that make great promises (witness: Love In the Time of Cholera) early on, but end up meandering, without focus, robbing the book's conclusion of greater meaning and impact. Rushdie did not make this mistake.

I think that one of the problems I had with Midnight's Children is that I read it out of order. Clearly clearly clearly God of Small Things and Middlesex to pick two at random among many, were heavily influenced by this novel. But I read them first. And in some ways, you have to admit that they improved on the techniques that I suspect Rushdie pioneered.

Rushdie brings history to life in Midnight's Children, and he does it by adding magic. He weaves a personal, wonderful, and improbable life into the history of Indian independence, the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is set in an even more charming, and considerably more personal (and personable) frame-tale narrative. The structure is not born of whimsy. The author is making a strong and cogent point about the nature of knowledge and history and experience. Official records contain one version of history. Rather than just smugly assert that there are others, he provides us a literary illustration. Who knows what could have happened? When Reasons swept its bright and ruinous hand over this part of the world, who can say what got lost? What was looked over? It is as if the thesis of the book (if there were one, other than that Indira Ghandi was a plague to the nation), was that within the cracks and crevices of official knowledge are rich seams of midnight-black possibility, a dark rainbow of being.

My final criticism: the book brought all of this history and insight beautifully to life. I felt the sacrifice was the actual protagonist. In the present, he is a charming reality. The versions of himself that he narrates feel like a frail sort of cipher. He rarely has strong attachments, wer are not told much about his feelings, and when we are, they don't seem to be connected to the main thread of the narrative. He changes as needed to move the story forward, but, ultimately, the story is not a personal one. The person at its center has worked too hard to be a symbol, a nation, history.

Is Midnight's Children worth reading? Absolutely. Will it enter my list of most-beloved novels? I'm afraid not.(less)

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May 18, 2009

Whitaker rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: modern-canon, india, 2009-read

Have you ever been to a Hindu temple? It’s a riotous mass of orange, blue, purple, red, and green. Its walls seethe with deities. In one corner, Ganesha--the god with a human body and elephant head--sits on his vehicle, a rat. In another, a blue Krishna sits on a cow wooing cow girls by playing his flute. Durgha wearing a necklace of skulls kills a demon in another corner. Jasmine-decorated devotees stand around chanting. The press of people, the incense and the noise all combine and you lose yo...moreHave you ever been to a Hindu temple? It’s a riotous mass of orange, blue, purple, red, and green. Its walls seethe with deities. In one corner, Ganesha--the god with a human body and elephant head--sits on his vehicle, a rat. In another, a blue Krishna sits on a cow wooing cow girls by playing his flute. Durgha wearing a necklace of skulls kills a demon in another corner. Jasmine-decorated devotees stand around chanting. The press of people, the incense and the noise all combine and you lose your bearings. That’s what reading Midnight’s Children is like.

In many ways, it’s apt that’s it’s like that. This is a country of 330 million deities and about as many languages and dialects. It’s large, messy, contradictory, and bursting with people. As with the country, so with the book. Like the nation whose birth it writes about, Midnight’s Children strains at the seams to hold its contents in one whole. Its language is as spicy and pungent as one of south India’s curries. Its plot packs a punch as potent at its toddies. And being set in a country where film stars are venerated as incarnations of Shiva and Brahma and Vishnu, reality often takes a rain check.

Rushdie’s plot ends somewhere in the 70’s. A key theme in the novel is fragmentation: of our hero, and of the country. At time of writing, India’s Congress Party led by a scion of the Ghandi dynasty has won the national elections. Technological wiz-kids work in Bangalore while their cousins labour in rice fields. Modern Indian women dance in jeans in clubs while nationalist conservative Hindus plot to bash them for immodesty. The country is being forcibly pushed into a capitalist 21st century and the tensions show. And yet for all that it doesn't all fly apart.

One wonders what a sequel to the novel would be like. Would we see a son of our hero fly off to study in the United States and return to start a technology company and engage in a tumultuous love-hate relationship with an American woman while keeping a Chinese lover on the side? And what would happen to the 1,001 children of midnight? India faces as many possibilities at this juncture of her history as at the time of her bastard incarnation (don’t flame me, it’s in the book). How can we even begin to grasp what she is about? One visit will not be enough. And as with the country, so with the book. (less)

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Dec 26, 2008

James rated it

· review of another edition

I have mixed feelings about this, and the whole project is so huge that I don't know what to say -- the closest analogue is probably "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and I definitely liked it better than that. It's a big national epic, and so on, and it has all sorts of crazy magical happenings. "The Tin Drum" is the same -- any novel with pretensions to "epic" status in the twentieth century has to resort to magic, I guess, because "realism" defines itsel...more

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Sep 24, 2008

Ian rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature

Midnight's Children is my first encounter with Salman Rushdie, so I didn't have many preconceptions when I began reading it. Relative to most novels, this one is lengthy, and it isn't exactly a light read, but it is crafted masterfully and is well worth turning through its pages until the end.

