Midnight's Children

Rating:
Summary: Possibly One of the Best Books Ever Written
Review: There is only one thing to call this book, and that is excellent. This is an excellent book. It is the most modern novel to make any of the Top 100 lists of all-time great books. This one deserves everything people say about it and more. This is possibly one of the best books ever written.

I can't say this book is for everyone. That's not really saying much because I don't think a book exists that is suited for everyone, save for maybe a dictionary. Still, this is an intense, methodical book. Those looking for a quick read are best suited to seek something else, because this one is not a quick read by any stretch of the imagination.

Within that intensity and thickness one finds the brilliant yet insane world of Saleem Sinai, the main character of this story. Both allegorical and literal, this story winds though such a myriad of well-woven sub-stories that one needs to put the book down every few pages to think about what was just read.

From his birth to the book's finality, we rise up the ups and fall down the downs with Saleem. We are twisted, confused, wrought out, and yet manage to survive through thick and more thick. From front to back, side to side, this narrative thoroughly tosses you about. From chapter to chapter one never knows where you're going to end up.

With excellent writing plus both laughable and dramatic scenes, Rushdie shows why he is one of the greatest writers of our time. Truly an instant classic, this book is a must read for those who want to explore some of this generation's greatest. This work is wonderful, beautiful, exasperating, and terrifying. All of these things Rushdie manages to squeeze into one pickle jar of a character in Saleem Sanai.

Excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Ambitious, but too long
Review: I had never read any of Salman Rusdie's work until this novel. (I was told this was a good place to start with Rushdie.) I admired very much the ambition of MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN. Rushdie is to be commended for trying to write a great book. He almost did it. The first half is really vivid and enthralling. Rushdie's prose is truly winged. However, somewhere about halfway through the novel (about the time the narrator leaves Pakistan), I lost interest and the rest of the book became a chore to finish. There really wasn't much of a payoff either, considering all the time invested in reading such a thick book. I think MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN would have been a much stronger book had it been pruned by at least a third. There were also too many loose ends for my taste. I'm glad I read the book though, and I think I have a pretty good idea of Rushdie's strengths and weaknesses as a writer now. It's not a bad book, but it's far from being a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: One of Rushdie's best works and far more accessible to those without knowledge of Southasian history and Islam. The plot is one of the most unique and interesting I've come across in a long time. It is a fairly easy read and a book I think everyone should read!

Rating:
Summary: Impressive story-telling
Review: Midnight's Children is perhaps strange in that it is an immensely popular novel but is also very intellectual and even esoteric. The story is narrated by Saleem Sinai, who was born at the exact moment of India's Independence. He is a very self-reflective narrator, who lets us in on his own perspective on his story-telling, as well as telling us the reaction of his servant Padma who is also listening to the story and who affects it as well. There are many twists and turns regarding the relationships between characters; there are name changes, nick-names, false-starts. This is of course what Salman Rushdie is interested in.
Rushdie has said that he thought this novel is about excess. You can see what he means as so much is packed into this novel and it is a credit to the author that he keeps this up all the way through (it took 5 years to write, apparently). But it also feels like it has been worked at, and requires a fair bit of working on the part of the reader. There are touching moments, and comic moments. These are genuine, but must be won by the reader who has to pay attention and keep up with the complexity of the novel.
There is so much in this book that you notice new things about it each time you read it. Rushdie has said that he quite likes it when he comes across words from different cultures in books (e.g. Jewish phrases in Roth). It would be best if readers share Rushdie's view when reading Rushdie himself as there are all sorts of words and phrases here that are not all explained.

Rating:
Summary: Love the writing style
Review: Rushdie's writing style is magic to read, and his words pull you into the stories he weaves. At some points in the book, you do start to notice how long it is, but for the most part, it's very enjoyable! I will read another of his books!

Rating:
Summary: The best book I have read in years!
Review: This piece of artwork was simply astonishing. Rushdie's voice is poetic and clear; there is no other work like this.
Throughout the book, you can almost see Rushdie's writing style change. This may usually be a weakness in other pieces, but in this book it is perfect, strengthening the power of the novel, changing along with the people in the story- it takes my breath away!
All the characters are human; they become your friends and enemies. Just as everyone in the story leaves their mark on the main character, Saleem, Rushdie leaves his mark on you.

