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Midnight's Children
by
Saleem Sinai was born at midnight, the midnight of India's independence, and found himself mysteriously "handcuffed to history" by the coincidence. He is one of 1,001 children born at the midnight hour, each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent—and whose privilege and curse it is to be both master and victims of their times. Through Saleem's gifts—inner ear and wil
...more
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Paperback, New Edition, 647 pages
Published
May 1st 1995
by Vintage
(first published April 1981)
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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
...more

Midnight’s Children is an
absolute masterful piece of writing.
It is entertaining, intelligent, informative, progressive and even funny: it is an astoundingly well balanced epic that captures the birth of a new independent nation. I hold it in such high regard.
The children are all fractured and divided; they are born into a new country that is yet to define itself in the wake of colonialism: it has no universal language, religion or culture. The children reflect this; they are spread out and ...more
It is entertaining, intelligent, informative, progressive and even funny: it is an astoundingly well balanced epic that captures the birth of a new independent nation. I hold it in such high regard.
The children are all fractured and divided; they are born into a new country that is yet to define itself in the wake of colonialism: it has no universal language, religion or culture. The children reflect this; they are spread out and ...more

This is my absolute favourite Rushdie novel. Its background of the Partition of India and Pakistan after the disastrous and cowardly retreat of the British occupiers and the ensuing Emergency under Indira Ghandi provides a breathtaking tableau for Rushdie's narrative. His narrator is completely unreliable and that is what makes the story so fascinating. I lend this book out so many times after talking about it so much (and never got my paperback copy returned) that I had to buy a hardcover that
...more

To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world."
—Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children.
For me, one of the most important books of our modern age.
I ADORE this playful, historical epic: Salman Rushdie is a literary god in my eyes, and can do little wrong - so I am biased.
Rushdie is one of the authors who has influenced my own style of writing, even though his overly-descriptive approach is discouraged by publishing editors the world over.
The 'midnight's children' of the story are th ...more
—Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children.
For me, one of the most important books of our modern age.
I ADORE this playful, historical epic: Salman Rushdie is a literary god in my eyes, and can do little wrong - so I am biased.
Rushdie is one of the authors who has influenced my own style of writing, even though his overly-descriptive approach is discouraged by publishing editors the world over.
The 'midnight's children' of the story are th ...more

What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.
Discard skepticism as you approach this epic. Suspend disbelief. Because myth and truth blend into each other imperfectly to spin a gossamer-fine web of reality on which the nation state is balanced precariously. And we, the legatees of this yarn, are caught up in a surrealist farce which plays out interminably in this land of heat and dust and many smells, our rational selves perennially clashing with our shallow beliefs but eventually ...more

The power of the storytelling left me speechless - all the words were in the novel, and there were none left for me!
If there ever was a novel that changed the way I read, this is it. I must have read each sentence several times, just to follow the thread of the confusing story, and I still got lost in the labyrinth of individual and collective history that unfolds on the stroke of Midnight, on the night of India's independence. So completely taken in by the children who are born on that partic ...more
If there ever was a novel that changed the way I read, this is it. I must have read each sentence several times, just to follow the thread of the confusing story, and I still got lost in the labyrinth of individual and collective history that unfolds on the stroke of Midnight, on the night of India's independence. So completely taken in by the children who are born on that partic ...more

Jul 29, 2014
Dolors
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Dreamers & Renegades
Recommended to Dolors by:
Garima & Sckenda
“Who what am I? My answer: 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.”
Living different ways of grasping the meaning of man and the world should offer a deeper perspective than the usual reductionism that we oftentimes subject cultures that diverge from our own ...more
Living different ways of grasping the meaning of man and the world should offer a deeper perspective than the usual reductionism that we oftentimes subject cultures that diverge from our own ...more

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 sol
...more

Fantastic, intelligent, hilarious, profound, and historically illuminating. And the narrator is deliciously unreliable too! Need I say more? I will. His sentences are the kind of energetic super-charged masterpieces that I could quote endlessly. Here's one plucked utterly at random:
"Into this bog of muteness there came, one evening, a short man whose head was as flat as the cap upon it; whose legs were as bowed as reeds in the wind; whose nose nearly touched his up-curving chin; and whose voice, ...more
"Into this bog of muteness there came, one evening, a short man whose head was as flat as the cap upon it; whose legs were as bowed as reeds in the wind; whose nose nearly touched his up-curving chin; and whose voice, ...more

(Regular Review) "Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible."
The story of Saleem Sinai's life, born at the midnight of India's independence, can be construed as India's story after independence with the sublime intertwining of the protagonist's emotions with that of the country.
The violence and callousness are corollaries to any colonial rule. ...more

It was more of a 3* experience but I know it would have been a 5* if I had read this book when I was younger and in love with magical realism. Unfortunately, there is a timing for everything and the genre does not appeal to me anymore. There are exceptions such as Junot Diaz's Oscar. It took me a while to finish as I read a couple of other books in between but I am glad I did. I liked it, it is a masterpiece of the genre and I recommend it to anyone who wants to try magical realism . It is the "
...more