In general, it's a story of how an infant named Saleem, born at the moment of India's birth as an independent nation, is swapped with another infant shortly thereafter and finds his life interw...moreMidnight's Children is my first encounter with Salman Rushdie, so I didn't have many preconceptions when I began reading it. Relative to most novels, this one is lengthy, and it isn't exactly a light read, but it is crafted masterfully and is well worth turning through its pages until the end.

In general, it's a story of how an infant named Saleem, born at the moment of India's birth as an independent nation, is swapped with another infant shortly thereafter and finds his life interwoven with that of India and its people. The circumstances of his birth are critical because in many ways Saleem is a reflection of the newborn India that is explored in the story. The intrusion by the British, the tension between religion and secularism, the uneasy truce between Muslims and Hindus, and the repeated efforts to build political consensus--these are all themes explored by Rushdie and interwoven with Saleem's life.

As the narrator, Saleem is able to tell us about himself exactly what he wishes. He frequently shifts the narrative between the recounting of historical events and the "present," in which he frequently comments on the world around him. Saleem writes about his grandfather at one moment and in the next makes observations about cooking and watching employees work in his pickle factory. Some may find this irritating, but there are often cues ("...") and other mechanisms to aid in the transition. And there's more at work here than art for art's sake; it serves a legitimate function.

As a child, Saleem discovers that he has an uncanny ability to read minds and communicate telepathically. He hears voices in his head from all over India, in every language--a development that he calls "All-India Radio." He finds other children who were born within the same hour as him--dubbed "midnight's children"--and learns that they all have their own special powers (or curses). In a flailing attempt to unite the children behind a common cause, Saleem struggles to convince them to speak with one voice. In this respect, Saleem is a microcosm of the political growing pains of India, spending his time alone in a bell tower (i.e. tower of Babel) away from his alcoholic father, domineering mother, and pyromaniac sister.

We also learn from the beginning that during his writing, Saleem's body is falling to pieces; time is short. Saleem worries he is in a process of disintegration. We cannot initially tell if this is true. But his past is full of divisions, both familial and on the national front, where the threat of a fractured state is constant. Saleem's style of narration is a symptom of this political frustration, which Rushdie uses as a literary tool to tie Saleem's psyche to his tumultuous surroundings.

The conflicts between private and public existence, master and servant, subjugation and rebellion, fantasy and reality--these are recurring themes in Saleem's story. Saleem intentionally takes liberties with history, recreating it as he thinks necessary and unabashedly defending his wild tales. At one point, he calls himself a "the humblest of jugglers-with-facts." But he also admits to errors (such as the date of the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi) and an occasional ignorance. In this way, it is a curious fable, grounded in history but also divorced from it by a near-reckless disregard for truth. The distinction between what is real and what is simply in Saleem's head is blurred and often questioned by Saleem's love interest Padma, who has a habit of peering over his shoulder as we writes. But this, I think, is intentional, as Saleem later bemoans the politics and culture that render truth meaningless.

Midnight's Children is littered with politics, religion, and "real-world" events from India, Pakistan, Kashmir, and the sub-continent, and so it helps to have a source handy to make sense of it. At times, I found this necessary. But in many cases, Saleem explains the significance of these details or provides enough clues for the reader to follow. On occasion, Saleem makes it excruciatingly obvious. But overall, this book requires attention and reflection by its audience. Some may find the style tedious or "pretentious," but not all writers experiment in order to show that they can be fanciful. I think that, at least in this book, Rushdie had a purpose behind his dense, subversive style. Beautifully written, occasionally florid, and colored by the narrator's inflated self-grandeur, Rushdie's creation simply shines here. The primary characters are intriguing and unforgettable, although they are typically deeply flawed and may be difficult to love.

I read in one professional book review that this was an "angry" book, and I agree. There is tremendous displeasure here as Saleem sees the dawn of independence squandered. But throughout it is a bizarre and persistent sense of humor that made me laugh out loud.

