Those yet to read Midnight’s Children shouldn’t be put off by its length – at over six hundred pages it’s a pretty hefty book – but every one of those pages is worth the effort. The option of Rushdie’s recent film adaptation might be a tempting substitute but I would strongly encourage reading Rushdie’s text – after all, it won (among numerous other things)the coveted ‘Booker of Bookers’ prize, so it’s certainly doing something right.
That’s not to say it isn’t a challenge. Midnight’s Children is without doubt a complex book. It moves back and forwards through time, indulges seemingly random tangents and combines historical fact with fiction and magical realism. But stick with it – it is one of the most rewarding books I have ever read.
Saleem Sinai, our narrator, is thirty one years old and begins the book by explaining that he must tell his tale before his imminent death. He was born in Bombay at the exact moment of India’s independence : midnight on the 15th August 1947. Because of this, Saleem is special. Not only is he born with telepathic powers but his life is tied to India’s destiny.
Midnight’s Children is divided into three sections which move chronologically through Saleem’s family history, his birth and his life up to the present moment. Saleem’s life story is intertwined with the events taking place in India, but the book is not overly concerned with historical fact (Saleem even gets the date of Ghandi’s death wrong). Midnight’s Children is much more interested in how one man remembers his life. The book is Saleem’s “personal version of history”.
With a twist of fate and India’s revolution Saleem became one of 1001 children to be born between midnight and one A.M on the day of India’s independence. However, there was only one other child born at the stroke of midnight and we discover that the two were swapped at birth so that neither was raised by their biological parents, parents from very different sides of the tracks. But surprisingly this seemingly crucial revelation does not dramatically alter Saleem’s life, indicating how memory and narration are more powerful than actual fact. Saleem and his ‘parents’ “simply could not think [their] way out of the pasts”.
Rushdie fascinatingly combines serious matters like India’s difficult political situation in India with humorous and bizarre incidents. In the very final chapter of the book, as we near the conclusion to this epic tale, we are suddenly presented with a man who produces “the longest turd” Saleem has ever seen, and then asks Saleem how long his own are. The fact that we never know what is around the corner contributes to the excitement and charm of the book; some sections of the text are haunting and troubling, whilst others are absurd and comical.
And the further you get with Midnight’s Children the more you work out how intricately laced Rushdie’s narrative is, every event and image, however irrelevant it first seems, comes full circle. Saleem says that for Indian people, “similarities between this and that, between apparently unconnected things, make us clap our hands delightedly when we find them out”, and this comment captures exactly how you feel reading the book; part of its pleasure comes from trying to piece together the plot. And it is impossible not to be impressed with Rushdie’s achievement.
Midnight’s Children is available now from Vintage.
Words: Harry Day