Rating: 
Summary: Smell the chutney.
Review: Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" appears to be an allegory, spiced with satirical commentary, on the political course of modern India and the in-fighting of its various social and religious factions. It is an endlessly inventive book with a cheeky sense of humor and wild, exotic imagery, but it does not eschew somber moments. Rushdie presents this novel as the autobiography of Saleem Sinai, writing from his current residence at a Bombay pickle factory under the critical eye of his frequently interruptive lover/fiance Padma. Saleem was born on the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the precise moment of India's independence from Great Britain and Pakistan's formation. He and one thousand other babies (the Midnight's Children) born in India throughout the hour each has some supernatural power such as witchcraft, time travel, gender alteration, etc., or otherwise is simply a mutant. Kind of like the X-Men, except they're too self-serving to band together and fight crime (and too bad, as there is a lot of narrative potential in this idea). Saleem routinely hides in a washing-chest in his house to find inner peace away from neighborhood kids who taunt him for his large misshapen nose and other odd facial features. One day in the chest, he has a strange accident -- he sniffs a pajama cord up his nose, triggering an effect which causes him to hear voices in his head and realize he has telepathic powers. By telepathy, he establishes communication with the (heretofore unknown to him) other Midnight's Children, but they prove unwilling to unite. An operation performed on his nose to stop his severe dripping snot problem clears his nasal passages to reveal an uncanny olfactory ability, enabling him to sniff out emotions and ideas as well as smells. Saleem also gives an extensive background on his family, beginning with how his maternal grandparents met, up to his pyromaniac-turned-singing-star younger sister. After his (Muslim) family relocates to Pakistan, almost all of them are killed in the 1965 India-Pakistan war, and in the 1971 war for the independence of Bangladesh, Saleem is conscripted in the Pakistani Army as a human bloodhound. Eventually, Saleem marries Parvati, one of the Midnight's Children, the witch, who bears a child fathered by his arch enemy Shiva, another of the Midnight's Children, whose special attribute is his ability to crush people with his overdeveloped knees. Shiva works as an agent for the government of India, who demand to know the indentities and whereabouts of all the Midnight's Children, and Saleem is the only one who can tell them... Like E.L. Doctorow's "Ragtime," "Midnight's Children" blurs the line between historical fact and fiction, weaving fantastic events against a realistic backdrop of a land in turmoil. Saleem is an extraordinary character, not a hero in the traditional sense but a deformed symbol, a vessel for carrying and displaying the problems and hopes of the people of India.
Rating:
Summary: Pickled History
Review: Saleem is born at midnight at the very moment India gains its independence. Thus, he is connected to his nation right from the start, as are the 1001 children born during that magical hour. Saleem sets out to preserve his story and finds he cannot separate his history from his country's history. Nor can he leave out the stories of the other children of midnight. Rushdi's book is long and complex, and sometimes it is tough to get through. However, it is not one of Penguin's Great Books of the 20th Century without reason. It is an analysis of self and nation and history and truth. An excellent work of fiction, to say the least.
Rating: 
Summary: where's the beef?
Review: I feel about Salman Rushdie's first big book roughly the same way I feel about Indian food. The food features a fascinating melange of spices, smells and textures, but I have no desire to consume it. Nor do I particularly comprehend the attraction of the cuisine of a dirt poor Third World country with more dietary taboos than you can shake a sitar at and, while heavy spicing is a perfectly logical substitute for substance, at the end of the meal one longs to ask: "Where's the beef?". Similarly, in his novel, Rushdie combines his signature Magical Realist style and the actual historical background of India since Independence with the family history of the Sinai's to create a bewildering mess of a novel that is heavy on Bombay slang. The language is pungent but indecipherable and the story is ambitious but confusing. The linguistic pyrotechnics and luxuriant prose have displaced the meat of the story. I actually believe that India offers a unique opportunity to the author of today. With the end of the Cold War and peace in the Middle East, South Africa and Northern Ireland, many of the settings that offered built in tension have disappeared. India, however, remains a corrupt political state, is rife with ethnic tension and is nearly at war with both Pakistan and China. There are so many latent plot lines that it would seem an irresistible setting and I very much enjoyed books like Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (1993). But, both are much more traditional, Western-style novels. As is usually the case, the injection of magical realism into Rushdie's story ends up detracting from his tale rather than enhancing it. The effort to create an Indian, or postcolonial, style did not work for me; a straightforward narrative, stripped of hocus pocus gimmickry, would have been much more enjoyable. GRADE: C-
Rating: 
Summary: Shades of Grass
Review: While Rushdie is the author of Midnight's Children, the presence of Gunter Grass' genes is impossible to ignore. Whether this is a reflection of the author in general or this book in particular I cannot say (for admittedly, this is the only book by Rushdie I have read to-date), but this book smacks of Grass' The Tin Drum in more than mere coincidental measures. While I am not the first to make this comparison between these two authors; I found the similarities between Midnight's Children and The Tin Drum to walk a dubious line (perhaps out of my own ignorance). The resemblances don't end in style alone but spill over into the story and the characters as well. There are even parts of the book (particularly some of the more poetic passages) which seemed to be "lifted" from the Tin Drum and reworked for Midnight's Children. Suffice it to say that I am not accusing Rushdie of plagiarism here, only suggesting, perhaps, an overlty ardent fawning over the great Mr. Grass. Likewise, I am not proposing that this is not a good book in it's own right or that it should not be read. It is and it should. I am merely recommending for those interested in reading this book (or the author) to read The Tin Drum first so that it may lend new perspective to Midnight's Children. These two works do make for an interesting comparison. Again a very good book, well-written, and definately worth the read, but for this reader it pales in comparison to its predecessor.
