Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece. This book will survive.
Review: Rushdie lectured the motto in this tome: the life story of anyone can be the result of the whole world, and the whole world can be nothing but triggered by or explicited on someone. This is a historic fiction with fantasy, and a great fiction in its own.Rushdie is so ambitious that he tried to depict the history of India in a book, in a very gorgeous language and style, while simaltaneously ruthlessly burdening our poor good protagonist, Saleem, and his morbid family. I am so dazzled by the ambition and the language of the book, and am deeply moved not only by the book itself but also Rushdie. I can feel the ardent love and eager struggle for India in Rushdie. It is definitely not for the faint-hearted. And I am so happy that I finally finished this book. Its a deeply true-heartedly wow.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece, True Indian Literature
Review: MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is a book that, outwardly, deals with the 1001 children born on 15. August 1947, the first day of India's independence from Britain. The book deals more specifically with two of those children, however, both born in a Bombay nursing home and switched at birth. One of them belongs to a wealthy Muslim family with roots in Kashmir, the Sinai's, while the other belongs to a Hindu street singer and an Englishman she happened to meet. The aristocrat, who grows up believing he's poor, is named Shiva; the poor half Hindu, half English boy, who is taken home by the aristocratic Muslim family, is named Saleem and it is Saleem who is the narrator of this book. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, however, is far from being a conventional story of "switched babies." If you're at all familiar with the writing of Salman Rushdie, then you'll know "conventional" stories are not what he writes. Saleem, of course, is given every luxury, but even luxuries can't prevent accidents and one day, when Saleem suffers a bump on the head, he discovers that he has a gift for telepathy. It is through this gift for telepathy that Saleem "learns" the secret of his own parentage and that all of the 1001 "midnight's children" possess special gifts no "ordinary" person ever could hope to achieve. Some have been gifted with the ability to travel through time while others can change their sex at will. Only one, however, is telepathic...Saleem. Saleem is the "leader" of the "midnight's children" and they await his call to meet and pool their supernatural resources for the good of India. Saleem's call, however, never comes, precisely because of the child whose rightful place he's "stolen." This child, Shiva, who should have grown up as Saleem (though only Saleem knows this), with all of Saleem's privileges, has instead, grown up on the streets of Bombay. Saleem fears Shiva and rightfully so. Although Saleem uses his powers to bring about death, destruction and evil rather than good, the 581 surviving "midnight's children" do eventually meet, but under very different circumstances than those originally ordained and their fate is a fate to be feared rather than envied. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is a complex, complicated book and one that contains a very convoluted plot, the centerpiece of which is always Saleem. Although MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN contains about twelve narrative strands, Rushdie does manage to bring them together and integrate them beautifully in the end. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is, of course, a "big book," encompassing many characters, subplots, metaphors and even several themes. It's also a book that is quintessentially "big city" Indian. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is no lush, dreamy romance embodying an India that never was. It's coarse, slangy and very aggressive...just like India, herself. Rushdie exposes, rather than hides, all that's wrong in India, and thus, MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN paints an extraordinarily rich and evocative, though really a rather vulgar, picture of Bombay. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN begins on a rather contrived note, but as the book progresses, the story takes on a much darker quality, especially as it becomes more and more clear that the character of Saleem is a metaphor for post-colonial India. The political backdrop of MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, together with its mix of the magical and the fantastic are reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE and Guenter Grass in THE TIN DRUM, though I think both Garcia Marquez and Grass probably had an easier time of mythologizing their characters. Rushdie, however, employs a far more intense prose style than does the melancholy Garcia Marquez and one that's far more angry than is Grass's. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is definitely a masterpiece. The blend of the historical and the fantastic is perfectly balanced, the prose is brilliant (though wild and angry), there is humor, there is pathos and there is bitter irony in the book. There is also a wild energy that I have never really seen in the works of any other author. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN won the "Booker of Booker's," meaning it was the one book among all the Booker Prize winners judged to be the very best. I can't decide if I agree with this or not (not that it matters). I sometimes think THE REMAINS OF THE DAY is a "cleaner," "purer," more perfect book. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is certainly more complex and convoluted and it expresses a far wider range of emotional experience. While THE REMAINS OF THE DAY was brilliantly understated and almost claustrophobic, MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN is practically epic in scope. Both books are brilliantly written, so I guess it just comes down to a matter of personal taste. I would certainly recommend MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN to anyone who loves great literature. In fact, if you love great literature, you really can't afford to miss this book.
