Midnight's Children - Rushdie

Title: Midnight's Children

Author: Salman Rushdie

Year Published: 1981

Awards/Recognitions: 1981 Man Booker Prize, 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Booker of Bookers (25th Anniversary), Best of the Booker(40th Anniversary), Time's 100 Best English-language Novels

As I've said earlier, I only buy/read books which I have already researched, and Midnight's Children is one of the books that I haveencountered which seemed superfluous to my expectations. Not only did it win the Man Booker Prize, but it also claimed the recognition of being the best of the receipients not only from the 25 years of its conception, but also in its40 years! Aside from that, it made its way into Time's list of 100 Best English-language Novels since 1923 (my favorite list, since it seems very credible, though I do think that some novels shouldn't be there, and that they overlooked quite a number of other novels such as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged).

Midnight's Children is told through the voice of Saleem Sinai, an Indian born at the exact same time as India's independence, thus making him the country's twin. Thus, as we follow Saleem's story, we can see its paralellism with India's own, while at the same time giving us a crash course on the country's modern history. The parallelism is masterfully done making it flow smoothly and not in a way where you'd think that it's forced or pilit. We follow him, not beginning with his birth, but beginning with his grandparents' unusual love story, then to the story of his parents, which then leads up to his birth. He starts way back since he believes that you are shaped by things that have influenced you, including your family's history; and true enough, by knowing the stories of Saleem's family, we get to know him better. Though later on in the book, we'd get to know that the story of this family should be irrelevant to him, but since I don't want to drop any spoilers, just read it, to see how that happened and how it all turns out ;D We then follow him through his charmed childhood, troubled adolescence, and to his time in the war. Rushdie's way of going back to history to be able to look at the bigger picture makes a lot of critics say that if Colombia's epic cultural book is Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Germany has Grass' The Tin Drum, then India's would have to be Midnight's  Children. (what would be the Philippines' big book?)

 This novel contains a lot of magic almost all surrounding that midnight of India's indpendence. The title refers to the the 1001 children born during the first hour of independence (12 - 1 AM), they're not special only because some of them have been chained to a fate similar to that of their countries, but also because they have magical powers. Yes, superpowers. The powers vary depending on the proximity of the time of birth to midnight. For example, the two people born at the extract stroke of midnight have the strongest powers: Saleem with telepathy (reading/communicating with people's minds), and Shiva with the powers of war and destruction. Then there's Parvati, an essential character in the novel, who was born a few seconds after midnight, who possesess the ability to master witchcraft, which includes spells and healing. Finally, those who were born at the late minutes of the hour were gifted, or maybe cursed with mere abnormailities such as an elephant's nose, and the like. At first it would seem like it has become Heroes, or DC, or Marvel, but as the story progresses we could see how Rushdie doesn't focus much on the powers themselves, but on the characters, and how they handle their lives with this. The novel doesn't revolve around these League of Extraordinary Children and their powers, but it revolves around something greater, something better. I know that this is something you wouldn't really expect from a book with this much critical acclaim (since most of the time, critics like serious books), but it actually works to the advantage of the novel. If you decide to read the book because of this element in the story, then that would be good, though keep in mind that you would have to go deeper than this to see the real beauty of the book.

Another good thing about this book is that it gives a wider picture of India ranging from the murky waters of the rivers of India's slums, the cleanliness and luxury of Methwold's Estate (India's version of Long Island), the harsh conditions of India's forgotten war, and even a brief overview of Pakistan (not Palestine, a mistake I made in Visual Bookshelf :|). It is unlike many Indian novels I have read, with Aravind Adiga's White Tiger focusing only on India's extremes: the richest of the rich, to the poorest of the poor, and Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss showing only the life in the province.

Rushdie's masterful narrative is nothing short of compelling, tackling universal isues such as the power of history and memory, patriotism, creation and destruction, and many more. Midnight's Children is an instant classic which I'm sure we'll be seeing much of in the future.

I highly recommend, if not require you to read this book, the setting is fully established, the characters are very well-written, the story is fast-paced and entertaining, and it makes you think.

Rating: 10/10

Favorite Passage: "The things that matter most in our lives happen in our absence."

Edition: Random House Trade Paperback 25th Anniversary (the big one, not pocket-sized)

Length: A little over 500 pages, just all right.

Time Read: 2 Days, while in the province