Group Read: Midnight's Children Week One Book 1

The 1st week will be an easy one, just under 140 pages. The 2nd section is hefty though, so you might want to get a bit of a head-start on that one! Enjoy everyone!

It got me from the first page. I hope it can keep up the high interest for the next 532 LOL.

This is Tai commenting on Aziz's (the grandfather) prominent nose: "That's a nose to start a family on, my princeling. There'd be no mistaking whose brood they were. Mughal Emperors would have given their right hands for noses like that. There are dynasties waiting inside it..."
Yes, this book starts out promising. You have to pay attention, though, because Rushdie switches time periods with lightning speed.

I've already fallen in love with the writing, but you're right Mark - this one requires a lot of concentration for me!

I loved this passage, made me very anxious for spring to finally get here:
"The world was new again. After a winter's gestation in its eggshell of ice, the valley had beaked its way out into the open, moist and yellow. The new grass bided its time underground; the mountains were retreating to their hill-stations for the warm season."

That is lovely spacespuds.
I can't wait to join all of you. Am just awaiting my book from Amazon. Should be here tomorrow or soon thereafter. I just ordered it yesterday. I thought we didn't begin until the middle of the month. But Mark set me straight so I ordered the book and will be playing catch-up when it arrives.
hugs,
belva

>4 spacepotatoes: Andrea - I had put a sticky note on that same quote. It reminded me of how I see things this time of year, just waiting for spring.

It is a very dense read.

Yes, I'd forgotten how dense it is. You really have to pay attention and sometimes re-read paragraphs.

I am only fifty pages into the book and I keep thinking that the writing reminds me of somebody. I can't place it right now, but maybe it will come to me. Probably late at night ...

I find the writing to be very lyrical. This is impressive as it really makes me feel like I am listening to a storyteller instead of reading a book.

It's funny, this book is the complete flip-side of our Group Read of World Without End! You could read WWE on auto-pilot. It doesn't work that way here. Rushdie forces you to stay focused but he also writes vividly and has a wicked sense of humor. There are indelible moments, such as the perforated sheet episode, the hitting the spittoon and of course the indomitable Reverend Mother. I'm less than a 100 pages in and I'm not sure where he's taking me, but I am enjoying the ride!

I keep having to go back and reread whole paragraphs because I get to the end of a page and realize I missed a big chunk of it for whatever reason.

At this point I'm kind of wishing that the author would have included a list of characters at the beginning of the book along with a map of India but his writing is exquisite.

Started the book, not sure if I will be able to finish it in three weeks time, but yes, an amazing piece of writing!

Actually, I find this one much easier to read than the last one I read (Satanic Verses), living in India helps too with all the region/culture specific details and the names.

I just read about the perforated sheet incident! I found it got a little less confusing at that point, but that could also have been because last night was the first night that I could manage more than 4 pages worth :)

>8 benitastrnad: I have also been trying to place the author that Rushdie's writing reminds me of, but can't! I think maybe it's a combination of a few authors.

I just remembered one that came to mind last night. When I read the spark notes intro to the book, they mentioned magical realism and I think there is a touch of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the writing. Besides the obvious magical realism aspect, the snarky humour reminds me a bit of GGM too. But there is someone else that I can't put my finger on, too.

I thought about Marquez but the word play is much more sophisticated and slick. Rushdie just slides those puns in there and you don't know they are there until you get done reading the paragraph. Then you mind does a double take and you think "wait a minute - what did I just read?"

For instance. "It is a sign of the power of this custom that, even when her husband was afflicted by constipation, she never once permitted him to choose his food, and listened to no request or words of advice. A fortress may not move. Not even when its dependents' movements become irregular." (pg. 49 in my book) I had actually finished reading this paragraph and started the next one when I realized this was a pun. And what a fabulous pun it was! I then reread the paragraph and laughed out loud.

Snarky? Maybe. But it sure is fun. What a great command of language.

