Midnight's Children: The iconic Booker-prize winning novel, from bestselling author Salman Rushdie (Modern Library) (Picador Books) (Booker Prize Anniversary Edition S.)

by Salman Rushdie

'India has produced a great novelist...a master of perpetual storytelling' V.S. Pritchett, New Yorker

Born at the stroke of midnight, at the precise moment of India's independence, Saleem Sinai is destined from birth to be special. For he is one of 1,001 children born in the midnight hour, children who all have special gifts, children with whom Saleem is telepathically linked.

But there has been a terrible mix up at birth, and Saleem’s life takes some unexpected twists and turns. As he grows up amidst a whirlwind of triumphs and disasters, Saleem must learn the ominous consequences of his gift, for the course of his life is inseparably linked to that of his motherland, and his every act is mirrored and magnified in the events that shape the newborn nation of India.
It is a great gift, and a terrible burden.

• ISBN10: 0099578514
• ISBN13: 9780099578512
• Publish Date: 18 May 1995 (first published 12 March 1981)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 11 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 672
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

Whew, I love Salman Rushdie's other works, but this one just didn't work for me. Maybe it went over my head, maybe I'm just not it's target audience, or maybe it's just not for me, but in any case I found myself counting down the pages for it to end.

Book content warnings:
incest the protagonist likes his sister; he knows it's wrong, but this "love" takes place throughout half the book and he even seeks out a prostitute because she smells like his sister
pedophilia the protagonist sleeps with a prostitute who's "over 500 years old", and he has sex with a 14yo in his 20s
child abuse
abuse
(maybe more)

And yeah, the content warnings hit nearly everything that makes me extremely uncomfortable, and if not for the fact I had already read over half the book already (and the fact that this book is HUGE) I would have given up on it.

Midnight's Children is a huge novel about the births of Saleem Sinai (the protagonist and narrator) and also India herself at midnight, August 15, 1947. In the style of an autobiography, Saleem covers the life of his father and his father's father before he comes to his own life and India's independence, talking about what makes you you and how your shape your life (and what it means for his country as well).

It's not done there, though, because as a side-effect of being born on midnight of India's birth, Saleem has become a "Child of Midnight", something that's granted him supernatural powers, and also granted 1001 other children born within the hour similar powers. For Saleem, it's the ability to read other people's minds.

All this in one book. Albeit one massive book, but one book nonetheless.

The beginning half was interesting, and I loved an inside look into what India was like, but once the narrative turned to the protagonist himself, Saleem Sinai, I lost interest. He has to be the most conceited, vain, and just annoying protagonist I've ever read, even absolutely convinced the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965 solely happened to purify him of sin. That things happened in the world just because and for him. I couldn't wait for the book to be over just to be rid of him and his story!

I think part of a book's appeal is the main character, and that's why the latter half (which is huge) just left me wanting this to be over. I just couldn't get rid of it fast enough. I'm so sorry, because I do love this author and I know how much this is a "classic masterpiece". :S But it just wasn't for me.