Could the Booker Prize have gone to a novel that treats three generations of an extended family but remains emotionally dead-flat aside from twin swellings of self-pity and self-love? Was a career launched by a book that contains 50 years of intricately plotted interconnections, parallels and synchronicities across the breadth of the subcontinent but scarcely a single meaningful insight? Am I tired of snide snark cynicism and twee wordplay all in the service of convincing us of the cleverness of the author? Did I really give up on a book that bloats to 700 pages with endless never-ending repeating repetition and flashback throwback foreshadow for every one plot point? Friend, it could. It was. I am. I did.

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.

Midnight's Children absolutely destroyed us.

Partly because we were newly in college, overwhelmed with so many things. Heavy reading loads in all our classes, especially the English classes I was taking. College isn't a great time to be in a book club, I found.

After four years there plus three more in grad school studying literature, I almost completely lost the ability to read books of my own choosing. Slowly I'm rediscovering the desire to read... but I am still unable to read anything without thinking about it to death.

These many years ago, I had made it about a third of the way through Midnight's Children before I was overcome by its nearly impenetrable density. If I had owned the book, I gave it away; if I had borrowed it, I returned it to its owner. I never went back to the book club meetings--if there were any more. I forgot all about it.

Now I am a little over a third of the way through Midnight's Children again. I suddenly felt myself in a familiar landscape--on the edge of a murky bog in which I could see myself walking forever in circles until I sank in the muck. There was no way out.

Ten years ago, I had put the book down--I had run away, escaped. Now here I was again. Dread and revulsion filled me. Rushdie put me up to this! I had to go through it. He is relentless, but I could not give up a second time.

When the reader (me) gets bored and impatient, Rushdie inserts a character to make fun of you for being bored and impatient. When you've heard those particular details three times already he tells them to you a fourth. He pours words like water droplets onto your head, wearing away a bald spot until eventually you go mad. And all the while he makes you feel that you're an idiot not to worship him and his amazing story.

Salman Rushdie--big famous author. Midnight's Children, acclaimed prizewinning book. I am not worthy. I keep reading, I splash through the bog, in circles, I curse the author. I pick my nails and wish it were over so I could return it to the library. I'm not going to let him win--I will fight to the end.

And now, for all that, I've started to enjoy the book again! The bog wasn't endless, nor was I hopelessly lost forever. He brought me out as sure as he sent me in. Suddenly the story picks up again, something is happening, time is moving forward, secrets are being revealed.

I always wonder whether authors drag on purposefully or whether they don't realize how boring they are being. Rushdie knows--he made his impatient-reader character actually walk out of the story in frustration! But--she came back. I don't know why she loves the narrator (he's completely repulsive), but he does have a good story to tell, I'll give him that.

PART 2

I'm impressed--really. This was a difficult book to get through. But it gripped me more and more strongly as I read.

The halfway point was a shock--to stop and think, I've come so far, I'm only halfway there?! But forging on... then the book picked me up and carried me along in its floodwaters.

I'm talking about this book like it was a journey, and it was. It was definitely epic; it deserves all the praise it has received. I can't personally add much to the heaps of praise Midnight's Children has stockpiled, but I can add my own experience to the mix.

How this book could be so popular with such an unlikeable narrator, I'll never know. The narrator (Saleem) finally stopped interrupting his own story with annoying bursts of self-consciousness, and I could continue to read without being reminded every few pages of how much I hated him. He was repulsive, annoying, hypocritical, arrogant, and a scumbag.

All the same, he wasn't completely unsympathetic as a character. His experience of life, of living, sometimes struck a chord. In this strangely emotionless story, Saleem's pitiful life does evoke some feeling in a reader. I despise him.

This book beats the reader over the head with its flamboyant mysticism--maddeningly repetitive, sickeningly self-conscious, pompous and insistent. It's a smack-you-upside-the-head and shout-in-your-ear allegory.

There's no doubt Rushdie is brilliant. This book is a work of genius, and I'm not just saying that. I'm sure a lot of it was over my head and I won't pretend to get all the references and metaphors. This book just screams to be interpreted, analyzed, discussed, taken apart and put back together. If only I had a book club to discuss it with me, I could rant about it some more.