Due to its length, this may be a bit of a time investment, depending on the pace of the reader. But I found it was worth it.(less)

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Feb 27, 2010

Ikra Amesta rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: booker-prize-winners, times-100-best-novels, indian-authors

Memang butuh semacam perjuangan untuk bisa melewati buku ini, kalimat demi kalimat, peristiwa demi peristiwa, bab demi bab, sampai pada akhir dari cerita panjang ini. Dan keputusan untuk tidak menyerah membaca buku ini dari sejak awal-awal halaman memang membawa saya pada kepuasan, sebuah apresiasi baru terhadap daya kreatif, imajinasi, serta gaya penulisan Salman Rushdie, sebuah alat bantu untuk dapat memaknai sejarah, memaknai "apa yang membuat segalanya menjadi seperti sekarang", da...moreMemang butuh semacam perjuangan untuk bisa melewati buku ini, kalimat demi kalimat, peristiwa demi peristiwa, bab demi bab, sampai pada akhir dari cerita panjang ini. Dan keputusan untuk tidak menyerah membaca buku ini dari sejak awal-awal halaman memang membawa saya pada kepuasan, sebuah apresiasi baru terhadap daya kreatif, imajinasi, serta gaya penulisan Salman Rushdie, sebuah alat bantu untuk dapat memaknai sejarah, memaknai "apa yang membuat segalanya menjadi seperti sekarang", dan pada akhirnya membawa saya pada ruang perenungan tentang harga sebuah identitas.

Oke, dari gaya bahasa saya memberi acungan jempol pada Salman Rushdie (walaupun setelah membaca review dan forum2 mengenai bukunya yang "The Satanic Verses", rasa hormat saya padanya sedikit berkurang persis seperti rasa hormat Rushdie pada dunia sastra, karena ia telah atau sempat terjebak pada kedangkalan rasialis yang begitu fatal). Dari segi cerita, saya juga memberikan rasa salut (bahkan bisa dibilang kecemburuan) terhadap kepiawaian dalam meracik sejarah, mitologi, tragedi, drama, dan ironi dalam dunia fiksi-nya yang luas. Tapi bukan itu yang ingin saya ulas, karena dua aspek di atas rasanya sudah cukup 'di-review' oleh tiga kali penghargaan Booker Prize.

Yang membuat saya tertarik pada buku ini adalah tokoh utamanya,Saleem Sinai, yang kisahnya merupakan sebuah potret sosial dari sebuah bangsa, sebuah potret metaforis dari bangsa India, bangsa dunia ketiga, atau kalau boleh mengait-ngaitkan, bangsa Indonesia.

Saleem yang dilahirkan tepat pada proklamasi India, menandai proses kehidupan yang diawali oleh harapan, mimpi-mimpi, dan ambisi. Sebuah kelahiran yang telah dinubuatkan dan dirayakan dengan do'a berbunyi "menjadi apa pun yang kauinginkan kau akan bisa", disambut oleh kegembiraan kolektif yang melenakan seketika. Dan pada akhirnya, Saleem tumbuh dalam kenikmatan menjadi bagian dari kekayaan sampai ketika ia menyadari sesuatu. Sebuah kemampuan. Sebuah anugerah. Potensi. Sebuah mukjizat yang dikirimkan Tuhan padanya sebagai salah satu dari anak-anak tengah malam, di mana ia mampu melihat apa yang tidak bisa dilihat oleh manusia biasa, mendengar apa yang tidak biasa, memasuki pikiran-pikiran manusia yang dipenuhi oleh segala macam, dan kemudian, kemampuan hidungnya untuk mendengus perasaan-perasaan manusia yang tersembunyi.

Sebuah bakat luar biasa, yang dengannya ia mengetahui sejarah keluarganya, sejarah kakeknya, neneknya, orangtuanya, sejarah nama-nama, yang menghubungkannya (atau membentuknya) dengan masa kini. Namun ironisnya, Saleem adalah sosok yang lebih memilih 'pasrah' pada keadaan. Ia membiarkan rentetan nasib buruk menerjang hidupnya dan membawanya pada kejatuhan, kenyataan pahit, sebuah perkampungan kumuh yang tidak sedap dipandang mata. Saleem, pada masa hidupnya, mewakili sebuah harga yang harus dibayar oleh kemerdekaan, di mana kesadaran akan potensi dan bakat yang luar biasa tidak menemui arah yang tepat dalam pencapaian sebuah tujuan atau cita-cita. Saleem melihat keluarganya sebagai bagian dari India; pengkhiantan, perselingkuhan diam-diam, kebangkrutan, perseteruan tiada akhir antara nilai-nilai tradisional dengan modernisasi, amnesia, impotensi, dan cinta yang bertepuk sebelah tangan; sedangkan Saleem, dengan bakatnya, justru dihantui oleh rasa takut akan identitasnya sendiri dan berusaha untuk hidup dalam kepalsuan itu. Dan karenanya Salman Rushdie menggambarkan bahwa Saleem dan India telah dikutuk oleh ketidakpastian dari sejak kemerdekaan dan kelahirannya.

