Reviews

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

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edsantiago's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

What a slog. Pretentious, long-winded, annoying. I found myself wondering how this could be the same author as Victory City. (Likely answer: forty difficult years).

Maybe it would help if I knew more about India’s history and culture. Or if I liked florid ornate excessive circumlocutious language. Or if I were more tolerant of moronic religions and stupid vain shallow self-absorbed people. But that’s not me, and I am clearly not the target audience.

In a delicious coincidence, halfway through my reading I stumbled into a conversation with a remarkable young person who was drawing parallels between this book and The God of Small Things and who urged me to just not bother with this one, and rush to pick up that one. Unfortunately, it turns out I already tried and DNF’ed it... with similar gripes about flowery prose. Sigh.

Unrated, because who am I to argue with a Booker Prize.

misspalah's review against another edition

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4.0

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.
- Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
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If you want to read this book - there are 5 things i would like you to know :
1. You must be familiar with India - especially the history (Specifically before and after Partition, Gandhi’s assassination, Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship and )
2. You need to be patient. I DNF this book quite few times because i was not patient enough to let the story took me in the journey that the author intended to.
3. If you are not into non-linear plot and disjointed writing, then you may remove this from your TBR. Salman Rushdie’s writing is sublime but i would definitely put this warning out there so that people know upfront what they about to face when they wanted to read this book.
4. Constant Changes of Name for the character whenever they assumed new identity in the story - Naseem to Reverend Mother, Mumtaz to Amina, Brass Monkey to Jamila Singer, Parvati/layla sinah. It did not help when the narrator is unreliable when he keeps using these names whichever he preferred during his narration.
5. You must be familiar with the lingo - Salman Rushdie put lots of Hindi terms in the writing which i am forever grateful to my Bollywood crazy ass that i understood majority of them and i read it without any difficulty as i understood the context.
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The book began with Saleem Sinai as the narrator of his life in the book. He told Padma (his loyal companion) that he was born on midnight, August 15, 1947, during independence day of India. Saleem felt that something might happened to him later which is why he felt the need to narrate his story to Padma. Do note that this novel is more than 600 pages and while i appreciate Rushdie’s capability in weaving a complex history of India along with Saleem Sinai’s family history - i felt that this novel is too long winded for my liking. We entered a whole different journey altogether by following his grandfather, Aadam Aziz, a doctor who met his grandmother because he is treating her and we shifted to Mumtaz, Saleem Sinai’s mother who later changed her name from Mumtaz to Amina and met his father, Ahmed Sinai whose originally wanted Alia, Amina’s sister. The independence day of India is the integral point of this story as we discovered that there are 1001 midnight’s children that was born during the first hour of independence day. Throughout the book, we found out that the number of these midnight’s children has been reduced significantly to 581 by their Tenth birthday.’ As this is known as magical realist literature, Saleem Sinai is blessed with special power which is telepathy (although it will disappear later due to injury). We also discovered that other midnights’ children also has their own magical powers and each differed to one another. While reading this, you might discover that Saleem is not a real son of Amina and Ahmed Sinai as they has been switched during birth. This fact eventually is exposed by Saleem’s blood test. What i have written here is only 20% of what i can summarize from the book - the rest, you might discover it by reading the book. If only Salman Rushdie’s decided to split the book into Non Fiction (India History) and Fiction (Sinai Saleem’s history) - i would have enjoyed it more. Overall, I did love the book once i finished it but i still feel that this is not for everyone, read at your own risk.
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I don’t normally put a trigger warning in my review but here you go :
1. Incest Undertone in certain chapter of Saleem’s life and i dont think he’s going through puberty could cut it - His mom, His Aunt Pia and His sister, Monkey Brass / Jamila Singer
2. A lot of Religion references - Some of them can be pretty blasphemous. If you are likely to get trigger over this, then the book is not for you.