As it is, I'll just say this is an utterly amazing book that I can't even begin to get my mind around--and if you like a challenge with some history, magic, and chutney thrown in, pick this book up.

Don't worry if you feel like strangling someone halfway through--it gets better. When you get to the end you might not know exactly where you've been but it will have been an unforgettable trip.

From another reviewer:
“Midnight’s Children” is a splendidly grandiose, comical and cosmical historical coming-of-age Schelmenroman, a picaresque novel, even part burlesque if you will. Just that in all its marvellous bizarreness there is not a single detail that is not perfectly on spot.

Born at exactly the same moment, Saleem Sinai and India are spiritual twins. Saleem’s first steps are India’s, Saleem’s coming-of-age is India’s, Saleem’s personal turmoils are India’s political. A micro paralleling the macro is not really unheard of. But here the universal, the superior, is set out to get the individual. Or so Saleem believes. Beyond that path though lies a phantasmagoria full of extravagance and grotesquerie – there are snake charmers and loneliness and witches and telepaths and a coup d’état and life-long bitterness and omens and a lost identity and regained love and an identity lost again and elections and beatings and the silent treatment and mock heroism and true heroism and torture over one’s soul and then torture in the name of political goals and a devastating sibling bond and being in the right place at the right time while being in the wrong place at the wrong time and mountains and borders and bed-wetting and entering other people’s dreams and far too many wars for one lifetime and pickles and cracking skin and riots and snot and changelings and changing sex and not getting any (sex again, but the homonym) and Bollywood crap and patriotic pop stars and curses and ministers drinking their own water (if you know what I mean) and bludgeons as state policy and blood, sweat and tears, but with the tears turning into diamonds (now top that, Jesus!)… This novel is a conglomerate of sheer everything!

And it is heavy-weight. In every way. But it unfolds so smoothly, reads so effortlessly that it could have been five times as long if it were up to me. And yes, it is playful. And yes, it is hilarious. Killing someone to death, Indians slipping into an Oxford drawl in time for afternoon tea and Shiva the twin, Doppelgänger and counterpart playing Mr. Lehnsherr to Saleem’s Xavier is delightfully ridiculous. But this wit could not possibly fool anyone into taking it for light-heartedness. In addition to thirty chapters for thirty years of a life’s tale in which nurture wins over nature, this is easily the most profound history lesson you will ever get. It was the most profound history lesson I ever got. Knowing nothing but the basics about India’s history, I had to keep notes about all the hints, allusions and metaphors. And to have a stack of articles and encyclopaedias at hand for further references. So pull out the heavy artillery and bring it on! Saleem’s history may sometimes vary from official accounts and at time glide into a mist of myth, but thankfully that makes it palpable, graspable and as true as anything will ever be. After all, the significance of a date in general history is not necessarily connected to its significance in personal history.

There are short brushstrokes, scents and colours. More often than not there is an entire novel’s worth of thoughts and ideas packed into a single sentence (admittedly a long one, but still). Rushdie puts the magic into magical realism. But not through legends and folklore – as a mastermind of digression and drift, his magic is the one that pulls you in and puts you under its spell. No questions asked. It is not about what is being told, but about the how.

With Saleem Sinai as its wild card, “Midnight’s Children” is the roller coaster among family sagas. But it is in equal terms the account of a country devouring its children (midnight or no midnight), a country wrecking itself down to the slums and never quite setting itself free from chaos. Or from Shiva’s destruction.

Salman Rushdie in this book deals with the tensions which exist within the Indian society who is torn between the scientific, rational worldview on the one hand and the traditional one on the other hand. When you finish reading this book, you have nothing but admiration for the writer. I was thinking how he must have conceived the idea of writing a book concerning the history of India which is narrated through the protagonist, Saleem Sinai. He was born On 15th August 1947 which was also the day when India got independence and India was officially divided into India and Pakistan. Because of the partition, Saleem Sinai suffers an identity crisis. The story is narrated keeping Saleem Sinai at the center. In the end, you can conclude that Salman Rushdie intends to make the colonial traces and especially the impacts of western ideology on Indian society a subject of discussion.

