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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Midnight's Children Book Review

A friend of mine recommended it to me saying that it's a fantasy novel but I found it otherwise. Many incidents in the book are for real. I would like to call this one da de facto diary of a schizho. It is so twisted and smartly written you will just be lost in the story. A very powerful and politically inclined narrative, this could have easily been the heroes of the old times. Every page is a predictable gripper and you will want to read more as you find out that the author is letting you take a lead on the story. The beauty of it all lies in it being a story full of how such common occurences of your every day banalities of life blend under the cover of a dark and unspoken era of political turmoil and unspoken injustices on human freedom, exodus' and mass killings, the plot unfolds the sheer will of four hundred something child prodigies born at the hour on the midnight India attained its independence, with supernatural abilities conspiring to have under the powers of it's leader and the main character of the book Mr.Saleem successfully united after 31 years of awaiting, having unfolded many a unbelievable feats through it's telepathic midnight congressional communions and a skeptical stand point on the regress of a disillusion that subtly sinks into reality as Saleem, the vanguard of the army of midnight children, the unspoken covenant a victim of holocaust reveals to the comfort of a stabilizing 3 decade era from the night of independence the new generation of prodigals in his son and in successors of the missing age revolutionaries who fought and stuck to their ground and fought it out with governments ruled by royals with dark sides to their apt descriptions. The book is a lovely read through time as the reader will find himself geographically moving north and northerly around the subcontinent visiting the oldest cities crossing the largest rivers and the highest mountains and the meanest marshes with forests breathing their breath taking magic on a lost undercover troop, through beautiful ice clad valleys to intoxicatingly intense vast fields and beyond. A marvelous journey through spaces history unfolded itself and stands witness today. A snake charmer and his super prodigal son with ears used to uncommon sonic manifestations pristine. On his acquaintances with new found virtues Saleem himself with unusual nasal powers that sniff out emotions and color, the very human expression has to relieve his time finding humility in such a beautiful succession that has set the juggernaut rolling for a crave that will surely supersede any reader’s appetite for a complete entertainer. 
You will particularly enjoy sections of the book where the nasal revelations start to direct the story in a different dimension and the midnight confessions start coming in with such well thought of fluency that every time you will turn a page you will be taken by the events as if you picked the right time to read this book as these events start superseding you as if it were to be following a phase, unless you can relate well to a schizo the main character of the book, it’s a classic work of literature very few with such accurate exploitation of language almost as mystical to its content as to it’s implications through the narrative, only a very pensive and collective historian could have pieced together events of unspoken times and substantially created a fabulous art of fiction as a inspiration of sorts
Now this is what I call clever writing. It's not a page turner, it's a line tuner, if there exists something like that.

I mean this guy(Salman Rushdie) can leave his reader's anticipating for every single line.

If you are a regular reader, you will see through his narrative though. Midnight's children is about a guy who was born at the strike of the hour on the midnight of India's independence. Though I found a striking resemblance in his narrative style with that of Robert Ludlum( Author of the Bourne Triology), as he talks about a whole new legion of post-indipendent India's children just the way Ludlum has his 3rd reich in the Holcraft Covenant.

But Rushdie is predictably imaginative. There is extensive use of Hindi(My mother tongue) and this is not the kind of book you would like to stop looking for words, or you will loose the flow.

The subtle message lying underneath this compelling story telling style is to highlight the socio-political changes that were happening amongst the masses in India as she was basking in the glory of its independence.
The bottom line is probably that this is an excellent novel but one that I didn’t like it as much as I would have hoped to. Maybe this was due to the fact that it felt a little boring in the beginning. So, if you get through the first 80-90 pages, you will want to finish the book asap!


2 comments:

Rahul said...

I am so much looking forward to this movie. Hope it is as good as the review. Though too early to say this and that even without watching it, In my view this might be an Oscar winning movie :)

Rahul said...

I am so much looking forward to this movie. Hope it is as good as the review. Though too early to say this and that even without watching it, In my view this might be an Oscar winning movie :)

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