Midnight's Children by Salman RushdieMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
PART 1
I finished the book yesterday--but before I describe my overall response I have to start with this entry I wrote in my notebook while I was partway through.
I last opened this book ten years ago. This was the book that destroyed our little book club in college, my first year. A small group of avid readers, aspiring to read high and mighty works of literature. We made it through Snow Falling on Cedars successfully--I don't remember any discussion we had about it, but I liked the book.
Midnight's Children absolutely destroyed us.
Partly because we were newly in college, overwhelmed with so many things. Heavy reading loads in all our classes, especially the English classes I was taking. College isn't a great time to be in a book club, I found.
After four years there plus three more in grad school studying literature, I almost completely lost the ability to read books of my own choosing. Slowly I'm rediscovering the desire to read... but I am still unable to read anything without thinking about it to death.
These many years ago, I had made it about a third of the way through Midnight's Children before I was overcome by its nearly impenetrable density. If I had owned the book, I gave it away; if I had borrowed it, I returned it to its owner. I never went back to the book club meetings--if there were any more. I forgot all about it.
Now I am a little over a third of the way through Midnight's Children again. I suddenly felt myself in a familiar landscape--on the edge of a murky bog in which I could see myself walking forever in circles until I sank in the muck. There was no way out.
Ten years ago, I had put the book down--I had run away, escaped. Now here I was again. Dread and revulsion filled me. Rushdie put me up to this! I had to go through it. He is relentless, but I could not give up a second time.
When the reader (me) gets bored and impatient, Rushdie inserts a character to make fun of you for being bored and impatient. When you've heard those particular details three times already he tells them to you a fourth. He pours words like water droplets onto your head, wearing away a bald spot until eventually you go mad. And all the while he makes you feel that you're an idiot not to worship him and his amazing story.
Salman Rushdie--big famous author. Midnight's Children, acclaimed prizewinning book. I am not worthy. I keep reading, I splash through the bog, in circles, I curse the author. I pick my nails and wish it were over so I could return it to the library. I'm not going to let him win--I will fight to the end.
And now, for all that, I've started to enjoy the book again! The bog wasn't endless, nor was I hopelessly lost forever. He brought me out as sure as he sent me in. Suddenly the story picks up again, something is happening, time is moving forward, secrets are being revealed.
I always wonder whether authors drag on purposefully or whether they don't realize how boring they are being. Rushdie knows--he made his impatient-reader character actually walk out of the story in frustration! But--she came back. I don't know why she loves the narrator (he's completely repulsive), but he does have a good story to tell, I'll give him that.
PART 2
I'm impressed--really. This was a difficult book to get through. But it gripped me more and more strongly as I read.
The halfway point was a shock--to stop and think, I've come so far, I'm only halfway there?! But forging on... then the book picked me up and carried me along in its floodwaters.
I'm talking about this book like it was a journey, and it was. It was definitely epic; it deserves all the praise it has received. I can't personally add much to the heaps of praise Midnight's Children has stockpiled, but I can add my own experience to the mix.
How this book could be so popular with such an unlikeable narrator, I'll never know. The narrator (Saleem) finally stopped interrupting his own story with annoying bursts of self-consciousness, and I could continue to read without being reminded every few pages of how much I hated him. He was repulsive, annoying, hypocritical, arrogant, and a scumbag.
All the same, he wasn't completely unsympathetic as a character. His experience of life, of living, sometimes struck a chord. In this strangely emotionless story, Saleem's pitiful life does evoke some feeling in a reader. I despise him.
This book beats the reader over the head with its flamboyant mysticism--maddeningly repetitive, sickeningly self-conscious, pompous and insistent. It's a smack-you-upside-the-head and shout-in-your-ear allegory.
There's no doubt Rushdie is brilliant. This book is a work of genius, and I'm not just saying that. I'm sure a lot of it was over my head and I won't pretend to get all the references and metaphors. This book just screams to be interpreted, analyzed, discussed, taken apart and put back together. If only I had a book club to discuss it with me, I could rant about it some more.
As it is, I'll just say this is an utterly amazing book that I can't even begin to get my mind around--and if you like a challenge with some history, magic, and chutney thrown in, pick this book up.
Don't worry if you feel like strangling someone halfway through--it gets better. When you get to the end you might not know exactly where you've been but it will have been an unforgettable trip.
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