Life is simply too short (and this book, far too long).
So, Merry Christmas to myself! Robin, you don't have to finish reading this endless, labyrinthinemess tangle. Putting the book down does not mean it "beat" you. It doesn't say anything definitively bad about you, as a reader. It just means that there is limited time on this earth and other great books are calling your name. Books that don't make your eyes cross and furrow your brow in exasperation and frustration.
Mr. Rushdie, it's not me, ...more
So, Merry Christmas to myself! Robin, you don't have to finish reading this endless, labyrinthine
Mr. Rushdie, it's not me, ...more

"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."
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
I pull up a chair and ready myself. I had, after all, been promised a fantastical story of the children of midnight. The air crackles with electricity as the story unfolds ...more
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
I pull up a chair and ready myself. I had, after all, been promised a fantastical story of the children of midnight. The air crackles with electricity as the story unfolds ...more

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
...more

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
Midnight's Children is a 1980 novel by Salman Rushdie that deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of British India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature.
The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: هشتم ...more
Midnight's Children is a 1980 novel by Salman Rushdie that deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of British India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature.
The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: هشتم ...more

Nothing but trouble outside my head; nothing but miracles inside it.
Being a child is no child’s play. A long wait within the sheltered darkness of a womb subsides when rhythmic beats of the heart resume their role in blinding light and mind, an apparent clean slate hold the fading marks of previous lives. While the time patiently takes its course to reveal the silhouette of million existent enigmas, the colorblind vision gradually sheds its skin and an exhilarating display of a new world comes f ...more
Being a child is no child’s play. A long wait within the sheltered darkness of a womb subsides when rhythmic beats of the heart resume their role in blinding light and mind, an apparent clean slate hold the fading marks of previous lives. While the time patiently takes its course to reveal the silhouette of million existent enigmas, the colorblind vision gradually sheds its skin and an exhilarating display of a new world comes f ...more

The children of midnight were also the children of the time: fathered, you understand, by history. It can happen. Especially in a country which is itself a sort of dream.Midnight's Children was an unexpected pleasure for me. Maybe that is the reason it took me so long to write down my thoughts on it. Yes, I read some reviews before starting it, but could never have imagined Salman Rushdie’s symphony that is no short of a magnificent blueprint of a labyrinthine palace of fantasy. Let me just ...more

I truly am sorry, Salman. It’s trite to say, I know, but it really wasn’t you, it was me. I take all the blame for not connecting, ignorant as I am about the Indian subcontinent’s history, culture, and customs. I’m sure your allegories were brilliant and your symbolism sublime, but it was in large part lost on me. At least I could appreciate your fine writing. You were very creative in the way you advanced the story, too — nonlinearly, and tied to actual events. Your device that allowed narrator
...more

“Nose and knees and knees and nose” – part of a prophecy about the unborn narrator. A few days after reading this, I was fortunate to be in the Acropolis Museum, and was struck by a collection of three bas-reliefs that were just of knees. Coupled with the relative lack of whole noses on some of the statues, I was transported back to this book.
This was my first adult Rushdie, following soon after his gorgeous children’s/YA novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
My initial reaction to this was “The ...more
This was my first adult Rushdie, following soon after his gorgeous children’s/YA novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
My initial reaction to this was “The ...more

Jun 18, 2007
Taylor
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Rushdie newcomers, the ambitious, people who love their hometown
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 writers. H
...more

WOW!!!
It took me 140 pages to really get 'hooked'. Do you know there is a 32 page vocabulary list (I printed it out)--online for "Midnight's Children?
Its worth reading this book! lol
UPDATE:
In spirit of Sharyl's review which I read today...
I'm going to RAISE my my 3 stars to 5 stars!
I read this a long time ago ---(I had to work it) --looking up tons of words. However --I thought the story was TERRIFIC!!!
I still think about this book...
so...5 stars it is!!!!! ...more
It took me 140 pages to really get 'hooked'. Do you know there is a 32 page vocabulary list (I printed it out)--online for "Midnight's Children?
Its worth reading this book! lol
UPDATE:
In spirit of Sharyl's review which I read today...
I'm going to RAISE my my 3 stars to 5 stars!
I read this a long time ago ---(I had to work it) --looking up tons of words. However --I thought the story was TERRIFIC!!!
I still think about this book...
so...5 stars it is!!!!! ...more

Midnight’s Children did not quite live up to my expectations, which were set very high by the book’s reputation. It’s a complex, messy novel; colourful, filled with a blend of fantasy and possibility, and a mood that is at once hopeful and resigned. It presents history as memory and story rather than settled fact, and beautifully weaves the human with the epic and the mythic.
I did appreciate the central metaphor and structure: the expression of the birth and growth of a nation through that of it ...more
I did appreciate the central metaphor and structure: the expression of the birth and growth of a nation through that of it ...more

