Reviews with content warning for Incest - Midnight's Children

Reviews tagging 'Incest'

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

11 reviews

alexashabit's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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maziodynes's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was honestly one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read.

Yes, it's meandering with an incredibly unreliable narrator. The pacing is challenging, and sometimes even frustrating. But the way every character and notable item is symbolic, representative of a deeply human feeling or a time in history - it's something that feels magical. It's a fantastical multi-generational story rooted in hard historical truths, and that's no easy task.

I'll be thinking about Saleem's story for a long, long time. And I'll never look at pickles the same way again!

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notthatcosta's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I kinda went all over the place with this one - I was dreading starting it because it's so damn long (the longest book I've read, in fact) and to be honest I remain unconvinced that this book (or any book for that matter) has any right being over 600 pages.

I tend to struggle with first person narration at the best of times, but when it's this indulgent, tangiential and scattered as this it became a slog to try and follow the plot. With a story as expansive, there were also a lot of characters (many having multiple names) which also made it hard to know which threads to pay attention to. Even our narrator often switched how he referred to himself...

While I would say Gabriel García Márquez's 100 Years of Solitude is a far better execution of a similar story (and even provided a graphic to help you follow the family tree), I really enjoyed book 2 because of its focus on the family and its dysfunction, which is always a winner for me in a novel. When it was meandering preamble about ancestors who you don't get much time with or our antihero being kind of awful, I was less invested.

On the positive side, it has a great premise and most of the plot is pretty riveting despite the execution being spotty. I can see why it's so beloved, because it's a remarkable work of fiction despite my critiques.

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thesupermassive's review against another edition

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adventurous funny informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

It’s impossible to do justice to Midnight’s Children in a quick Instagram review. It won the Booker in 1981 and has twice been judged the Best of the Bookers to mark the prize’s 25th and 40th anniversaries. It’s sweeping and epic, a magical realism infused family saga that parallels the post-colonial history of India and references many classic Indian - and other - tales. I loved the narrative style with Saleem’s recounting his life story to his wife feeling like a direct address to the reader. Listening on audio undoubtedly amplified this effect. And the audio was fabulous, with the narrator really bringing intonation, personality and verve to Saleem’s voice. Saleem’s life was full of fantastic twists and turns right from the beginning. He was born at the exact moment of India’s independence, and like the 1000 other midnight children born in the hour between midnight and 1am he has special powers. He was also swapped at birth with another baby. This novel manages to explore weighty themes such as identity, religion, colonialism, the importance of storytelling, partition and the porousness of all sorts of barriers, legacy, and truth in a thoroughly engaging way, with a deceptively light, often irreverent, touch. A layered, richly detailed, unforgettable story. It’s just unfortunate that it was an attack on the author which finally promoted me to pick this up.

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lanid's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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nannahnannah's review against another edition

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2.0

Whew, I love Salman Rushdie's other works, but this one just didn't work for me. Maybe it went over my head, maybe I'm just not it's target audience, or maybe it's just not for me, but in any case I found myself counting down the pages for it to end.

And yeah, the content warnings hit nearly everything that makes me extremely uncomfortable, and if not for the fact I had already read over half the book already (and the fact that this book is HUGE) I would have given up on it.

Midnight's Children is a huge novel about the births of Saleem Sinai (the protagonist and narrator) and also India herself at midnight, August 15, 1947. In the style of an autobiography, Saleem covers the life of his father and his father's father before he comes to his own life and India's independence, talking about what makes you you and how your shape your life (and what it means for his country as well).

It's not done there, though, because as a side-effect of being born on midnight of India's birth, Saleem has become a "Child of Midnight", something that's granted him supernatural powers, and also granted 1001 other children born within the hour similar powers. For Saleem, it's the ability to read other people's minds.

All this in one book. Albeit one massive book, but one book nonetheless.

The beginning half was interesting, and I loved an inside look into what India was like, but once the narrative turned to the protagonist himself, Saleem Sinai, I lost interest. He has to be the most conceited, vain, and just annoying protagonist I've ever read, even absolutely convinced the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965 solely happened to purify him of sin. That things happened in the world just because and for him. I couldn't wait for the book to be over just to be rid of him and his story!

I think part of a book's appeal is the main character, and that's why the latter half (which is huge) just left me wanting this to be over. I just couldn't get rid of it fast enough. I'm so sorry, because I do love this author and I know how much this is a "classic masterpiece". :S But it just wasn't for me.

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