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maz05 's review for:
Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie
Saleem Sinai and the countries of India and Pakistan have their birthdays in common. Winning the lottery of birth into an affluent family in Mumbai, the story follows Saleem's mis-adventures as a result of his birth defects, which also, at points in his life, allow him to hear other people's thoughts and smell every dimension of a scent.
This is the story of India's coming of age, meshed up with Saleem's, and of course has done the rounds in a plethora of reading groups and classrooms.
My verdict? I picked this book up because it was a classic, and I felt like I should read it. The magical elements of the story successfully engulfed me into the journey, as I rode the storyteller's waves and troughs. I thoroughly enjoyed 1947-1971 because I knew the context of India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, but because of my lack of knowledge on post 1971 India, I felt lost at the tail end of the story. I highly recommend this book if you have some contextual knowledge and are interested in a bold account of post-Partition South Asia. Rushdie is a skilful and poetic author, but due to the poetic nature of his prose I often found myself zoning out and had to go back a couple of pages. I also underlined a lot of stellar one-liners re: history and politics, which I will surely revisit. Would I revisit the entire story though? Probably not - I think once was enough to sate me. I'm glad I read an iconic book - although it took me 1.5 months and a whole lotta resolve to finish it.
This is the story of India's coming of age, meshed up with Saleem's, and of course has done the rounds in a plethora of reading groups and classrooms.
My verdict? I picked this book up because it was a classic, and I felt like I should read it. The magical elements of the story successfully engulfed me into the journey, as I rode the storyteller's waves and troughs. I thoroughly enjoyed 1947-1971 because I knew the context of India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, but because of my lack of knowledge on post 1971 India, I felt lost at the tail end of the story. I highly recommend this book if you have some contextual knowledge and are interested in a bold account of post-Partition South Asia. Rushdie is a skilful and poetic author, but due to the poetic nature of his prose I often found myself zoning out and had to go back a couple of pages. I also underlined a lot of stellar one-liners re: history and politics, which I will surely revisit. Would I revisit the entire story though? Probably not - I think once was enough to sate me. I'm glad I read an iconic book - although it took me 1.5 months and a whole lotta resolve to finish it.