false 14836 43 Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning <I>Midnight's Children</I>: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends up establishing squatters' rights to his unlucky hospital mate's luxurious bassinet. Switched babies are standard fare for a Hindi film, and one can't help but feel that Rushdie's world-view--and certainly his sense of the fantastical--has been shaped by the films of his childhood. But whereas the movies, while entertaining, are markedly mediocre, <I>Midnight's Children</I> is a masterpiece, brilliant written, wildly unpredictable, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.<p> Rushdie's narrator, Saleem Sinai, is the Hindu child raised by wealthy Muslims. Near the beginning of the novel, he informs us that he is falling apart--literally: <blockquote>I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug--that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.</blockquote> In light of this unfortunate physical degeneration, Saleem has decided to write his life story, and, incidentally, that of India's, before he crumbles into "(approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust." It seems that within one hour of midnight on India's independence day, 1,001 children were born. All of those children were endowed with special powers: some can travel through time, for example; one can change gender. Saleem's gift is telepathy, and it is via this power that he discovers the truth of his birth: that he is, in fact, the product of the illicit coupling of an Indian mother and an English father, and has usurped another's place. His gift also reveals the identities of all the other children and the fact that it is in his power to gather them for a "midnight parliament" to save the nation. To do so, however, would lay him open to that other child, christened Shiva, who has grown up to be a brutish killer. Saleem's dilemma plays out against the backdrop of the first years of independence: the partition of India and Pakistan, the ascendancy of "The Widow" Indira Gandhi, war, and, eventually, the imposition of martial law.<p> We've seen this mix of magical thinking and political reality before in the works of Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez. What sets Rushdie apart is his mad prose pyrotechnics, the exuberant acrobatics of rhyme and alliteration, pun, wordplay, proper and "Babu" English chasing each other across the page in a dizzying, exhilarating cataract of words. Rushdie can be laugh-out-loud funny, but make no mistake--this is an angry book, and its author's outrage lends his language wings. <I>Midnight's Children</I> is Salman Rushdie's irate, affectionate love song to his native land--not so different from a Bombay talkie, after all. <I>--Alix Wilber</I> 1024288 book 1980 Midnight's Children total:9748|5:4499|4:3127|3:1497|2:457|1:168| 9748 40576 16353 1169 5 13 false false Fri Aug 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 18 12:01:59 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 11 22:23:03 -0700 2008 Underworld, Infinite Jest & White Teeth. There were a lot of things about it that I agreed wi...more...]]> 5 16 false false Tue Jun 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 04 21:26:55 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 10 15:17:45 -0700 2008 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, be...more...]]> 3 7 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 12 19:17:12 -0700 2007 Sun Dec 02 10:24:05 -0800 2007
Midnight's Children is as much a tale of history and nationhood as it is of a person. ...more...]]> 5 4 false false Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 08:17:13 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 00:55:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 3 false false Fri Dec 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 06:20:01 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 08:20:06 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 08 18:17:57 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 24 21:06:58 -0700 2008 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.
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This is one of those brilliant books that is easier to appreciate than enjoy. It is an allego...more...]]> 2 4 false false Mon Aug 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 14:53:43 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 14:56:12 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Oct 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 28 11:05:55 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 09:15:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 27 22:53:40 -0800 2007 Mon Dec 24 10:39:14 -0800 2007 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 ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue May 20 20:54:56 -0700 2008 Tue May 20 20:57:35 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Sat Dec 20 03:30:53 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 20 08:42:24 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Nov 10 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Oct 25 21:25:15 -0700 2008 Mon Nov 10 23:32:15 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 28 06:42:23 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 26 06:03:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1996 Tue Mar 06 16:35:57 -0800 2007 Tue Mar 06 16:41:32 -0800 2007 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 hi...more...]]> 3 2 false false Wed Mar 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 08:48:38 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 07:36:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 26 19:10:11 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 19:12:35 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Thu Dec 27 10:17:39 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 27 11:39:52 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 14:42:47 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 14:45:40 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jan 19 20:14:55 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 19 20:16:16 -0800 2009 more...]]>