Rating: 
Summary: a ferociously charming tour of india
Review: Midnight's Children is a long and sometimes arduous exercise in fantastical realism, a would-be folk tale about the history of India since its independence from Britain. The narrator's birth occurs at the exact moment of national independence, and from then on his life is something of an anthropomorphic mirror of the development of his nation. This book is neither a fictional autobiography nor a literary history of modern India. Well, actually it's both, but really it's about the dangers of being ancient in a modern world, and the pitfalls of trying to bring tradition into a rational, contemporary framework. Rushdie is one of the most eloquent writers of his generation, and inherits from Nabakov the role of linguistic perfectionist - every sentence is rolled up in allegory, wordplay, and, most importantly, meaningfullness.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a fan of Rushdie, however...
Review: Midnight's Children is certainly an interesting read, and I admire Rushdie's attempt at writing a very different type of novel. I will spare you the novel synopsis, as others have probably gone to great lengths to recap the story. Keep in mind, that the story does flip back and forth in the memories of the writer (which is different from Rusdie). I didn't particularly like the Satanic Verses and I read this novel for a class on Expatriate Literature. As Expatriate Literature goes, this was a great exploration of the theme. Well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A ...Trip into History
Review: This is a book to take on vacation... or a book to read at home if you cannot afford a vacation! If you allow it, this book will completely pull you into it's pages and have you eating, sleeping, and dreaming it's story. Besides being an amazing book with a plot that twists more than Chubby Checker, it's to some extent a pocket history of India. Sadly, I wish I had read it as part of a literature, history or culture class to know and appreciate more of the story BEHIND the story.
Rating:
Summary: Top of my list
Review: This book ranks as my all-time favorite read. I haven't read anything else by Rushdie yet, so I can't comment on his other work. But I can't even imagine another book knocking this one off the top of my list. From a story-telling standpoint, it is thoroughly entertaining and unpredictable throughout. The characters are truly interesting and well-developed. And the way in which Rushdie manages to weave the narrator's story into the modern history of India and Pakistan on many levels is masterful. I think that this book will hold up for the ages as a prime example of the effective use of allegory, symbolism, poetic prose, and other literary techniques. I am completely awed by Rushdie's sheer creativity, intelligence and skill. After reading this book, I now have new additions to my responses to the age old questions: "What five people would you most like to have dinner with?" and "What five books would you want to have with you on a deserted island?"
Rating:
Summary: Awesome.
Review: This is the first Rushdie book I've read, and I am completely blown away. An autobiographic account of an unlikely protagonist whose life is intertwined with the destiny of his country, Midnight's Children is an all-encompassing account of post-independence India, its people, cultures and politics. An eclectic cast of gifted children, army generals, impotent husbands, religious zealots, movie actresses play out their extraordinary parts in the tranquil valley of Kashmir, "magical" slums of Old Delhi, an oppulent British estate in Bombay, the enchanted jungles of Sundarban and military encampments in Pakistan, connecting dots that bring out a picture which is astounding and surreal even to a native like me.
Rating:
Summary: Simply a "must read"
Review: I don't have the time or inclination to go into a long rant about what makes this book so outstanding, but I will say that it is by far the best book I've ever picked up. I learned a lot about India and its turbulent history, but that was just an added bonus. As with any great novel, some of the characters in the book reminded me of myself, and taught me some things about myself, but that too was just a bonus. Rushdie's writing style is very pleasing and his methods of storytelling are far better than anything I've ever read. Those are the things that make this book so great. You simply MUST read it!
Rating:
Summary: I Liked It
Review: Reading "Midnight's Children", much like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is in a way like reading a dream. The people and places are surreal and distorted, yet familiar at the same time. In a lot of ways, its similar to the distorted vision from which we view the world as children, where everything seems larger than life and more important than it really is. I've read articles where Marquez and Rushdie's writing styles have been favorably compared before and if you've read one, the similarities will become immediately apparent upon reading the other. Rushdie has done a fantastic job of telling a story with a political message that doesn't really feel like a political message because it was so masterfully told. Like most good books, this is one you find yourself remembering for a while.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: This book came highly recommended by my English professor, who - if she had a choice - would name this Booker of Bookers one of the top three novels ever written. I decided to see if this was true.
I wasn't instantly impressed with this book when I started reading it. Sure, I liked the imaginative prose and his "magic realism" elements, but I didn't really feel like I connected with any of the characters in the book. It was only when I looked at my clock and realized it was three in the morning that it hit me. I had devoured almost half the book and I kept going because I wanted to see what would happen. When I finally finished the book, I realized that she was right: if not one of the top three, then definitely high up. The characters were unique, the plot was highly entertaining, and Rushdie's prose was simply outstanding. He is truly a talented and very creative author. Everyone should try this book out, it's very magnificent once you get into it.
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