Last night On August 14th, I finished reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. This was my first ever book I have read by Rushdie which I borrowed at my local library and what an enjoyable reading experience this was. Thanks to Michael Anson at the Reading for Pleasure book club for recommending this to me. Let me write a small summary of it then I'll post my thoughts:

In the Midnight Hour of India's Independence, a young boy named Saleem Sinai is born with extraordinary powers from beyond in which he can read the minds and hearts of others and has a long cucumber-shaped nose that can smell danger. His narrative tells of his follies of being one of Midnight's Children as well as all the bad things that happens to his family as well as prophesized by Soothsayers. Can Saleem Sinai survive his family's curse? Read and find out for yourself.

This has been an amazing rollercoaster ride of a read! Reading this book reminds me of the film Grand Budapest Hotel because lots of crazy, funny, and disturbing stuff happens. It made me laugh hysterically in some parts as well. If you want to be grossed out and want a real laugh and is reading this book then definitely go to the chapter "Abracadabra" and look for the Poopy scene as that made me laugh so hard I almost cried. Though our Main Character's narrative of this book came across as Self-centered, egotistical and making him a windbag, Padma was there for most of the book to bring him back to earth and tell the story without being too over-exaggerating. This book was also sad too.

I definitely recommend this book to others because its one of those books you have to place your whole attention on because it is a very long book (my paperback copy was 552 pages long). On the description on the back cover it said that the book is "magical realism". It's a tattered tale but worth the read.

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 forth and almost everything is assimilated by the pair of bright curious eyes as the most natural happenings around them. Even the magic. Especially the magic. Midnight’s Children is a book where miracles signify a sort of divine comedy, troubles make for an allegorical tragedy and the inevitable meeting between the two crafts an engrossing narrative. Saleem and Salman, Salman and Saleem have staged a wistful and entertaining ventriloquist performance for their audience and the applause is a well-deserved one.

Reading Rushdie’s magnum opus is no short of understanding the blueprint of a labyrinthine palace of fantasy. Behind the majestic walls lies a dark cellar of family secrets. The illumination from resplendent chandeliers doesn’t reach the impenetrable past of dungeons. What appears is far from reality and what is being told is a mere shroud for covering the bitter truth yet nothing remains hidden if one tries to follow the right track. Saleem Sinai’s life is one such palace with a single catch- he’s our guide and providing an easy-to-access path is not his specialty. He deals in similes and vernaculars, nostalgia and dreams, circles and triangles, fiction and illusions. May be the burden of a weighty memory is to be blamed which was required to accommodate several stories of peculiar characters but whatever appears along this convoluted road is worth travelling for.

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.

Tracking down the temporal shifts that starts in Kashmir and ends in Bombay, tick tock in Pakistan and stop short in Delhi, the children of midnight takes the form of everything that India was and everything that India became. They are the irony of partition, the hope derived from independence, and their tryst with destiny is still going on. One can find their names etched in the pillars of Red Fort, their despair echo in the screaming cries of war victims and they stand for those relations which are bound to each other through everything except blood. They depict the ways in which every country is different and every country is similar. Midnight’s Children is one limitless metaphor that knows no border and speaks a universal language.

What more could a reader ask from a book? To be honest, I did ask for a little more. This was the year when I read Mann’s Doctor Faustus and Marquez’s Choleric Love. I already devoured Mistry’s imperfect India perfectly captured with A Fine Balance and Rushdie’s ingenious use of language and imagination was more than visible in his controversial Verses. Because of so many great books in so little time, this book surprised me in fewer ways than expected, not to mention it was a folktale-cum-gothic version of a history I’m already familiar with but then I said to myself- So what? I’ll concede to the fact that probably Midnight’s Children won’t retain a timeless appeal for me in the distant future but for the time being, I think it was indeed amazing.

Cuando un lector se enamora de un libro, éste deja su esencia dentro de él, como lluvia en un campo arable.
Salman Rushdie

Es lo primero que leo de este autor y ha sido una experiencia agotadora y fascinante, que como un viaje a la India causa la saturación de los sentidos: colores, olores, multitudes abigarradas de personajes con voces que intentan sobresalir en el caos, magia, peligro, poesía, miedo, luchas de poder... y por encima de todo, el asombro que causa un mundo tan rico y diverso, la humanidad expresándose en toda su potencia. Si le añadimos el estilo peculiar de Rushdie - una mezcla de realismo mágico, narrado a la manera de Sherezade en Las mil y una noches, con un humor muy de Quevedo (érase un hombre a una nariz pegado) - el conjunto es inolvidable.