Rating:
Summary: Be brave, have fun, read this book with others.
Review: This was my book club's "big book" for the summer, with mixed results. Those who read it, loved it, but lots of people had problems getting through the book. What an experienced reader might find charming, entertaining, and thought-provoking - multitudes of characters, glorious digressions, rich and satirical reinterpretations of history, and Rushdie's far-flung wordplay - people with busy schedules or not enough patience to allow themselves a chunk of time to "get into" might just give up on. But the rewards for reading it are high - I have this undefinable criterion I attach to what I consider truly genius works, whether they're novels or poetry, that I can only describe as a feeling of their having not been made by mere mortals. Ok, that's a bit of purple prose. There are some literary works that are so well constructed that they seem to exist pretty perfectly, you're absorbed in that constructed word-world. I don't mean minimalist, though; this book is Dickensian. Here, you've got an entertaining/self-conscious/comically unreliable narrator, seemingly all of India, everyone in India, crammed into it, niftily named chapters labelled like jars of chutney (a metaphor I borrow directly from the book), it all turns into a bit of controlled chaos in your own mind, yet it's (I think) flawlessly executed, and it really bears re-reading. What helped me organize my thoughts about this book was drawing myself an oft-revised geneological tree of most of the characters, doing a little reading about the history of India, especially about the Partition and after, and putting myself in a Bollywood state of mind. I can't imagine recommending a contemporary novel more highly. And the discussion that results from reading this book with a group of people can be very rich.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthwhile novel
Review: Rushdie's Midnight's Children is sucessful on three levels. First, it is an enjoyable read. The imagery, style, and langauge are clearly first rate, and highly remniscent of Garcia-Marquez. Second, for a western reader with little knowledge of Pakistani-Indian history, the book provides a sweeping background of this important contentious region. Finally, the themes and ideas contained within the book, such as 'snakes and ladders' and 'midnight's children', are often insightful and novel. I was somewhat disappointed by the good-guy/bad-guy allusions to contempory politics, but overall, I felt that the knowledge and insight I gained from this book was clearly worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing tale of the entwined Fates of a Boy and a Nation
Review: "Midnight's Children" was the second novel from Rushdie I read, but it remains my favorite. While my tastes in novels runs more towards Hemmingway I was unable to put this book down. I was held captive by the author's ability to include historical refferences of the birth of a nation into the complex story of Shiva and Saleem. I particularly liked the parallelism between the two boys and the gifts given to them by their midnight births. While this book can be difficult to follow due to it's historical reffernces I felt that it only added to the understanding of fate of Saleem's live. Overall I would highly recomend this book to those who have an interest in Indian History or enjoy an author with a great command of the English Lanugage.
Rating:
Summary: Rushdie's classic is worth all the praise
Review: Just like all Rushdie books, MC requires a good deal of attention from the reader. But with good nurturing, this will be your favourite book. The tale of Saleem Sinai from his grandfather's youth to his old age spans the modern history of India. His fate is entangled with that of the country, his complexity reflects the problematic political state. I was lucky enough to be in India as I read the book, and that enabled me to get more out of his local terms and customs. So I believe it'll help to be familiar with the country. Rushie's play on words, observations and blurry fact and fiction make this an R-rated fairy tale. DO NOT miss this masterpiece.
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: Detailed Tapestry
Review: Towards the beginning of this book, there is a minor character who is an artist whose paintings have grown huge because he keeps trying to fit life into them. He mourns because he'd wanted to be a miniaturist, but instead has elephantiasis. Even though the character never recurs, I thought about him through the huge landscape of this book. Rushdie has the eye for detail of a miniaturist, but writes in epic sweeps, fitting in countless lives and actions. If done badly, this would have been nearly impossible to read, but the execution is brilliant and instead gives the impression of a huge rich tapestry running by like film. The book is about the Midnight's Children (children born in the first hour after the birth of India as a nation) and their erstwhile leader Saleem Sinai. It traces him (and them) through childhood, the creation of Pakistan, and beyond. Even though the events are crucial, to have an understanding of the plot won't give you any help with the book. My advice to people attempting Midnight's Children is to not worry too much about catching and understanding every detail. Yes, knowing more about Indian history will make certain things clear (although it may obscure others), but there's so much here that it isn't really necessary. I already know that this is a book I'm going to re-read, and that will be the chance to pick up missing pieces. One of the highest of recommends.
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