Maka, bila saya kaitkan lagi dengan bangsa Indonesia, adalah bahwa kita mewakili nasib yang sama dengan Saleem sebagai bayi miskin yang tertukar dan ditakdirkan untuk hidup dalam kekayaan dan anugerah yang dengannya kita menghabiskan waktu dengan menyusun mimpi dan cita-cita dari balik identitas yang tidak pernah bisa kita akui; bahwa kita telah dari sejak awal menjadi bagian dari kemiskinan.(less)

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Mar 07, 2010

indri rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: ade stp

Recommended to indri by: wirotomo, miaaa

Shelves: sastra-dunia, asia-land

#2010-19# baca bareng mbak Endah

yang lahir di malam kemerdekaan India

Aku Saleem Sinai, dilahirkan pada dentang jam tengah malam, sementara dunia tertidur, India terbangun menuju kehidupan dan kebebasan. Bersamaan dengan Jawaharhal Nehru mengumandangkan, "Bertahun-tahun yang lalu kita berjanji untuk bertemu dengan takdir; dan sekarang tiba waktunya ketika kita akan menebus janji kita-- tidak sepenuhnya atau secara menyeluruh, tetapi secara sangat substansial.."
...more

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Oct 16, 2009

Marieke rated it

Shelves: read-in-2007, booker-prize-winners, authors-of-color, oban-library

PART 1

I finished the book yesterday--but before I describe my overall response I have to start with this entry I wrote in my notebook while I was partway through.

I last opened this book ten years ago. This was the book that destroyed our little book club in college, my first year. A small group of avid readers, aspiring to read high and mighty works of literature. We made it through Snow Falling on Cedars successfully--I don't remember any discussion we had about it, bu...more

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Aug 06, 2010

K.D. rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Joselito, Jzhunagev and all the other brilliant people who appreciate great literary works

Recommended to K.D. by: TIME Magazine's 100 Best Novels, Man Booker, Best of Booker, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 to 2010)

Shelves: 1001-core, booker, india

Now, I am beginning to like Salman Rushdie.

Last year, I read his controversial novel The Satanic Verses and I hated it so I gave it a lone star.

Here in Midnight's Children, his playful and I-don't-care-if-you-like-me-or-not writing style is still very much around. This is a long read and it took me the whole week to reach up to its last word on page 647. It started strong, interesting and clear. Once details, too much of them, are introduced, I dazed off and became an ou...more

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Sep 29, 2008

Pete rated it

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There is a quote in Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children," spoken by the protagonist and narrator Saleem Sinai: "To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world."

This is one of those brilliant books that is easier to appreciate than enjoy. It is an allegory about India's history around the time of independence and partition, told through (and explained by) the life and ancestry of Saleem, who was born at exactly midnight of India's independence day in...more

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Aug 12, 2008

Dusty Myers rated it

· review of another edition

An important novel. Rushdie's narcissistic narrator, Saleem Sinai, achieves this narcissism from being the first child born on the day India won its independence from Britain. He got a letter from the prime minister making it official, and from this momentous, synchronous birth, the history of Saleem is twinned step-by-step to the history of India. This is what makes it An Important Novel, and I don't much care for Important Novels.

Saleem's point of view is a slippery, deceptive thin...moreAn important novel. Rushdie's narcissistic narrator, Saleem Sinai, achieves this narcissism from being the first child born on the day India won its independence from Britain. He got a letter from the prime minister making it official, and from this momentous, synchronous birth, the history of Saleem is twinned step-by-step to the history of India. This is what makes it An Important Novel, and I don't much care for Important Novels.

