Rating: 
Summary: Way over rated!
Review: While prolific at times, there is too much "borrowing" from other authors, which I found upsetting. Particularly Marquez's use of "butterfly imagry" and the non-stop sentences. Can't we be a little more original? This really irratated me. I plowed through this book, and found some parts flowing and well written, while other parts were forced over exaggerations, and very pretentious on the authors part. Don't know how I ever managed to finish it, but was glad when it ended, leaving me with very little (I read it in India, but that didn't help). While an Indophile, I tend to read everything Rushdie anyways, and feel he doesn't come into his own until "The Moors Last Sigh," which I really loved. I am now busy with "Ground Beneath Her Feet," which so far (and I just began), has a bit of immaturity and silliness to it, but I'll give it a chance. I feel "Midnight's Children" is a bit disjointed and its "brilliance" is very inconsistent.
Rating: 
Summary: Rushdie's Indian Epic
Review: Saleem Sinai, born at the moment of India's independence, recounts tells his life story to Padma, a female friend. It's also the story of Saleem's family, going back to the meeting between his gradfather and grandmother in the days of the Raj. Rushdie places Saleem's personal narrative firmly within the context of India's history (and indeed that of Pakistan and Bangladesh, as the geography of the story roams over (ironically?) India as it was known prior to Partition). Saleem (Rushdie) avows that people cannot be understood without knowing the historical forces that in a large part shape thier lives."Midnight's Children" is at times a demanding read. It starts off as a wonderfully evocative love story set in Kashmir in the early twentieth century. Thereafter, Rushdie's narrative becomes progressively more adventurous, chronology becomes more fluid, the use of Saleem as a first-person narrator is dropped and picked up again, fable and allegory are used in place of straightforward descriptive narrative. Withal, the story is a deeply personal study of individuals and at the same time political novel, for the reasons I've outlined above. There are rich rewards along the way: the writing is for long stretches a joy to read, but it needs time and patience, because when you have got used to one particular style, Rushdie flits to another different style. As with other of Rushdie's works I've sampled, I got the feeling that at times he was trying to show off rather than to please or entertain me. For that reason, less than full stars, but nontheless well worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, terrible edition
Review: This is the Everyman's Library edition of the text; a generic title that robs the book of its soul. These editions have smaller dimensions and are printed on flimsy, thin, glossed paper. It seems to me that the only people who should buy Everyman's Library editions are those who want to impress others with the books on their shelf, not necessarily those that they have read. If you are an imbecile who has to own every item in the collection because, of course, you are a "collector", this trash is for you. I will stick with the original.
Rating:
Summary: A superhero with a really large nose
Review: .... This book is no doubt good, and possibly great. However, for me, it doesn't reach truly elevated sublime "best book in 25 years" or top ten list status. With that said it's a worthwhile read for a phantasmorgorical look at India and Pakistan history and the plight of the countries. The 1,001 Midnight's Children carry around supernatural gifts, some pretty powerful, some not so spectacular. The protagonist Saleem Sinai, just happens to have a super-dooper nose and can converse with all the midnight's children in his head. His archenemy, Shiva, he of the gargantuan knees spoils Saleem's leadership of the Midnight's Children .... It's a cautionary tale of what could have been and deeper underlying, Rushdie weeps for his country of India and what could have been. The most unique convention of the novel is that Saleem's life parallels the development of India. It's a rather ambitious task that Rushdie sets out to do to capture India's development within a fictional life. The writing is well-versed, intelligent, and compelling. There is a good command of language, not quite as elevated as that of Nabokov, but good nonetheless. It reminded me a great deal of Gunter Grass' Tin Drum in the aspect of a fanciful characters reflecting a Country's development, so may lose some originality points for that. All in all though, an enjoyable read, but not one that I want to go back and read anytime soon, which is the true test of literary greatness for me. I would read Catch-22, the Underworld, and Crime and Punishment again and again. For Midnight's Children, once was enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Richer than all his tribe
Review: This is a landmark novel. Not many people can do something so original in this post-modern age. Although this style is not unique to Rushdie, his analogies and metaphors stand him out from the crowd. As Joyce was to Dublin, Rushdie is to Bombay not merely a stream of consciousness but a torrent, flowing perpetually with the rhythm of India at the time of independence. The modern and the traditional clash with an unbelievably colourful explosion in this book. The story swings in and out of magic and realism. Rushdie was born himself at the birth of independence in India, he is therefore putting himself forward as the special few, the "Midnight's Children", with special powers, indeed he has. He is as colourful and diverse as the new India. The "sequel" "The Moor's Last Sigh", has nothing on this his best work. He casts a dream, and as for the cast - a boy with super strong killer knees, a boy with a radio in his head and with the sense of smell that can sniff out hate, love and colours. I don't know much about the politics of India or the partition of Pakistan, but it didn't matter. This is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Once is definitely enough
Review: The ideas behind this novel are very creative and promising however the actual story drags more than once. The last third of the book is slow and boring then rushed at the very end as if Rushdie lost interest himself. I was enraptured for the first half and yawning for the second. I'll pass on seconds.