It doesn’t happen often, but from time to time after I finish a work of literature, I wonder, “What just happened?” In an effort to answer that question, my brain attempts to turn itself inside out to make sense of it all. This time that torture came from Rushdie’s Midnight Children. This novel is my first experience reading Rushdie’s work, so I am not sure if the writing style of this book is typical of the author, but I am not in any hurry to find out.
Being an English Literature student and an ...more
Being an English Literature student and an ...more

Do not know what to say.......... I am speechless...unlike the main character of this book: Saleem.
What to compare this to? Not another book. Impossible! Perhaps it is best to compare this reading experience to a feeling, an image from my past:
A young boy listening in awe to his father (his greatest hero) telling one of his most wonderful stories at a campfire, hoping that the night and dad's story will never end.
Saleem's story and his narrative made me feel like that young boy again: an awes ...more
What to compare this to? Not another book. Impossible! Perhaps it is best to compare this reading experience to a feeling, an image from my past:
A young boy listening in awe to his father (his greatest hero) telling one of his most wonderful stories at a campfire, hoping that the night and dad's story will never end.
Saleem's story and his narrative made me feel like that young boy again: an awes ...more

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, but I liked the book.
Midnig ...more
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, but I liked the book.
Midnig ...more

The most courageous writer I have come across lately and my first venture into the genre of magic realism. I confess I had a different opinion of magical realism before I started reading this book. I had the opinion that magic realism would in general have a lot of similarities to fantasy fiction with an exception that the allusions made would be realistic and the exaggerations would just make the effects to the plot more pronounced. According to my findings, 'Midnight's Children' is considered
...more

Update:
Just back from watching the movie and.... well... it kind of highlights the less great parts of the book, just because it's a movie. You notice the non-plot, you notice that the characters get dragged around from India to Pakistan to Bangladesh depending which big political event or war is happening as we make our way from 1947 to 1977; and we really notice how gushingly sentimental it all turns out in the end. All of these problems are there in the book but are melted, dissolved, and ble ...more
Just back from watching the movie and.... well... it kind of highlights the less great parts of the book, just because it's a movie. You notice the non-plot, you notice that the characters get dragged around from India to Pakistan to Bangladesh depending which big political event or war is happening as we make our way from 1947 to 1977; and we really notice how gushingly sentimental it all turns out in the end. All of these problems are there in the book but are melted, dissolved, and ble ...more

Sensational. Lively. Lovely. Yet-pretty-guessable at times.
The above words sum up what I think about Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. The storyline is brilliantly correlated with India and its history as a nation. Time-and-again, the author points out all the possible correlations among the two, which makes the prose lengthy and repetitive. But is repetition a bad thing always? No sir, it is not. It can be deployed as a powerful tool to make your point, and that is exactly how the author ha ...more
The above words sum up what I think about Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. The storyline is brilliantly correlated with India and its history as a nation. Time-and-again, the author points out all the possible correlations among the two, which makes the prose lengthy and repetitive. But is repetition a bad thing always? No sir, it is not. It can be deployed as a powerful tool to make your point, and that is exactly how the author ha ...more

I tried tackling this "sacred monster" of a book twenty years ago, and I was defeated - neither my English skills, nor my cultural background were up to the task, and I had to return it to the library only a third of the way in. In a way I'm glad I've waited so long to come back, because Midnight's Children is still a difficult book, but worth all the effort on my part and all the critical praise it received from the Booker Prize crowd.
It was from the start a most ambitious project - the Indian ...more

Chutnification: the immortalization of a cucumber, or rather, a nose, into something indelibly Indian.
Just... wow.
This story of an inner-ear and nose follows through India's independence through the Emergency during Indra Ghandi, taking on mythological proportions. It is, first and foremost, a delightful, sensual, funny, detailed portrayal of a family saga that pretty much mirrors the trials and tribulations of India itself. Between the partition, Pakistan, the wars, the religions, the profundi ...more
Just... wow.
This story of an inner-ear and nose follows through India's independence through the Emergency during Indra Ghandi, taking on mythological proportions. It is, first and foremost, a delightful, sensual, funny, detailed portrayal of a family saga that pretty much mirrors the trials and tribulations of India itself. Between the partition, Pakistan, the wars, the religions, the profundi ...more
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Play Book Tag: [Poll Ballot] Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - 3 stars | 3 | 7 | Jun 15, 2020 12:49PM | |
Play Book Tag: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - 3 stars | 1 | 18 | Sep 05, 2019 12:14AM | |
Catching up on Cl...: Midnight's Children - 3rd Quarterly Read - Spoilers | 29 | 80 | Aug 19, 2019 10:00AM | |
Catching up on Cl...: Midnight's Children - 3rd Quarterly Read - No spoilers | 29 | 108 | Jul 21, 2019 11:33PM |
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 several coun ...more
His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, led to protests from Muslims in several coun ...more
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“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.”
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“Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.”
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