Book Review | ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie

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book review, Deepa Mehta, India, Indian literature, magical realism, midnights children, salman rushdie

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“To understand just one life you have to swallow the world … do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?”

Like a weaver at his loom, Rushdie manages to gather in his hands the medusa-like threads of India’s unique oriental history. With this he doesn’t merely write a story, but rather proceeds to reconcile a heady clash of colours and ideas into a startling pattern that (despite the magical realism) seem to mimic the oftentimes absurd flow of life itself. Even though I would like to call this a novel about the ‘birth’ of Pakistan, it is also the story of India’s greatest loss. ‘Midnight’s Children’ is riddled with themes of abandonment, prejudice and unusual circumstances. It addresses the cultural abortion and geographical divorce of a nation in a most astonishing way. Within the midst of the civil war is Saleem, our narrator, who is quite literally beginning to crack under the weight of his extraordinary life.

You see, Saleem is not an ordinary mortal. He is a changeling and moreover one of the most prolific and talented members of the secret ‘Midnight’s Children’ society. Born on the stroke of midnight, on the very moment of Pakistan’s birth, Saleem was hailed by all as the golden child, the lucky one, the ‘little piece of moon’ that would grace the flag of his brand new motherland.

“I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you’ll have to swallow the lot as well.”

Therefore twinned twice as he is (once through religion, and again through the hour of his birth) Saleem begins a personal history that is far from personal and reveals how painfully he remains yoked to the same tempestuous fate as these two enemy nations. But as the story goes on, we learn of how other more ancient personal histories often return to seek their own terrible vengeance. For if Saleem knows one thing about this life that shouldn’t even BE his own, it is that blessings and curses, once uttered, carry on like an arrow obsessed until they find and meet their target. Anthing that stands in the way is pierced. And Saleem, this thief of fate and destiny with his dark twins and superhuman powers is the luckless crucible in which history chooses to shape its’ weird alchemy.

“Why, alone of all the more-than-five-hundred-million, should I have to bear the burden of history?”

It is extremely difficult to talk about ‘Midnight’s Children’ without going into detail. The story is so full of twists and turns that as a reviewer I feel scared to let anything slip. One thing I’d hate to do is spoil any of the plot developments that so delighted me when I read it. But there is one thing I can talk about. The very IDEA of the story that took Rushdie almost 10 years to get down on paper that is so ambitious that just thinking about it makes me dizzy. Where does one start telling the story of countries? And not only this, how does one go about ‘twinning’ a country with humans? There is also the task of harnessing a mind-boggling range of cross-cultural mythological and religious symbolism. The real question I would like to ask Rushdie is ‘where and when do you decide to not draw inspiration and call it enough?’

The writing of stories is a labyrinthine process, we can get lost in the intricacies of the art if we are not careful. Yet Rushdie has a very firm grip on his narrative, introducing this multi-faceted, many-headed Hydra a morsel at a time. In fact, he worked this frustration of ‘where to begin’ into the first chapters of the story, as we see Saleem bemoaning the how he must begin his personal history from his grandfather, as it is here that we find the real ‘roots’ to his birth.

“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.”

Anyone with a liking of magical realism will love reading ‘Midnight’s Children’. The cast is full and varied. My favourite has to be the Brass Monkey, who Rushdie admitted was based on his own sister who was affectionately called so. As expected with Indian literature, the settings are handsomely portrayed and are vibrant with colour and movement. Although there are many characters that come and go, I found it easy to follow. This was my first book from Rushdie, and I found it pleasantly surprising. My advice to newcomers is do not be put off by the thickness of the book nor the hype surrounding its’ author. Give it a try and you will definitely like it.

View all my reviews

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Midnight’s Children Read-Along | Part One Discussions…

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Indian literature, magical realism, midnights children, readalong, salman rushdie

I know I’m a bit late jumping on the bandwagon, but I heard about this read-along and couldn’t help joining in. If you are interested, you can find this hosted over at Bibliojunkie by JoV. I’ve been dying to read one of Rushdie’s books for the longest time, but his reputation as a brainy, intelligent type did kind of put me off. I was afraid I might not completely understand his writing! But surprise, surprise, I have been really enjoying this one. It’s been a while since I’ve read any magical realism and I find I haven’t gotten lost in it yet. But a little less about me and more about the read-along, and an overview of the book itself.

