Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is the story of Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India's independence. The mystical hour of his birth endows him (and 1,000 other children) with preternatural powers, first telepathy that facilitates a connection with the other "midnight's children," and later an uncanny sense of smell that allows him to sniff out danger, read emotions and interpret motives that others can't sense. Saleem is fathered by history, and he is handcuffed to it. He tells his story with "postmodern reflexivity" (flexing my academic muscles--they're pretty flabby!), but all the big moments in his life are mirrored in the changing fortunes of India's modern history.

This book is often compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude due to it's liberal use of magic realism, the thematic suggestion that reality is subjective, and the fact that it is a loose allegory of the history of a country. Magic realism is actually one of the features I found so appealing in this book. My favorite recurring example reminded me more of Like Water for Chocolate: the impregnating of food with the cook's emotions. Saleem's aunt cooks all her old-maid repressions into her chutneys, thereby disseminating her bitterness and discontent throughout the family.

It took me about 4 months to get through Midnight's Children because it really is not the type you don't want to put down, but it is extraordinary. It's complicated and unique and funny and tragic and optimistic. Knowing very little about India or Indian history, I was in unfamiliar territory, but I found Saleem's self-depracating narrative voice to be so endearing, and I enjoyed the way the story unravels in big swoops and digressions rather than being linear--it's an oral narrative style that really works. Anyway, this is a good book--the kind that leaves you feeling that you read something big.