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Loading... Midnight's Children (1981)by Salman Rushdie
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Chosen as the Booker Prize winner of all Booker Prize winners. Magical realism in India and Pakistan. Not for me, for some reason. It took me forever to read this. ( ![]() More on magical realism. And then some. There is some truth in the idea that any banned author is worth reading. If you don’t believe me, re-read Calvino (above), and then we can talk. For me, a successful piece of magical realism is possible when the constraints and opportunities for the characters are set in some impossible way, which you promptly forget is artificial and become invested in. This is absolutely the case with the way the Midnight's Children can hear each other's voices, and is even mostly the case with the special powers of the main characters. At the end, when we learn about the rush of powers possessed by other Midnight's Children, it did all seem a bit artificial, but it didn't matter so much at that point. Within the world established at the start, it was a lot of fun to watch Saleem buffeted around by the various voices in his life. Great store, I liked the narrator for the audiobook (Lyndam Gregory) I don't know enough about the history of India to fully appreciate this, but the story was fascinating. I never knew what to expect next, and there were so many turns and beautiful characters. However, with an unreliable narrator and incoherent ending, I was left a bit lost as to what *actually* happened (which, I suppose, is the whole point...). For a book of its size (it's a big boy), I certainly never grew tired or frustrated with the story.
Midnight's Children is a teeming fable of postcolonial India, told in magical-realist fashion by a telepathic hero born at the stroke of midnight on the day the country became independent. First published in 1981, it was met with little immediate excitement. "The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. . . . What [English-language fiction about India] has been missing is . . . something just a little coarse, a hunger to swallow India whole and spit it out. . . . Now, in 'Midnight's Children,' Salman Rushdie has realized that ambition." Belongs to Publisher SeriesHas the adaptationHas as a studyHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable ListsTorchlight List (#190) Waterstones Books of the Century (No 25 – 1997)
Fantasy.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:The iconic masterpiece of India that introduced the world to â??a glittering novelistâ??one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytellingâ?ť (The New Yorker) WINNER OF THE BEST OF THE BOOKERS â?˘ SOON TO BE A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time â?˘ The fortieth anniversary edition, featuring a new introduction by the author Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of Indiaâ??s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with Indiaâ??s 1,000 other â??midnightâ??s children,â?ť all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its peopleâ??a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Forty years after its publication, Midnightâ??s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of th No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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