Product Description

Winner of the Booker of Bookers
Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1135 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-04
• Released on: 2006-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Amazon.com
Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends up establishing squatters' rights to his unlucky hospital mate's luxurious bassinet. Switched babies are standard fare for a Hindi film, and one can't help but feel that Rushdie's world-view--and certainly his sense of the fantastical--has been shaped by the films of his childhood. But whereas the movies, while entertaining, are markedly mediocre, Midnight's Children is a masterpiece, brilliant written, wildly unpredictable, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.

Rushdie's narrator, Saleem Sinai, is the Hindu child raised by wealthy Muslims. Near the beginning of the novel, he informs us that he is falling apart--literally:

I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug--that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.

In light of this unfortunate physical degeneration, Saleem has decided to write his life story, and, incidentally, that of India's, before he crumbles into "(approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust." It seems that within one hour of midnight on India's independence day, 1,001 children were born. All of those children were endowed with special powers: some can travel through time, for example; one can change gender. Saleem's gift is telepathy, and it is via this power that he discovers the truth of his birth: that he is, in fact, the product of the illicit coupling of an Indian mother and an English father, and has usurped another's place. His gift also reveals the identities of all the other children and the fact that it is in his power to gather them for a "midnight parliament" to save the nation. To do so, however, would lay him open to that other child, christened Shiva, who has grown up to be a brutish killer. Saleem's dilemma plays out against the backdrop of the first years of independence: the partition of India and Pakistan, the ascendancy of "The Widow" Indira Gandhi, war, and, eventually, the imposition of martial law.

We've seen this mix of magical thinking and political reality before in the works of Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez. What sets Rushdie apart is his mad prose pyrotechnics, the exuberant acrobatics of rhyme and alliteration, pun, wordplay, proper and "Babu" English chasing each other across the page in a dizzying, exhilarating cataract of words. Rushdie can be laugh-out-loud funny, but make no mistake--this is an angry book, and its author's outrage lends his language wings. Midnight's Children is Salman Rushdie's irate, affectionate love song to his native land--not so different from a Bombay talkie, after all. --Alix Wilber

Review
“Extraordinary . . . one of the most important [novels] to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation.”
–The New York Review of Books

“The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. . . . Midnight’s Children sounds like a continent finding its voice.”
–The New York Times

“In Salman Rushdie, India has produced a glittering novelist– one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling.”
–The New Yorker

“A marvelous epic . . . Rushdie’s prose snaps into playback and flash-forward . . . stopping on images, vistas, and characters of unforgettable presence. Their range is as rich as India herself.”
–Newsweek

“Burgeons with life, with exuberance and fantasy . . . Rushdie is a writer of courage, impressive strength, and sheer stylistic brilliance.”
–The Washington Post Book World

“Pure story–an ebullient, wildly clowning, satirical, descriptively witty charge of energy.”
–Chicago Sun-Times

Review
"Salman Rushdie has earned the right to be called one of our great storytellers." -- Observer

"Huge, vital, engrossing... in all senses a fantastic book." -- Sunday Times

"The literary map of India has been redrawn... Midnight's Children sounds like a country finding its voice." -- New York Times

"A brilliant and endearing novel." -- London Review of Books


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

Wicked Sense of Humor
Oh, my goodness. What do I say about this? It's such a rich, excellently written story with lots of interesting action and characters. Bonus: Rushdie has a wicked wicked WICKED sense of humor. And, did I say that the writing is to die for? Envy the size of an elephant inhabited my body as I was reading this ... however, it didn't take any pleasure away from the reading of it. Okay, I'm gonna get bossy now: Put it on your to-do list.

Booker of the Bookers...REALLYYY????????
This book left me with no respect for the author or for the Booker prize.One of the 100 best books to read....REALLY?????????? Are we talking about the same book????? The most disgusting and unconvincing book I have ever read.

WHAT A RUSH(DIE)!
If this book was described by 1001 readers, I think you'd get 10,001 different views of what they experienced. Some knowledge of the history of India & Pakistan before and after independence and the partition will be helpful. Perhaps some "-ism" (magical real(ism), coming-of-age(ism); post-modern(ism); stream of .....) reading would prepare you for this. But neither is required to enjoy it. Having read many of the less than stellar reviews, it seems that many had preconceived notions that weren't met or they tried to make it a fast read.

This is not a "page turner" suspense novel; nor is it Joycean (or any other author's). It is Rushdie. This is what he writes and how he writes. Read it for its own style rather than trying to compare it with someone else.

I think too much effort is made by publishers and reviewers to put authors into groups. I'm sure the publishers do it to capture buyers with "if you like A, then you'll like B". Reviewers too often do it to show how many authors they have read rather than making valid comparisons.

Base your judgment of Rushdie (or any of his books) on what you like or dislike about his work rather than by "someone says he is like Marquez and he isn't, so I didn't like it".