Saleem's point of view is a slippery, deceptive thing throughout the book. He and all the other titular children born between 12:00am and 12:59am that first day of India's nationhood all grow up to have X-Men-like powers. One can change its sex, one can warp between bodies of water. Saleem gets telepathy, and what this enables him to do is act in a classic 19th-century omniscient way in his narration, dipping right into other characters' heads at moments when its convenient for him and his narrative. At other times he likes to refer to himself in the third person. This becomes particularly interesting in the years he spends in the Pakistani army, when an accident causes him to forget his own name and answer only to the nickname "the buddha." For a hundred pages or so we hear Saleem tell the story of "the buddha" and only through certain physical details (Saleem was born with an extremely large nose) do we connect it with our narrator.

Oh, it's all too much. Saleem has telepathy for a while, and then he's able to smell so well he can smell people's fears and secrets. There are surely other superhuman powers I've forgotten by now. Reading Rushdie's big novel made me think a lot of Nabokov's great small one, Pale Fire. Mostly because I kept wishing I could put Rushdie down and go back to something entertaining and not so overwrought and self-important. But really it's this idea of the narcissism of first-person narrators. All first-person narrators are narcissists on some level—here, listen, I have this story I have to tell you, even if I don't want to, and I'm the best person to tell it, so listen. And I don't have the answers here, not yet. But one thing I can't figure out is why the glorious, ridiculous self-absorption on the part of Nabokov's Kinbote is so glorious and ridiculous and engaging and genuinely funny, and why that of Rushdie's Saleem is so off-putting and grating and onanistic.

I think Rushdie intends for us to roll our eyes comically at his narrator, at least at times, and I'm sure many readers who love this book (which is like everyone alive) did as intended. And I'm sure when Saleem's aunt says he "[a]lways thought [he was] growing up to be God or what. And why? Some stupid letter the P.M.'s fifteenth assistant under-secretary must have sent [him]" (390-91), we're meant to dig in to such a passage as evidence that Saleem isn't the most reliable narrator he likes to pretend he thinks he isn't. But I don't buy it. Something about the politics behind the books shows otherwise.

Kimbote is from Zembla, a silly made-up place, and so he's easy to write off. But Saleem isn't just from India, he is India, and so we have to honor him, and it's exhausting work. It's like going to a family reunion, and that jackass cousin who always beat up on you and called you a faggot is now a disabled war veteran.

That's what reading this book was like.(less)

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Oct 22, 2008

Samantha rated it

· review of another edition

Hm. Where to start??? Okay... first of all, the book took me months to get through, about 2, but that could also be because of moving, etc etc. However, this is not a book that you could get through quickly or easily. A variety of colorful characters appear, disappear, and reappear later on, so you're constantly going back and checking who is who and how they're related! If i'd known that at the beginning, i would have listed everyone as they came up and kept track of all of them, :)

...more

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Dec 24, 2007

Stephen rated it

· review of another edition

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children was my first venture into his works - I picked it mainly on the recommendations on here and Amazon. I was not disappointed in the least.

Rushdie's mastery of his craft is impressive. His storytelling style reminded me very much of John Irving at his best - a series of vignettes, some overwhelmingly meaningful, some seemingly inconsequential with their purpose to-be-realized-later. He implements this style in an effective way too, with a narrator...moreSalman Rushdie's Midnight's Children was my first venture into his works - I picked it mainly on the recommendations on here and Amazon. I was not disappointed in the least.

Rushdie's mastery of his craft is impressive. His storytelling style reminded me very much of John Irving at his best - a series of vignettes, some overwhelmingly meaningful, some seemingly inconsequential with their purpose to-be-realized-later. He implements this style in an effective way too, with a narrator telling his autobiography without becoming too overbearing. And, as Irving, he makes an excellent package of his individual stories as the novel progresses. This creates a very fun experience for the active reader as he utilizes foreshadowing and allusion to their fullest.

The subject of his novel also impressed me. His protagonist, as he says, was born on the exact instant of Indian independence and his fate is thereby inextricably tied to the fate of nation, and vice versa. Through the vehicle of a boy growing into maturity (wow is that an oversimplification) he provides some very interesting commentary on the infancy of India and Pakistan. Politics, religion and modes of social interaction are all indirectly scrutinized through Saleem Sinai's character. Again, Rushdie uses this mechanism very effectively without ever being tiresome with it.

