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A review by gauriraut
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
4.0
Took so long to read, I'm surprised I managed to enjoy it. The writing takes a while to get used to. And at first (when we spent 156 pages on 32 years worth of backstory before our protagonist was even born) the inability of the narrator to follow a linear timeline without jumping to some incident in the future of which we know nothing about and in doing so opening up approximately 200 plot lines, honestly left me so confused I thought I was never going to figure the book out or even enjoy it. The first is true, the latter isn't.
The narrator wasn't very likeable and the plot is (is there one, that is my real question) weird. But there was something that kept drawing me in. Maybe it is because I love magical realism, and the enjoyment I derived was solely from that love and had nothing to do with this particular book. Maybe it had. Some chapters were so clever in their wordplay or joy inducing in their sheer absurdity, while being simple and inconsequential, that I am surprised at that possibility.
(The book also made reference to my hometown twice and that made me very excited.)
If someone were to ask me what this book is about, I honestly can't tell. It's about our protagonist's life, but it's also about the life of India and how our protagonist (believes to have) influenced it.
The narrator wasn't very likeable and the plot is (is there one, that is my real question) weird. But there was something that kept drawing me in. Maybe it is because I love magical realism, and the enjoyment I derived was solely from that love and had nothing to do with this particular book. Maybe it had. Some chapters were so clever in their wordplay or joy inducing in their sheer absurdity, while being simple and inconsequential, that I am surprised at that possibility.
(The book also made reference to my hometown twice and that made me very excited.)
If someone were to ask me what this book is about, I honestly can't tell. It's about our protagonist's life, but it's also about the life of India and how our protagonist (believes to have) influenced it.