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It's quite hard to deduce anything from the name of what this book is going to be. Is it a children’s book, with some unharming midnight mischievous, well these could be your first thoughts except this book is so not that.
Well, midnight is quite important because it is midnight of 14th August 1947, when India got free from its colonial rule and also the children were not normal but had magical powers. And there it is, Salman Rushdie’s novel on significant events of history and fiction together.
Introduction
Book’s Name - Midnight Children
Author’s Name - Salman Rushdie
Genre - Magical Realism, Historiographic metafiction
Language - English
Synopsis - Spoiler Alert!
Saleem Sinai was 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 vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy.
About the Author
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British American novelist and essayist. His work, combining magical realism with historical fiction, is primarily concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western Civilization, with much of his fiction being set on the Indian Subcontinent.
He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay, Rugby School in Warwickshire, and King’s College, Cambridge, where he read history. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States.
About the Book
The book begins with a woman going into labor in Bombay at the stroke of midnight when across India people were celebrating their new Independence. The baby who is the exact same age as the nation is Saleem, the novel's protagonist.
His narrative stretches over 30 years of his life, jumping backward and forwards in time to speculate family secrets and deep-seated mysteries. Saleem however had magical powers and all the other children who were born at that time and he acts as a delightful guide to magical happenings.
Saleem frame echoes with ‘1001 nights’ where we see multiple realities, stories, and possibilities and is often compared with 1001 nights. Midnight children were published in 1981 and covers a lot of events till then which gives us historical insight.
Theme Involved
Well, if the story begins on the Independence of India, the theme of revolution, migration, identity, and freedom automatically consumes the book. The book has turbulent times showing the assassination of Gandhi in 1948 and that independence coincided with a partition which divided British-controlled India into the two nations of India and Pakistan.
This then contributed to the outbreaks of Indo-Pakistani wars in 1965 and 1971. Saleem touches on all this and more, tracing the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971 and the emergency rule of Indira Gandhi
This vast historical frame is one reason why ‘Midnight’s Children’ is considered one of the most illuminating works of post-colonial literature ever written. Rushdie also enriches the book with a plethora of Indian and Pakistani Cultural references, from family traditions to food, religion, and folktales
Famous Quotes
“No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time.”
“Children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison.”
“For every snake, there is a ladder; for every ladder, a snake”
The Bottom Line
Usually, it's that part where I give you a final push to read any book, but today I'll tell a story and leave it up to you. Midnight’s Children won the prestigious ‘Man Booker Prize’ in its year of publication but in the 2008 competition that pitted all 39 winners of that against each other, it was named the best of all the winners.
So, with that, I leave you because of course, you have a masterpiece to explore now.
My ratings for the book - 4 on 5
You can buy a copy of this book from - Midnight’s Children
Written By - Ashish Joshi
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