Customer Reviews

Midnight's Children (Vintage Classics)

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Like many, I intially read this at University and didn't really enjoy it, but there is a huge gulf between reading and studying and when I came across it again on a forgotten book shelf I thought, "Well, it won the Booker of Bookers, I must've missed something." With this in mind, I read it again and oh, my goodness, I'm glad I did. I certainly missed something. Actually, I missed rather a lot (and not just lectures).

Midnight's Children deserves a place alongside One Hundred Years of Solitude as one of the finest examples of Magic Realism. It is allegorical, reflecting India's development as a country and more loosely Rushdie's own childhood, but the books stands up as a piece of writing in its own merit. The writing is vibrant; the (many) characters are well-observed; the humour is delightful; and the story is melancholy and touching in places but is stuffed with examples of Rushdie's elegant style.

To me, it is more than just an allegory for the birth and development of a nation, it is more than a great piece of writing; Midnight's Children has become an evocative depiction of how we seek to find things to lift ourselves from the futility of existence, to separate ourselves from the normal. By way of example, I give you Saleem's birth. It is normal in every way apart from the accident of timing that gives the book its title but it's the way he uses this accident of timing to lift his existence away from the mundane that I love.

Finishing this book left me hollow and a little lost. In short, I loved it and have subsequently read it again and again. Rushdie has done nothing that matches this. I doubt he, or anyone, can.

Four and a half stars.
This was my first Rushdie book. A multilayered, multifaceted book. The story of "Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon.." who was born at midnight, the precise moment of independence for his country, India. And 'thanks to the occult tyrannies those blandly saluting clocks" he was "mysteriously handcuffed to history". His story is the immortalisation of his memories, the "chutnification of history", "the pickling of time". It is the story of a nation finding it's identity, of impressions and memories, of people and events, of families and more.

But it is Rushdie's fantastical, magical prose that brings the book to life, colours, sights and especially smells, like you've never experienced before. It is not necessarily an easy read, for at least the first fifty pages I couldn't get it, but then something clicked and I just immersed myself in the wonderful text. Some of the passages I read again and again to savour the intricacies. It won't be everyone's idea of a good read, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and believe that I will enjoy it more when I come back the second time.

Im only 16 and wanted to see if I would handle a Rushdie piece of work. I grabbed this book at the airport before a trip to India and was at once surprised and exasperated. I did find it difficult and had to re-read many passages to try and comprehend what Rushdie was saying. But the idea, writing and ending were superb and Im glad I stayed with it, although as this has been described as one of Rushdie's "easier" novels to read I think I'll stay away from him for a few years yet!

Whilst it is through 'The Satanic Verses' that Rushdie has received most of his media and public attention I feel that it is around this book that any literary praise should be centred. It is this book that won the 1981 Booker Prize (and was subsiquently voted "Booker of Bookers") and it is in 'Midnight's Children' that the reader sees the true mastery of Rushdie's writing. His ability to blend magical fantasy with the stark realism of Post-colonial India is breath-taking; the dexterity with which he manipulates the english language is stunning.

It seems that this novel is often overlooked because of the controversy surrounding 'The Satanic Verses';whilst I am the first person to review this book, there are 13 reviews for the Verses. I strongly recommend that anyone thinking about reading Rushdie starts with 'Midnight's Children'. It is a novel drenched in the atmosphere of India which draws you into the centre of the sprawling continent. In my opinion, it is Rushdie's great, although often forgotten, masterpiece.

Once upon a time I used the words `great' and `masterpiece' with frivolous regularity. Then I read Midnights Children. Salman Rushdie works on a different scale to other authors, seamlessly blending the magical and the realistic, enhancing and supplanting accepted history, and illuminating his tactile world to all. He is first and foremost a storyteller who juggles plots and ideas with consummate ease, building a tapestry of flawed heroes and three dimensional characters. He writes with such a conversational narrative voice that is a pleasure to sit back and wallow in his half real, half magical worlds. Common perception of Salman Rushdie is of a dense and unreadable author, for literary buffs rather than general readers. This is not true though his individual style takes some getting used to. If you have never read any Rushdie, start with his more recent work such as Fury to get into his groove. Once you have done this then grab this book, sit back and prepare to enter the magical world of the children of Midnight, eternally tied to the fate of their fledgling nation. You will not be disappointed.

Rushdie's writing style is incredibly dense and rich making the going quite slow (especially considering this is no mere slip of a volume!). If you appreciate complex writing and don't need to necessarily finish a book in the space of a train journey you may enjoy Midnight's Children. Some of the other reviewers have criticised Rushdie's writing style as being too interruptive of the narrative and giving the game away. This may seem difficult for most Western readers to grasp but is following the traditions of Indian literature (and especially oral traditions). Rushdie's authorial comment adds to the sense of doom building in the novel.
Having said that the end is quite a let down in some respects- many of the characters are built up never to be heard of again and the operatic sense of fate is never fully executed.
This is still worth a read though if you like a taxing, mind-bending book even if it is flawed in the reading.

Predictably, I read Satanic Verses first, but this is much the superior book. Although the latter shows a maturing of Rushie's convoluted style of writing, some of the passages in this book are near poetic. Not an easy book to read by any stretch of the imagination, but very rewarding if you are into seriously good writing.
The dark subject matter suits the author's style well, and though not historically accurate (the India and Pakistan are thse formed by the author's memory of impressions rather than the real places)this is still a very good book.

I was surprised to find the humour in this book, I was expecting an entirely serious book and it has turned out to be a very interesting read.
I connect with the characters throughout the story and have grown to love the input of some of them to break up the monotony of the story.
A truly unique writing style with a gripping story, I would recommend this to anybody.

Rushdie's writing style is incredibly dense and rich making the going quite slow (especially considering this is no mere slip of a volume!). If you appreciate complex writing and don't need to necessarily finish a book in the space of a train journey you may enjoy Midnight's Children. Some of the other reviewers have criticised Rushdie's writing style as being too interruptive of the narrative and giving the game away. This may seem difficult for most Western readers to grasp but is following the traditions of Indian literature (and especially oral traditions). Rushdie's authorial comment adds to the sense of doom building in the novel.
Having said that the end is quite a let down in some respects- many of the characters are built up never to be heard of again and the operatic sense of fate is never fully executed.
This is still worth a read though if you like a taxing, mind-bending book even if it is flawed in the reading.

Midnight's Children dances and somersaults through the English language with whirling metaphors as skillfully as its character toward the end of the book, Picture Singh, dubbed "the Most Charming Man in the World" (he's a snake charmer, you see). If the reader doesn't read every word (this book not recommended for Evelyn Woods graduates), all the intricate metaphoric strands will be for naught. Yet the pungent humor keeps the reader alert and fills the pallet (each chapter is referred to as a different flavor of pickle) with crackling tastes and smells that light up the nervous system. As an autobiography, we know he has exaggerated one or two situations, but the child eventually becomes a man and Rushdie's vision of India, Pakistan and Bangledesh unfold with the clearest of insights. Probably the most "must-read" piece of modern fiction since Catch-22.