How The Readalong Works: The read-along is split into three parts or ‘weeks’. Part one covers ‘Book 1’ of the novel, which is roughly from pages 1-150. Each week we get a set of questions about the section we’ve read. Each member posts their thoughts on their blogs to share with other reader. That’s it! Very simple. But because I was late getting the book I will be posting my responses as and when I finish the sections in my own time.

Synopsis of ‘Midnight’s Children’: Saleem Sinai, the protagonist and narrator of this extraordinary story, is not an ordinary person. His birth (the exact moment of India’s liberation, as it happens) caused something of a warp in time, making him one of the 1001 children to be linked inextricably to world history. Imagine if the ‘Book of Life’ had been expelled from heaven and landed on earth in 1001 fragments, each fragment to have suffused itself in a child being born at that exact moment. That’s what it would be like: an elite collective of ‘midnight’s children’ who are connected to each other and to the fate of the world. 

This is Saleem’s destiny; to carry within him the burden of India’s painful re-birth. However these children of fate do not live long, and at thirty-something Saleem is already seeing signs that history, is literally, pulling him apart. Therefore exhausted and spent, Saleem’s only desire now is to write down the endless lives and worlds that have come and gone inside him any way he can. What ensues is a convoluted narrative of multiple stories that break off and resume their course elsewhere, and memories that capture the essence and nuance of people, places and events in India’s history.

1. Saleem describes himself as ‘handcuffed to history’. What do you think that this means, and do you think that this is true of him?

In the story Saleem has a very distinct reason to call himself ‘handcuffed’ to history. As the synopsis says, he is one of the many children who are magically connected. But I think Rushdie has created Saleem’s unique destiny as a way of saying that all people are handcuffed to their own personal histories, whether they be familial, cultural, religious or otherwise. I am reminded of Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”  When we are born, we enter part of an ongoing story or ‘play’ that other actors or people are taking part in. I’m not a fan of the notion that we live a preordained life, but I can’t help thinking some things might be set. For instance our family history is something we can’t change. This is evident when Saleem chooses to write about his life. In order to do it properly, he decides to go back as far as his great-grandfather to begin his own personal history, as if to say that he already existed in some form or other in his ancestors.

The notion of being linked to the history of a country is far more potent. We don’t think about it very much, but all our lives pretty much depend on the decisions made by the countries we live in, or those more powerful ones surrounding us. The India under British rule that is portrayed in Book 1 draws many parallels with today’s Afghanistan and Iraq. I do not know for certain yet, but I anticipate Rushdie might link the other 1001 children to countries that have been split in two through the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy of Imperialist forces like China – Hong Kong, North – South Korea, Northern Ireland – The Republic of Ireland and Inner -Outer Mongolia. Even if this isn’t the case, it certainly makes it a very interesting concept.   

2. Unlike many novels, Midnight’s Children is not written using a linear narrative. Why do you think that Rushdie uses this technique, and do you think that it is successful?

The concept of ‘Midnight’s Children’ is quite unique and complex. There are many characters and historical events that collide together to form a colourful confusion. And it is only natural that this confusion be represented by a non-linear narrative. Rushdie notes that it took him many years to write the story, and I think the broken storyline is an effective way for Rushdie to evoke the nature of time, the way it passes outside us and within us and how we capture time in memories that are, in effect, incomplete and flawed in themselves. We may make memories through sight, sound or even scent (noses are very important in Saleem’s story… he has amazing olfactory senses that warn him when he is in trouble!), so the fabric and cadence of these memories may change.

I think it’s also Rushdie’s way of saying stories do not have to be told in a linear way. We don’t think in a linear way, so why should stories go in a straight line? When we encounter Saleem, he is writing an autobiography after all, and our lives are full of alleyways and multiple roads that we may have travelled at any one time. Our life history may even contain dead-ends and booby-traps. Instead of going the way of ‘stream of consciousness’ which would have rendered this novel completely unreadable, I think Rushdie chose a more ‘friendly’ version, and made his story fragments bigger and therefore more coherent for his readers. Instead of having three separate memories flowing into one another in a single sentence a la Woolf or Joyce, memories are divided distinctly into paragraphs so we at least know the next one will be a jump to somewhere else. Part of the alienation of SoC is the fact that the story switches without indication. Rushdie has taken great care to make sure this doesn’t happen too often with his readers.

These are some of the questions put to us for the readalong. If you’ve read the book, what would be your response to them?