Rating:
Summary: 3? what?
Review: yes, i give it 3 stars. this is odd because it's the lowest i've ever rated a book. i think. the book was wonderful but it just took Rushdie so darn long to bring it together. and even when this was accomplished (in the last 150 pages of 520), it was a bit anticlimactic. very vivid ending to the story but i just think that you might pick up 'the moors last sigh' before you pick this one up.

Rating:
Summary: I don't know .... black or green ???
Review: Difficult for someone who doesn't even get the symbolism of black and green. I looked up the colors of the flag and they are red and green (Paksitan is white and green). So don't expect much from me.

Set in India during the independence movement and told by a Muslim. Won the Booker Prize for Best Book in 25 Years. Concept is that the guy (and others) born at exactly midnight on the day of independence have some special powers. The author is able to read peoples' thoughts and to communicate with the other 1000 children born at midnight. It is fantasy told in context as historical novel.

This novel is difficult to read and therefore not for the average reader; the style is Faukneresque in grammar and punctuation, virtually every sentence is filled with metaphore and symbolism. If the reader had a good knowledge of India-Pakistan history, the story would be more interesting as there is a good deal of hidden (or not so hidden) political analysis. These are the reasons I didn't rate the novel higher so probably a little unfair.

Here is an example (ok, this is an extreme example):
Hint: The Widow is Indira Ghandi; Monkey is the sister
From the chapter "At the Pioneer Café" --
No colours except green and black the walls are green the sky is black (there is no roof) the stars are green the Widow is green abut her hair is black as black. The Widow sits on a high high chair the chair is green the seat is black the Widow's hair has a centre-parting it is green on the left and on the right black. High as the sky the chair is green the seat is black the Widow's arm is long as death its skin is green the fingernails are long and sharp and black. Between the walls the children green the walls are green the Widow's arm comes snaking down the snake is green the children scream the fingernails are black the scratch the Widow's arm is hunting see the children run and scream the Widow's hand curls round them green and black. Now one by one the children mmff are stifled quiet the blood is black unlooosed by cutting fingernails it splashes black on walls (of green) as one by one the curling hand lifts children high as sky the sky is black there are no stars the Widow laughs her tongue is green but see her teeth are black. And children torn in two in Widow hands which rolling rolling halves of children roll them into little balls the balls are green the night is black. And little balls fly into night between the walls the children shriek as one by one the Widow's hand. And in a corner the Monkey and I (the walls are green the shadows black) cowering crawling wide high walls green fading into black there is no roof and Widow's hand comes onebyone the children scream and mmff and little balls and hand and scream and no more screams the Widow's hand comes hunting hunting the skin is green the nails are black towards the corner hunting hunting while we shrink closer into the corner our skin is green our fear is black and now the Hand comes reaching reaching and she my sister pushes me out out of the corner while she stays cowering staring the hand the nails are curling scream and mmff and splash of black and up into the high as sky and laughing Widow tearing I am rolling into little balls the balls are green and out into the night the night is black....

Rating:
Summary: not a great novel
Review: There's a lot of praise for this book, and I thought I'd put my two cents in. One important note: Rushdie PURPOSELY inserts historical innacuracies, so don't think you're getting an accurate historical account - that's done on purpose. Indeed, from a post-structuralist theoretical standpoint, Rushdie's project is clearly to deconstruct. But, he goes nowhere with it. His whole novel can be summed up in a few lines: The popular version of history is inherently corrupted by social mediating forces; so, in order to combat that force, I'm going to offer MY version of history to show that there is no ONE history. It's a pretty standard argument, but he doesn't develop it beyond that. I would suggest that you look to Faulkner (who focuses on history's lingering qualities) or Ellison's Invisible Man (in which he focuses on how to break through cycles of historical oppression). They handle the effects of history in a much more engaging and profound way.

Rating:
Summary: I get it now!
Review: The first time I tred to read this book I got about one third of the way through. It didn't hold my interest. I liked the writing style sometimes, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Then I tried again. This time I found it much easier, but I was still sometimes bored, and I was not sure why this was such a great book. Finally, I started nearing the end, and I began to figure out what this book actually was. It wasn't so much some particular thing in the book at that point as the entire narrative starting to cumulatively come together.

This book is a masterpiece, entirely deserving of the Booker Prize it won. It gives one a sense of Indian history--not the country as a whole, which would be boring and impersonal, but as lived by the protagonist, Saleem. (And presumably by Rushdie, who is almost the same age--though the novel as a whole is certainly not autobiographical.) The humor, joy, tragedy, and anger all work. This was the first book of Rushdie's I read. It will not be the last.