Una vaca insomne, masticando distraídamente un paquete de cigarrillos Red and White, pasó junto a alguien que dormía en la calle hecho un fardo, lo que significaba que él se despertaría por la mañana, porque las vacas hacen caso omiso de los durmientes a no ser que estén a punto de morir. Entonces los hocican pensativamente. Las vacas sagradas comen cualquier cosa.

Asistimos al nacimiento del protagonista Saleem Aziz, en la medianoche del día en que la India nace también como país independiente. A partir de aquí, su vida y la de su país se desarrollan en paralelo y toda la biografía se convierte en una gran metáfora de los acontecimientos que marcan los inicios turbulentos de la India y Pakistán.

... sigo estando convencido que en aquella hora de acontecimientos acelerados y horas enfermas, el pasado de la India se alzó para confundir al presente; el Estado secular recién nacido estaba recibiendo un impresionante recordatorio de su fabulosa antigüedad, en la que la democracia y el voto de la mujer no tenían nada que hacer...

A todo esto hay que añadir un narrador muy poco fiable, que a la manera de Sherezade, juega continuamente con el lector yendo adelante y atrás en su historia, al tiempo que se burla suavemente de nuestra ansia por conocer la verdad:

A veces, en la versión encurtida de la historia de Saleem parece haber sabido demasiado poco; otras veces demasiado... sí, tendría que revisar y revisar, mejorar y mejorar; pero no tengo tiempo ni energías. Me veo obligado a ofrecer sólo esta frase testaruda: sucedió así porque así es como sucedió.

Otro factor que nos hace entrar de lleno en la historia es que hay una visión muy cinematográfica, como si estuviera rodando una película de Bollywood y el autor alude explícitamente a ello en varias ocasiones:

Con cierto sonrojo, tengo que admitir que la amnesia es la clase de truco que utilizan habitualmente nuestros cineastas sensacionalistas. Bajando ligeramente la cabeza acepto que mi vida ha cobrado, una vez más, el tono de una peliculilla de Bombay; pero después de todo, dejando de lado el molesto asunto de la reencarnación, sólo hay un número finito de métodos de lograr volver a nacer.

Lo más destacable en esta historia es la riqueza de sensaciones que provoca, riqueza de lenguaje y de personajes así como una imaginación desbordante que no se para en los límites de lo real y que te asombra continuamente. 600 páginas. Extenuante y maravilloso.

Lo repito por última vez: para entenderme tendréis que tragaros un mundo.

Những đứa con của nửa đêm là Gương mặt thương hiệu - The Face của giải Man Booker, lần đầu tiên được giải là 1981. Đến năm 1993 được tiếp giải Booker of Bookers, nghĩa là quyển hay nhất trong 25 quyển từng được giải. Đến năm 2008, nó lại tiếp tục nhận giải The Best of Booker, nghĩa là quyển hay nhất trong 40 quyển từng được trao giải.

Mình thực sự có quá nhiều thứ để nói nhưng ngắn gọn lại đây là quyển đầu tiên trong năm nay mình cho 5 sao. Mình thực sự cạn cmn lời với tất cả sự kỳ vĩ được đặt vào những con chữ trong Midnight's Children. Những quyển như vậy là lý do mình lập kênh YT để chia sẻ những quyển sách hay, là lý do mình đọc văn học.

Sự kỳ vĩ của quyển này đến từ việc nó là double kill. Một mặt nó là tầng tầng lớp lớp ẩn dụ đè nén lên nhau về hành trình trưởng thành, đi tìm bản ngã, ý nghĩa cuộc đời trong một thế giới đen tối, tuyệt vọng và không ngừng đổi thay. Một mặt nó là tầng tầng lớp lớp mọi mặt về đất nước Ấn Độ cổ xưa từ chính trị, xã hội, tôn giáo, tín ngưỡng, phong tục, lịch sử, sắc tộc,...
Nó như một bữa tiệc thập cẩm, một bữa tiệc gia vị Ấn Độ cùng nằm gọn chỉ trong một dĩa!



