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Midnight's Children

 


Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie is a remarkable book. The narrator tells us he was born in Bombay on the stroke of midnight on August 15th, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence from Britain. The kid’s name is Saleem, but we don’t find that out for a long while. He is one of a thousand or so children born in India on that date, birthed in the first couple of hours of Independence Day.  These children, Midnight’s Children, all seem to have a connection with one another.

This book is a kids-eye-view of the history of India and Pakistan from independence through the late 1970’s. But it actually starts earlier with the story of his grandparents and parents. Their turbulent relationships amid the turbulence their country is going through. After Saleem’s birth, the turbulence continues on both counts.

The story is also a fantasy because there are things that happen that we would call supernatural. But, is it fantasy? Do those fantastical things really happen, or are they all in our narrator’s head? Saleem is not necessarily a reliable narrator. So, when a terrible purge comes, when the government tries to eliminate all the kids with superpowers, do they really have superpowers, or is this just Saleem’s brain’s way of coping with a bad situation. You could read it either way, but I choose to believe in the fantasy.  

It cannot be called a happy story and yet, there is a subtle humor that runs throughout. One chapter is called “Snakes and Ladders.” This title could be applied to the whole book. At every turn there is a ladder lifting a character up, but then comes a snake knocking them down. Up, down, up, down, and repeat. Rushdie has a way of drawing you in, wanting more, looking for answers, but, finding them, the answers lead to more questions.  Do the bad things happen to people because, as Saleem believes, he is cursed, and so everyone associated with him pays the price. Perhaps, but I am more inclined to believe that most of the bad things that happen are happening to people who brought it on themselves. Those who didn’t bring it on themselves are the victims of random acts of the bad people around them. This is sounding too much like a downer. It is not. Honestly, there is humor here!

This book was written before Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses which caused the Ayatollah in Iran to declare a fatwa against Rushdie and ordered his execution. A price was put on his head and there have been several attempts to kill him. I have not read The Satanic Verses, but I would think conservative Muslims might have found things to dislike in Midnight’s Children too. But the truth is, not very many come off well in this story, not the Hindus, not the Muslims, not the British, not the Indian government, and not the Pakistani government. They are all sort of Keystone Cops navigating destiny.

Star liner

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