The things I have read about this book place it in the magical realism genre of fiction. However, I haven't found it to be that. ... yet. I think I was expecting it to be more like God of Small Things which also zinged those literary puns around like they were bouncy balls. God of Small Things is obviously magical realism but so far this one is much more like a comedy. I could see a doctor scrambling around on the ground looking for his precious bag while the massacre at Amritsar was going on above him. In my mind it played out sort of like an old fashioned Groucho Marx comedy movie. It is funny but deadly serious at the same time.

As I thought about it I wondered if his writing might be reminding me of Isabelle Allende?

Benita- It looks like you are a one-woman show! As usual, you bring plenty of food for thought. I finished Book 1 Friday and boy can this guy cram a lot into a 140 pages. He's quite a dazzling writer. I will probably start Book 2 today, to get a head start.
Here's the link for Book 2, which officially starts tomorrow: here

I'm trying to get caught up this weekend, so far I'm about halfway through Book One. I just finished reading the chapter called "Under the Carpet" and I think it's my favourite so far. I laughed out loud in a couple of spots. I loved the way Rushdie turned the narrator's parentage into a mystery and used the whole chapter to lead up to it - and it turned out totally different than I'd expected! I also like how he uses Padma as a way to talk to the reader (thank you SparkNotes for point that out!), though I am finding it a bit annoying at times.

Mark

You gave us the link for Book 3 instead of Book 2.

>16 benitastrnad: I think when you get a little further along in the book the magical realism will be more apparent.

Bonnie- Thanks for the heads-up! Being spacey, I guess!

I have just finished Part 1 and caught up - Mark, thank you for organising this!

I was completely blown away by the end of Part 1 - is it ok to talk about spoilers or should I wait until everyone's started Part 2?

Heather- As long as it pertains to Book 1, go for it! See you on 2!!

Book 1 is very rich and I found myself pausing to digest it. It's a little difficult to follow in places as Rushdie switches fequently between past, future and present.

As I recall, things become much easier after this as a generally linear pattern is followed.

I do find myself pausing frequently to trtry and work out the symbolism. For example, what does everyone think about the cloth with the holes? Is Rushdies suggesting that we never really see the whole of someone (or of a country) or that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole?

I think Rushdie was trying to make the comparison of the way AAdam was seeing only a small part at one time and could not really get a handle on what the whole body looked like. India, being such a large, teeming country with so many parts could be viewed the same way. But when you step back and remove the cloth and see the whole, it's nothing like the bits and pieces you were viewing. The sum is so much larger than it's pieces in both cases.

Bonnie- Good explanation!

I also think that the cloth is a metaphor. India is huge and at the time when Aadam came back it was really changing. It had been a collection of independent kingdoms of one kind or another and the British forced them into a whole. Somewhat. In the end some of the parts split off (Pakistan and Bangladesh) but Britain forced it to become a single country. There may be some who don't like the new unified whole but they will have to find a way to deal with it.

The political history is hard to follow in the realm of magical realism. Thank goodness I read Paul Scott years ago.

I am also intrigued by the power play between Aadam and his wife. Referring to her as the "Reverend Mother" is so perfect. And she calling her husband "whatsitsname" is so funny. However, I also see this relationship as a metaphor for the old traditional - Nazeem, and the new - Aadam. She keeps telling the doctor that he is going to be sorry that he brought all those new fangled ideas to the house, letting his daughters go to school, etc. He doesn't see it that way. He thinks that his daughters should be educated and have choices. It is clear to me that Nazeem is aligned with the old boatman back at the beginning of the story. Remember that he hated the bag from Heidelberg. Several times in the first 75 pages I have seen this medical bag brought into the story, so I am going to assume that it plays some major part in the story. It is clear that it is symbolic of bringing the new modern world to India. The old boatman's complaint is that it is an Indian who has done this, not the foreigners.