I have a very tough time explaining this book to my friends. Apparently Rushdie's typical genre is called 'magical realism', and I can definitely buy this. But trying to convince someone that thinks he is a so-so writer who was made famous by an entire religion who wants to kill him by saying "Oh, they are sort of stories about ordinary people with extraordinary abilities - how regular people would function if they had supernatural powers" does not effectively draw them in. I have read more than a few books of the Fantasy sort, where wizards where hats and warlocks are always dressed in black, and can say most definitely this is not that. I suppose what kept me interested was the vivacity of Rusdie's India. Never once did I believe that telepathy or conjuring was an out of place talent in a world of political insurrection, language riots, Hindu gods, snake charmers and chutney. And that is the difference I suppose. Rushdie never asked me to suspend my disbelief, merely to look into his world. And what an enjoyable world it was.(less)

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Mar 06, 2007

Michael Preston rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classic

The best of Salman Rushie's novels, in my opinion. Sort of autobiographical, and sort of the story of Indian independence (and partition). The fifth paragraph is one of my favorites in English literature:

One Kashmiri morning in the early spring of 1915, my grandfather Aadam Aziz hit his nose against a frost-hardened tussock of earth while attempting to pray. Three drops of blood plopped out of his left nostril, hardened instantly in the brittle air and lay before his eyes on the pr...more

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May 20, 2008

Erik Simon rated it

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This book is so good that as I was reading it, I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be reading it. I've not been able to like much of anything else Rushdie has written, but this one sang to me like few books have. And it's not for nothing that of all the books that have won the Booker, this was voted the best of the Bookers. One of my favorite quotations in the book went something like this: "In order to understand just one human life, you sometimes have to swallow the entire world."...more

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Dec 20, 2008

Mark rated it

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Shelves: fiction

The winner of the Booker of Booker Awards (voted the best Booker award winner from the last 25 years) this book is considered Rushdie's masterpiece. Following the life of a boy who was born on the stroke of midnight on the day India formally gained its independence from Great Britain, the boy's life and the growth of the new nation twist and turn together through 31 years. In sort of a Forrest Gump type plot line (or perhaps Forrest Gump has a Midnight's Children type plot line) major events in ...more

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Oct 20, 2011

Andrew rated it

Shelves: fiction

Feeling in need of some quality reading about three months ago I thought to myself, ‘ I know, I should try a Booker prize winner. I’ve never read one before and they are meant to be the best of the best.’ Even better I found out that there was a ‘Booker of Bookers’ winner too, which of course was this novel. So I got it.

What I got was a book that you probably need a degree in English Literature to fully appreciate. Mr. Rushdie is certainly a man who enjoys his words. Not necessarily ...moreFeeling in need of some quality reading about three months ago I thought to myself, ‘ I know, I should try a Booker prize winner. I’ve never read one before and they are meant to be the best of the best.’ Even better I found out that there was a ‘Booker of Bookers’ winner too, which of course was this novel. So I got it.

What I got was a book that you probably need a degree in English Literature to fully appreciate. Mr. Rushdie is certainly a man who enjoys his words. Not necessarily in any form understandable to the lay reader, mind you, but the love is obviously there. Sentences are formulated that at first glance look like they might just be comprehensible, and seem to hang together beautifully, but when I actually read them my brain just froze and spat them out undigested.

The book is a family epic set in India and Pakistan throughout the twentieth century, roughly from the 1920s to 1970s, which was the period that both countries got their independence from Britain and had a war or two with each other. It is written in a style which I guess is a nod to the style of ancient Indian fables and parables, and has some similarities with ancient Greek odysseys too. Modern politicians and generals bestride the tale like small gods with mystical powers. Every family incident no matter how trivial is redolent with portentous meaning. Big events at home correspond to and happen together with bigger events in Indian history (some of which I’d heard of but most I’d not), and the suggestion is that the fortunes of the family are somehow mirroring and connected with the political fortunes of the nation.

The narrator is Saleem, a middle class kid living in Bombay, born on the stroke of midnight on the day that India gained its independence. The first part of the novel is basically him relating the family history, until the timeline eventually catches up with his own life. Saleem is full of self-importance and is egotistical, stemming from his view that he is somehow magically connected to India because of the situation of his birth. But he is also almost paralysed socially with a lack of self-confidence. The author has managed to create a character who, uniquely for me with a first person narrator, I wanted to punch repeatedly in the face until he stopped being such a knob and a wuss, and then punch him some more. So, no identifying with the central character then, but then I would guess that is not the point. His family seems to be full of the socially maladjusted types you get in many such stories, who mainly just serve to create obstacles for Saleem’s story.