Đương nhiên với tất cả thứ đó, quyển sách này thuộc dạng khó đọc, khó nuốt, tất cả review cho quyển này đều thừa nhận là nó là một trong những quyển challenging nhất họ từng đọc. Tuy nhiên cũng hên quyển này nó là một quyển historical fiction thôi chứ không phải là mấy quyển literature kiểu Nobel này nọ. Nên nó cũng dễ theo dõi do nó cũng chỉ là tác giả đang kể chuyện lịch sử Ấn Độ thôi.
Nhưng wow Salman Rushdie kể lịch sử như chưa ai từng làm. Đây có thể là quyển historical fiction độc đáo nhất và hay nhất mình từng được đọc.

“That’s how it was when I was ten: nothing but trouble outside my head, nothing but miracles inside it.”

Years ago, I read Midnight’s Children. At that time I became a fan of Salman Rushdie’s writing style. His style was new to me and though I struggled a little bit with the prose, I still liked it. The word magical realism was not a new thing for me. Before Salman Rushdie, I had already read Ben Okri and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As time permits, I have decided to talk about some books, I have read in the past.

I will begin with this one, Salman’s writing has both flavors; comical and sobriety. But I found him sober, that too in a very jocular way. He wrote funny sentences and made me laugh many times. His selection of words was also very emphatic and playful. I have found in the writing of Salman, ‘passion and pace’ both hand in hand. His passionate sentences, saying so many things all at once, packed together in long paragraphs which I felt sometimes, conveyed more to the reader, than what they were framed for. Some sort of- an overdose of literary pills, fed to a curious reader.

This is interesting to know that in 1993 this book was adjudged the “Booker of Bookers”, the best novel to have won the Booker prize in its first twenty-five years, It is claimed. How could I have grasped this thing at that time as my experience with the booker winning books has not been great so far! So, I will reserve my opinion on that but I must say that this book is an amazing book. Even if I found at some places, an inherent absurdity in the storyline, the imagination of the author and language was too exotic for me. I loved reading those passionate long paragraphs. The book was a wholesome cuisine for a hungry mind!

The other thing that I liked in the book is its politicization with respect to India’s certain socio-political history. It has broadened the horizon of the novel. And I am quite sure due to this amalgam, this book stands out. The author says in the beginning, that from the advanced money of his first novel, Grimus he decided to take a tour to India, and during the fifteen-hour bus ride the idea of midnight children was born, The year was 1975 and India had just become the nuclear superpower. So it inspired him to take up an ambitious plan to associate modern Indian history with the birth of a child.

“All games have morals and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb a snake is waiting just around the corner, and for every snake a ladder will compensate. But it’s more than that no mere carrot-and-stick affair because implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things; the duality of up against down, good against evil the solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuousities of the serpent in the opposition of staircase and cobra we can see metaphorically all conceivable opposition Alpha against Omega, father against mother here is the war of Mary and Musa and the polarities of knees and nose… but I found very early in my life that the game lacked one crucial dimension that of ambiguity – because as events are about to show it is also possible to slither down a ladder and climb to triumph on the venom of a snake… Keeping things simple for the moment, however, I record that no sooner had my mother discovered the ladder to victory represented by her racecourse luck than she was reminded that the gutters of the country were still teeming with snakes.”

Those who live in the Indian subcontinent, or know well, its socio-cultural fabric and those who are aware of the politics of post-independent India, may feel a tie-in. Rushdie, with his passionate phrases, tried to narrate a magical story that is associated with the birth of a nation. He has portrayed some wonderful imagery beginning from Kashmir and then of his Mumbai days, the plot simultaneously traveling back and forth from Rawalpindi to Mumbai, involving the Pakistani army and India – China rivalry. The story is that some children are born near midnight of the day of independence of India and they all have magical powers. Salim Sinai, the narrator, is one among other 1000 children and he can read what is going on other’s heads, later got extraordinary power of smell.

“I tried to classify smells by color-.. I also had a geometric system: the roundness of joy and the angularity of ambition; I had elliptical smells, and also ovals and squares…”

I consider this book a significant add-on in my readings and enjoyed it most of the time. I will give the book full marks for its language, fancy, and temper. One should try this book once in one’s reading life because the book is so much of many things. The author has swaddled all masala tightly for the reader in his splendiferous technique.