I think when Reverend Mother refers to Aadam as "whatsitsname" she's really being dismissive of him and, of course, his new fangled ideas. But then again, she refers to everyone as "whatsitsname" which, I think just shows her high opinion of herself.

I agree that the the medical bag has some significance. I'm just not sure what yet but your theory is very good.

Reverend Mother aligned with the old boatman? Hmmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of that.

Re: the hole in the cloth, I found it interesting that Amina/Mumtaz used the reverse trick in order to fall in love with her husband. In that case, she was able to make the whole more appealing by breaking it down into its parts...although, she's kind of deluding herself there, the parts aren't that great either!

>28 benitastrnad: Very well said! I was actually kind of surprised that Naseem turned out to be so set in her traditional ways. She seemed more playful during the years of the perforated sheet, which I thought was her father's idea and she just went along with it because she had to. I didn't expect her to cling to her father's ideas of propriety so tightly after she and Aadam were married.

A big theme throughout the first book is the division between India's progressive and traditional Muslims, Aadam representing the former and Naseem the latter. Most of the progressives are opposed to partition and don't want to move to Pakistan but the dividing lines aren't all that clear. Jinnah himself, after all, was the model of a westernised Muslim (to the extent that he was religious at all).

Spacespuds - great point about Amina's reverse trick.

Wow, there have been some great comments about the symbolism of different parts of the story. I'm not great at picking up these things when I'm reading on my own so it's really great to have this discussion (I've also found the sparknotes site really helpful).

#24 Jintser, I also found the switching between past/present/future a bit difficult to follow. I'm really glad the book has chapters; I've found it gives me a good pausing point.

I was completely gobsmacked by the two babies being switched at the end of part 1 - I did not see that one coming!

It's really turned my thoughts about Part 1 upside down. After all the emphasis on the prominent nose of Saleem's grandfather, to find out that Saleem can't have inherited his nose from his grandfather... I think my initial reaction was similar to Padma's (who I keep thinking of as Padme from the latest Star Wars films).

Can't wait to see where we go in Part 2.

One of the things that I really dislike about magical realism is that you have to be very well versed in the history of the place about which the author is writing. If you aren't it is really easy to get lost. Or to lose very important threads of the story. Even though I have the broad general outlines of the history of Indian independence it is still easy to get lost and not be able to put the story in the context of the times.

I am still in the early stages of the book, but it seems clear that the author is trying to put a personal spin on the divisions within India. The rich against the poor. The old government against the new optimism of the political progressives. The Muslims against the Hindus. And that these divisions were found in families among people trying to live together. And of course, the British trying to hang on to the jewel in the crown of their empire.

I find myself really feeling for the frustration of Aadam. He is a good man trying to do good things, and finds himself stymied by his wife and to some degree his children.

I appreciate the authors humor. He manages to write about the every day happenings of the household in such a way that they actually make the reader laugh out loud. Gotta love that.

Regarding the medical bag and all the antaganism toward it's owner; I believe it is due to the fact that the medical bag is made of pigskin. The same with the silver spittoon; it is due to the material it is made of. There is some kind of meaning there with that but I am just not certain what it is. It obviously has something to do with how the people of India feel about what those two things are made of and he definitely looked down on the doc because of it. I am just not quite getting it.
But one of you is getting it and will share, I am sure.
belva
P.S. Thanx Mark, for doing all of this and setting it up for us. All of us appreciate it. You de Man!~!

Belva- It's great having you aboard and bringing your interesting contributions!

Thanx Mark. It is good to FINALLY be here. I think my book must have had to travel through sleet, rain and gloom of night to get here!~! LOL!
belva

pigs are anathema to muslims. It is pigs, or to be more precise, lard that was the spark that set off the Sepoy Mutiny in the 1850's. Muslims have many of the same dietary laws as do Jews. It is forbidden for Muslims to eat pork. In the 1850's the British used a cartridge on their mussel loading rifles that you had to bite the end off. the packet contained both ball and powder and was a vast improvement over the old method of measuring out the powder from the powder horn then putting the ball on top of it. AFter the end was bitten off the packet then was then pushed down the barrel of the gun. In order to keep the packet dry and usable in all kinds of weather it was greased. Rumor had it that they cartridges were greased with pig fat. Muslims refused to use it for that reason.

