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.
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