I got a bit confused with his family actually. Most of them seem to have identical personalities (which could be the author making a point about history repeating itself), but the trouble is they also seem to have different names at different points in the history. Some of these are maybe Indian equivalents to familiar names such as Nan or Sis, but as I am ignorant of Indian culture I don’t know. It made it bloody tricky to follow though. And some of the characters definitely do change names, as Saleem invents nicknames for them. The trouble is I often couldn’t figure out who he was referring to.

Saleem also annoyed me by often spouting a load of gibberish at the beginning of a chapter, which was apparently a preview (or spoiler) for what was coming up in that chapter. By the end of the chapter some of the gibberish was made clear, but by no means all. I wasn’t quite sure what the point was, the understandable stuff just spoiled the story and made me want to punch him, and the nonsensical stuff just made me want to punch him again. Mr. Rushdie is probably chuckling away at the thought of some of his readers having that reaction, but it is not that satisfying being one of those readers.

The Midnight’s Children of the title are all those people who were born at about the same time as Saleem, most of who seem to have genuine magical powers. Saleem’s being telepathy initially, which is replaced by an excellent sense of smell. None of these characters’ or Saleem’s abilities are really explored though so again you have to wonder what the point of that was. I am sure you are all shaking your heads in disbelief at the ‘obvious’ symbolism that I missed etc, but there you go.

In the hands of a lesser novelist Midnight’s Children might have just been a brilliant and exciting fable about the life and family of a child born when India became independent. However in the hands of this author it becomes a great work of literature which is unfortunately far too great for a simple mind like mine to understand. The more coherent parts are memorable and interesting, but the majority just seems to be an attempt at depicting the ramblings of Saleem’s possibly slightly insane mind. The word ‘pretentious’ sprang to mind many times while reading it. Still, it made me write more than I usually write in my book reviews so maybe there is something in it after all!(less)

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Dec 10, 2011

Rebecca rated it

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Reading Rushdie's Midnight's Children is like listening to someone else's long-winded, rambling re-telling of a dream they had. And like all people who describe their dreams -- especially those who do so long past the point where their listeners can believably fake interest or patience -- Rushdie is inherently selfish in the way he chose to write this book. Midnight's Children is one of those novels that are reader-neutral or even reader-antagonistic -- they seem to have been written for the s...moreReading Rushdie's Midnight's Children is like listening to someone else's long-winded, rambling re-telling of a dream they had. And like all people who describe their dreams -- especially those who do so long past the point where their listeners can believably fake interest or patience -- Rushdie is inherently selfish in the way he chose to write this book. Midnight's Children is one of those novels that are reader-neutral or even reader-antagonistic -- they seem to have been written for the sole purpose of letting a writer wallow in their own history, their own problems, their own pet concerns, desires, and childhood hangups. Books like this are not mirrors of the world, or even mirrors of the author, but mirrors of how the author wants to be seen by the world.

There are patches of writing in this book that startle, amuse, and tantalize the reader, but the story is not as interesting as the narrator or the author seem to think it is; in fact, the narrator's constant references to the depth/difficulty/complex interconnectedness of his story all rang false to me. The narrator constantly tried to impress the reader with the gravity, absurdity, necessity, etc. of the story he was telling: there were lots of annoying, melodramatic asides to the reader along the lines of "O, this!" "O, that" "If only--" "But I must wait to get to that later!", which only served to distract from a story that should have just been left to stand on its own.

I'm not necessarily the type of reader who wants concrete, literal, plot-driven stories, but I'm also not the type of reader who has infinite patience for postmodern, self-inflated authors who either have a degree in literature and waste no time bludgeoning you with that fact, or don't have a degree in literature and waste no time in showing you just how good they are despite it all.

And, lastly, above and beyond the annoying narrator, the rambling story that went on for about 200 too many pages, and the author's disrespect (or at least disregard) for the reader, the last and crushing blow I can deliver to this book is that it was boring. The narrator – who, by the way, is a fairly flat character despite having over 500 pages to develop himself -- went to great pains to convince us otherwise, with constant reminders of how "epic" and "interconnected" his life was and how it resonated with the history of modern India, but in my opinion, a truly interesting story wouldn't need an obsequious narrator to constantly remind us how interesting it was.

