A review by serendipitysbooks
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

adventurous challenging funny reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

 
It’s impossible to do justice to Midnight’s Children in a quick Instagram review. It won the Booker in 1981 and has twice been judged the Best of the Bookers to mark the prize’s 25th and 40th anniversaries. It’s sweeping and epic, a magical realism infused family saga that parallels the post-colonial history of India and references many classic Indian - and other - tales. I loved the narrative style with Saleem’s recounting his life story to his wife feeling like a direct address to the reader. Listening on audio undoubtedly amplified this effect. And the audio was fabulous, with the narrator really bringing intonation, personality and verve to Saleem’s voice. Saleem’s life was full of fantastic twists and turns right from the beginning. He was born at the exact moment of India’s independence, and like the 1000 other midnight children born in the hour between midnight and 1am he has special powers. He was also swapped at birth with another baby. This novel manages to explore weighty themes such as identity, religion, colonialism, the importance of storytelling, partition and the porousness of all sorts of barriers, legacy, and truth in a thoroughly engaging way, with a deceptively light, often irreverent, touch. A layered, richly detailed, unforgettable story. It’s just unfortunate that it was an attack on the author which finally promoted me to pick this up. 
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