Finally one rider, the book is bulky and it’s definitely not an easy read. I remember I had also tried it at least three times before finally gaining the momentum to finish it. So there are high chances that some people may take exception to this book for these two reasons!

“One peeps out of you and you are off to the guardhouse. If you want to stay, stay mum. Got it?”

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 its children; the promise of greatness, and the eventual decline of its potential through human failings – these work on the personal and national scale (and in a third mystical, metaphysical dimension at which the novel hints), and what the novel does well - though perhaps a little too heavy-handedly at times - is draw together these parallel lines and overlapping themes. But I often got a sense of the author losing himself within the novel’s framework, desperately seeking something tangible to point to among the random happenings and loose connections - the final section itself seems entirely a uncertain search for a meaningful resolution. The result is a novel that is too much concerned with the frenzied antics of its array of fantastical characters, each with his own peculiar quirk – a strange physical feature (nose, ears, knees, breasts), a recurring phrase ("whatsitsname") – though some of these characters and events are memorable, many seem shallow and superfluous, and I found the repetition of this formula less and less compelling as the novel wore on.

Rushdie is an accomplished writer: he writes elegantly and with great energy. However I was not drawn to the voice of Saleem Sinai, or generally captivated by his characters. I found the whimsical tone a little overbearing at times. Too often there were little tricks and tropes that stood out to me, such as the aforementioned inexhaustible cast of quirky characters, and repeated abuse of minor cliff-hangers, which often made promises that were never suitably fulfilled. I did enjoy the many forays into Indian history, but I think that is interesting in itself, not necessarily made more so by the novel.

audiobook
2.75

I do respect Mr. Rushdie, indeed I wish him well, but his style in this book is what I'd call discursive-magical realism-satire and it doesn't work for me. I was pleading for him to get on with the story, any story. But we'd go down a rabbit hole, then another rabbit hole, then another rabbit hole. I was bored out of my mind by his stylistic approach in this novel. The narrative rarely progressed in any sort of linear fashion. The story, such story as emerged, was told via satire and discursions and circling circling circling on yet another side theme. Perhaps that works for you …… but Booker of Bookers? Seriously?

I learned more about India by living in Delhi and taking trains back and forth across the country. I learn more each day I converse with the Indians who have immigrated to my town. (I'm also learning about cricket.)

I've read magical realism with Allende and Márquez and others, I’ve read the experimental fiction of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, etc, I’ve immersed myself in the black humor and satire of Catch 22, but this was not an enjoyable experience with Mr. Rushdie.

If you like his style here then I can recommend the narrator of this audiobook. Lyndam Gregory is excellent. Five stars for his reading.

[postscript] I first came to India overland, not as a tourist, but as a traveler, and I lived in Delhi for a time before going on to Everest Base Camp. But then I returned to Delhi and stayed there a little longer. In the late fall, the monsoons were done, and I slept on the rooftop of the hostel under a sparkling sky. The people of India were very kind to me. And still are in Canada.]

Saleem Sinai is born at the moment of India’s independence, the stroke of midnight of August 15, 1947. The title comes from the one thousand other children born on the same day. Saleem can telepathically communicate with these other children. He believes his actions directly impact the course of India’s development as a nation. Now, whether or not he is delusional, or this is really the case is a matter for the reader’s interpretation. He is either a mirror or a megalomaniac. It is, after all, written in the style of magical realism. Rushdie’s writing is erudite and, in this case, filled with long flowing sentences and an almost frenetic pacing.

Protagonist Saleem tells one story after another. I did not count them but would not be surprised if they total 1001. He tells us these stories are true, with one notable exception. He covers a great deal of India’s history, along with his family’s history. While I was somewhat familiar with the general progression of India’s post-independence events, I had to look up a good number of names and places.

I found it compelling enough to never be tempted to give up, but it occasionally felt like a chore. It is a hefty read, at almost 700 pages. I have read other books by Rushdie, which I prefer to this one, probably due to the fact that I enjoy more straight-forward storytelling. My personal favorite fiction that tells a story of India’s 20th century history remains A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.