Most Hindus do not eat meat. Therefore, they refused to use the cartridges because they would not contribute to the death of an animal, even if it was from a pig. Lard almost succeeded in uniting both Muslims and Hindus against the British more than any other thing.

It makes sense that Tai doesn't like the bag because it is made of pigskin. But his rant is about the doctor coming from a foreign place with his foreign ideas. So it is not only pigskin that Tai dislikes but the ideas that Aadem brought with him from that foreign place. I think that both Tai and Reverend Mother are afraid that India will loose its identity and become just another western country. And that people that should know better, native born Indians, are the main reason. They are going to make India more western than the British did.

Thank you beni. That helps with the understanding of that and it makes perfect sense. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it.
belva

It is important to remember that all that trouble about the greased cartridges was just a rumor. The British heard about the rumor early on and stopped putting any grease on the cartridges. They allowed individual units to use whatever kind of grease they deemed best. That did not defuse the situation.

I find it interesting that Rusdie as a Kashmiri as the protagonist of this story, and that he has the family move around from Amritsar to Agra to Delhi and then to Bombay. It would seem that Aadam was very successful in order to afford that.

I don't know. I find the story to be very compelling. I'm not killing myself to figure out all the metaphors and symbolism but just am reading it for what it is to me: just an interesting story with many interesting and complex characters.

I like the tone of the book, but I do see lots of classism in the story. Rushdie sort of uses the tongue in check approach in very sly and insidious ways. They help make the book the beautiful thing of language that it is.

Ok, FINALLY finished part one! This is much more dense than I was expecting but I'm sticking with it.

Re: the medical bag. If I recall correctly, Tai makes a comment about the instruments in it. Specifically, he makes snide remarks about Aadam's stethoscope. To him, those instruments represented foreign technologies and ideas that conflicted with the traditional ways, and he thought they would only bring more suffering rather than healing. I'm looking forward to seeing what role that bag plays as we continue with the story.

In the chapter where Amina goes to see the psychic, the passage about her losing her "city eyes" was really well written. And interesting that she was moved by what she saw, but did nothing.

I'm still cheating a bit by reading the spark notes summaries and analyses, but I've been finding them helpful. One of the things they mention is that Rushdie has been dropping hints at Saleem being an unreliable narrator. I'm starting to wonder about that myself. Sorry if this is already being mentioned Week 2, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers until I get caught up.

One thing that I thought is that the book itself is a bit like the sheet with the hole. That is we get bits and pieces of the story. I'm hoping that it will all come together so that we can see the whole picture.

Hey everyone! It sounds like a few are a bit disappointed, I hope you hang in there and finish it. As we know, it's not the easiest read, it's dense and challenging but I feel at it's core it's an ambitious and well-written. I wish the characters were a bit warmer and accessible, I think that would help!

I took the book with me for spring break hoping to get lots of it read. I finally finished book 1 and did get well into book 2. However, I have to say that I agree with Mark. It is dense. and I don't really have characters that I like. All of them are flawed. But the best one for me is Aadam. He sees things and gets caught up in them, but finds it hard to fight his family, especially his wife. I find that I like Rushdie's style of writing. Some of those puns are killer.

I have the same issue with characters. The only one I was really sympathetic to was Aadam. I also found Evie Burns and Shiva really interesting, but she only lasted one chapter and he has pretty much disappeared too. Now in Book 3, I really don't care what happens to any of them, I just want to get it done!

#46 I know what you mean, I am 2 and a half chapters away from the end now. I really want to finish it this weekend!