Rating:
Summary: Reader's Digest version of great books
Review: This is the Everyman's Library edition of the text; a generic title that robs the book of its soul. At first touch, the paper seems thin and glossed, giving the book a cheap quality. There is little spacing between chapters which gives a cramped feeling. I once borrowed the orginal edition from the library and it is what I am comparing this edition to. I am one who is thrilled to get original copies especially when they have great covers. The only reason I bought this edition is because it was the only hardcover available. The Library binding is what I now desire to own. This book is one of the best I have read. It's a well built man with a mind like a razor's edge. Such is why I long to have a good copy on my shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Midnight's Children
Review: Midnight's Children is considered to be Rushdie's masterpiece; it won the Booker Prize, and then, in 1993, it won the 'Booker of Bookers', ie the best book to have won the Booker Prize in the first 25 years of the award. In addition to this, Rushdie's reputation is not built upon his literary merits so much as the surrounding controversy of another book, The Satanic Verses, which all but condemned him to years of hiding and constant moving about in an effort to escape fundamentalist Muslim assassination-attempts. The premise for this novel is amazing. At the stroke of midnight on August 15th, 1947, India achieved independence and became a valid country, free from the shackles of Britain. One thousand and one children were born in the hour from midnight to 1am, one thousand and one children with magical powers, the potency of which increases the closer the child was born to midnight. The narrator, Saleem Sinai, was one of two children born on the exact stroke of midnight, and throughout the novel various allusions to yin and yang, good and evil, up and down, et cetera are made between Saleem and Shiva, the other child, but unfortunately nothing really comes from this. Although mentioned often and with great vehemence on the part of the narrator, Shiva never really came across as a 'bad guy', or even someone that should be worried about at all. The story meanders through thirty odd years of life before Saleem's birth, detailing the lives and idiosyncracies of his parent's and grandparent's adventures, which, admittedly, are described with great sweeping motions and tantalizing literary strokes. Sentences marvel, paragraphs sing with wit or beauty, but...what was the point? After Saleem is born, events take an incredibly epic turn, as the implications of the children of midnight are revealed, but then, the narrator just sort of forgets about it and rambles on about things that, given the immensely intruiging concept of the children, just doesn't spark any interest. The narrator is an interesting writer. He repeats reiterates recapitulates words in threes, often, and that works. He used parentheses artfully, and well. But the narrator foreshadows everything and anything, so that we are always reading about events that will come to pass, soon or otherwise, and in cryptic ways, 'He kept himself in the background of our lives, always, except twice...once when he left us; once when he returned to destroy the world by accident'. It is an exceptionally annoying literary technique, serving only to make the reader wish that events would hurry up so that the portentous-sounding episodes will occur, but...even they are marred by fore-shadowing and never really live up to the promises, anyway. The last one hundred and fifty pages drag, seemingly without cohesion, in an effort to combine the plot-threads, to actually make the children a part of the story - and, disappointingly, they really aren't very predominant - but it doesn't work. Then, in a whirlwind twenty pages, everything is tied up neatly, the children are dealt with, and the book ends. The fantastic premise never really lived up to its promise, and the book suffers. Is Midnight's Children a failure? No. As a story, it is enjoyable, written well, and at times, beautiful. Certain passages are crafted with amazing skill, and the narrator is a pleasant enough fellow. But the concept of the midnight's children should have been ditched - the story would have worked well enough without them because they never really played a part - and the book would have been greater as the spectre of great things to come would not have existed.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a masterpiece
Review: A beautiful book of epic proportions. Some compare his work to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I wholeheartedly agree. His mastery of fantasy is unparalleled, yet unique in it's simultaneous portrayal of reality. In addition to learning about spectacular writing and enjoying the construct of each sentence, I also found my knowledge of the regional history greatly expanded. One of the top ten books I've ever read. Truly a masterpiece!
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: If I wasn't completely convinced before that Salman Rushdie has a claim to be the most gifted writer on the planet, I am after reading this book. This novel is a generational saga along the lines of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and Jeffrey Eugenides's "Middlesex". As those two novels reflect the history of their own respective nations, so does "Midnight's Children." It is the story of one family, and one person in particular, Saleem, who is born on the stroke of midnight on the exact day and time India achieved its independence from Britain. From that propitious birth onward, Saleem's life becomes a reflection and representation of the young Indian nation itself. The title refers to the 400 odd children who were born at or near this same midnight. Each one of them have magical skills which vary in strength and importance in direct relation to their birth's proximity to midnight. Since Saleem was born exactly at midnight, he has the most valuable skill, the skill to look into people's hearts, minds, and souls, and to commune with the other midnight children mentally. In this vein, he forms the Midnight Children's Conference, a meeting of these 400+ children who communicate through Saleem's telepathic mind and have the stated goal of reforming India. If this sounds unbelievable, it is not. It is the same sort of magical realism fans of Latin American authors will be familiar with, and adds to the strength, beauty, and ultimate brutality of the story without making the reader roll his eyes in incredulity. As is India, so is Saleem. He hears the multitudinous voices of India in his head, a mess of contradictions: peace and violence, forgiveness and revenge, progress and tradition. His family also reflects the indefinable character of India. They are by turns real and fantastical, living and dying, perservering and escaping. The amalgam of these voices and Saleem's family is an India that Rushdie seems to understand no better than anyone else, but his affection for and frustration with India could only come from a native. The reader also follows Saleem's physical life. His face mirrors a map of India, and his enormous nose is gifted at sensing emotions. From the life of a rich boy in Bombay, to a fighter in the India-Pakistan War, to a broken carnival traveller, and finally to an owner of a pickle company, Saleem's journey through life is expansive, human, and always entertaining. The side characters are just as engrossing, and all have a part to play in the tumolt of Indian history. To keep the earlier analogy going, I found this to be a slightly more difficult read than "One Hundred Years of Solitude" but just as entertaining as "Middlesex". Rushdie writes with wit, style, anger, and absolute brilliance. He is generous with allusions, but I felt they were also extremely accessible. I recommend this book not only to India-philes, but also to fans of literature in general. This is a master in peak and rare form, and this is one of the finest novels written in a generation. Most highly recommended.
|
