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.
| 