I realize I'm in a minority in my dislike of this book; after all, it won the Booker Prize and is widely regarded to be one of the most important novels in English-language literature. I also realize I haven't said anything about what the book is actually about (in a nutshell: a coming-of-age story with a heavy dollop of magical realism and self-pity, with doses of Indian life scattered throughout) -- but all I felt when turning the last page of this book was relief.
(less)

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Nov 10, 2008

Teresa rated it

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Someone I know compared this novel to Gunter Grass's "The Tin Drum;" and though I didn't think of the parallel, I do agree. In both there's an overwhelming sense of absurdity in the world, a world that both main characters are trying to make sense of, neither understanding that it's impossible to make sense of the senseless acts that constitute what was done to innocent people in the name of what was supposedly best for the country. With his character of Saleem, the political is made p...more

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Oct 26, 2007

Caroline rated it

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Recommends it for: those with patience and endurance

While many people believe this book to be one of, if not the ultimate, examples of magical realism (perhaps only second to Marquez) I found it to be an interesting hybrid because Rushdie drives the narrative hard into the facts of Indian/Pakistani history. Subsequently Rushdie ascertains that what is accepted as historical fact is not the ultimate "truth" but rather the unknown, the underground rivers, is always much more complex then what grows on the surface.

Rushdie's w...more

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Apr 27, 2009

Julie Shanley rated it

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This book was REALLY hard to get through. I kept stopping and starting. It reads like magical realism and is about the birth of independent India. The life story of the main character parallels that of the new republic. lots of cool details about kashmir, india and pakistan. I liked the historical references a lot even if the story was a bit hard to follow. Feels like I need to read it twice or something.

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Jan 26, 2008

Katie rated it

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Shelves: a-little-more-literary

I've read this one a couple of times (I almost never re-read books). Even if you don't read the whole thing, next time you're in a bookstore pick it up and just read the first page. Or better yet, have a friend read the first page out loud to you. Rushdie's prose is so carefully crafted. Does he write as slowly as a poet, or does it just come out of his head this way? Astounding. The story itself meanders a bit, perhaps is broader than it needs to be, but my goodness it's beautiful and I l...more

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Dec 27, 2007

Bill rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone

Rushdie's masterpiece. The one I recommend to everyone. Has all of Rushdie's best elements--the fantastical imagination, the lively wordplay, the opening that grabs you on page one. But unlike with most of his books, here Rushdie maintains discipline over his narrative all the way through. This novel is a sprawling epic fashioned as an allegory for the birth and partition of India. Rushdie's aching love for his homeland is palpable throughout, so much so that even an ignorant Westerner who h...more

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Jul 10, 2008

Jason rated it

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Shelves: read-2008

As engaging as it is brilliant. I had never gotten around to reading anything by Salman Rushdie and decided to start with this. Wow. This book is big (topping 530 pages of densely packed prose), but it is difficult to put down. Weaving the tale of India's modern history into a new fairy tale, Rushdie has captured the spirit of the times so wholly and so truly it is almost an alternate history. There is great reason this book won the Booker prize and the Booker of Bookers (the best of the best of...more

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Aug 06, 2011

Ron added it · review of another edition

Reviewing such a book is quite a challenge, not only because it has already been so universally well received, but because it encompasses such a huge array of themes and motifs and is so dense in its writing style. It is the life story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence. Through his own life, the story of the sub-continent early independent life is described. But Saleem discovers more of himself, that by the timing of his birth he has certain abil...more

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Jan 19, 2009

Leslie rated it

· review of another edition

I read this book while I was traveling through India, which made it infinitely relevant to me. It is written as an allegory about the time of India independence from the British in 1947 and the birth of a boy named Saleem Sinai at the exact same time as the birth of the new nation. The book links the two together and tells of things happening to Saleem in order to tell what was happening to India.

Not only does the book talk about historic events and political maneuverings, but it also...more

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Jan 14, 2009

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

I have mixed feelings about this book. The style is a bit cumbersome, but it works. It draws you in to the narrator. It helps to show who he is. He's just awfully verbose about it. The narrator is also the subject of the story. It goes in and out of past and present tense as he is telling his lover about his fantastical past, starting with the unusual courtship of his grandparents. Saleem (the subject of the story) was born at midnight exactly on the day of India's independence and his li...more

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About Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a novelist and essayist. Much of his early fiction is set at least partly on the Indian subcontinent. His style is often classified as magical realism, while a dominant theme of his work is the story of the many connections, disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world.

His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, led to protests from Muslims in ...more

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Quotes from Midnight's Children

“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'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come.” — 122 people liked it

“To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?” — 87 people liked it

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