“Nose and knees and knees and nose” – part of a prophecy about the unborn narrator. A few days after reading this, I was fortunate to be in the Acropolis Museum, and was struck by a collection of three bas-reliefs that were just of knees. Coupled with the relative lack of whole noses on some of the statues, I was transported back to this book.This was my first adult Rushdie, following soon after his gorgeous children’s/YA novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. My initial reaction to this was “The language is lush and sensuous, seasoned with a little wit. But I feel hampered by my vague knowledge of Indian history, culture and mythology”. I thought much same at the end, although I also realised it’s a powerful and entrancing book at any level. “I am the sum total of everything that went before me… To understand me you’ll have to swallow the world.” But not just him, “To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world.”WHAT AND FOR WHO(M)?A knowledge of 20th century Indian history is clearly an advantage but, given the complexity and length of the story, it might be a slight distraction as well. Perhaps a timeline of key events would be a useful appendix. In the preface, Rushdie observes that Indians treat it as historical fiction and westerners as fantasy. I think it’s a hybrid, with the mystical, magical, surreal aspects increasing towards the end. He also explains that many of the characters are based on family and childhood friends. He doesn't mention that the adult bedwetter shares a name with his own son! His son was an infant at the time of writing, so it may have reflected the frustrations of early parenthood, but I can't believe his son thanked him for it later. On the other hand, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, written a few years later, has a beautiful and heart-breaking to the same son. It’s a curious, disorienting book that has passages of conventional narrative interspersed with rambling passages of history, allegory, philosophical reverie, and recaps and foreshadowing of plot. It’s worth keeping a few notes, as many characters change name and/or turn out not to be who you were first told they were.Reading it was a strange sensation: it was so far removed from anything familiar to me that it could almost have been sci-fi (I know that sounds weird). I loved some of the language, and appreciated the craft of the author, but I could not quite love it in the way I wanted and expected to. Straight after this, I turned to Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, which is another long and multi-layered novel, but where the desire to read just a little bit more was a deeper compulsion, with no parallel sense of… worthiness (not the right word, but I’m not sure what is). Rushdie delivered, but I fell short. The book deserves all its awards and a full 5*, but my own experience was 4*.PLOTThe plot is both simple and complex (duality and opposites are recurring themes). Saleem (the narrator)’s mother visits a soothsayer when pregnant, and his bizarre and seemingly contradictory conundrums sum up events, including: the knees and nose (above), “two heads – but you shall see only one… cobra will creep… Washing will hide him – voices will guide him… Blood will betray him” mentions of doctors, spittoons, jungle, wizards and soldiers, ending “He will have sons without having sons! He will be old before he is old! And he will die. . . before he is dead!”Saleem is born at midnight on the day India becomes independent, and raised in a wealthy Indian family. As a child, he becomes aware of a telepathic link to other Indian children born that night: Midnight’s Children, each of whom has at least one special power. “Thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks, I had been mystically handcuffed to history”. The events he tells, from his grandparent’s meeting onwards, are many and varied, but with common themes, woven in to a kaleidoscopic story that stays just short of confusing.THEMESEarly on, the idea of something being revealed in fragments is introduced, and later, Saleem says “the ghostly echo of that perforated sheet… condemned me to see my own life – its meanings, its structures – in fragments also.” Midnight’s Children are fragmented across the country; Saleem is their only connection. Hence, it seems appropriate to conjure impressions of the book from its many disparate, but intertwined, themes. As for assembling all these fragments…? That’s where I feel I failed slightly.•tFragments and holes, versus wholenessWhen Dr Aadam Aziz (Saleem’s grandfather) found himself “unable to worship a god in whose existence he could not wholly disbelieve”, it “made a hole in him… leaving him vulnerable to women and history.” There are many mentions of that hole (and others): “Sometimes, through a trick of the light, Amina thought she saw, in the centre of her father’s body, a dark shadow like a hole.”The original perforated sheet is used to examine a young female patient, seeing only what he needs to see. After many different ailments, he had a “badly-fitting collage of her severally-inspected parts” that filled up the hole inside him, even though he had never seen her face. It is sensitively and sensuously written. Loving in fragments is harder, especially when the subject is “now unified and transmuted into a formidable figure”, but more than one character attempts it. A descendant uses a different piece of perforated fabric to maintain modesty and anonymity while pursuing a singing career. •tDuality, pairs and oppositesThere are so many instances and aspects of these concepts, that there is no need to list or expand on them. Perhaps the most significant are Saleem and his “destructive, violent alter-ego”, leading opposite lives, and The Widow (Mrs Gandhi) with her centre parting giving her a white side and black side.•tSnakes (and ladders), hence reversalAs prophesised, snakes are important, both real and imaginary. Cobra venom cures typhoid, and from Snakes and Ladders (“perfect balance of rewards and penalties”), Saleem has “an early awareness of the ambiguity of snakes” and encounters plenty of ups and downs. This is an area where knowledge of Indian mythology would help.•tImpotenceBiological and metaphorical impotence, permanent and temporary, affects several characters (quite apart from mention of high-pressure sterilisation campaigns), including the nation of India itself. •tConfused parentage, gaining parents“Once again a child was to be born to a father who was not his father, although by a terrible irony the child would be the true grandchild of his father’s parents.”Not everyone is the biological child of who they are thought to be, not just from illicit relationships, but also, in incident at the heart of the book, by the deliberate act of a third party. Furthermore, Saleem develops a habit of acquiring a string of fathers and father figures.•tName-changingSome characters are known by nicknames (Saleem’s grandmother is Reverend Mother and his sister The Brass Monkey), and others change their name – especially women, to have children (his grandmother, mother and wife). This probably resonates with Indian mythology and culture in ways I don’t know.•tStorytelling, truth, memory, reality, and free speech“What’s real and what’s true are not necessarily the same.”“Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems.” Just as a cinema screen looks real until you’re so close you can see the pixels. “Memory’s truth… in the end it creates its own reality.”“What actually happens is less important than what the author can manage to persuade his audience to believe.”This was written years before the fatwa that sent Rushdie into hiding (and which is reflected in Haroun; see my review, linked at the top). However, a punishment in this is to “seal our lips”, like the "Sign of the Zipped Lips" in Haroun. One character here is voluntarily mute for three years, as a protest, and another is very late learning to speak.•tMagicAll the Midnight’s Children have a power. Saleem considers his telepathic and telegraphic skills to be the most powerful (“the ability to look into the hearts and minds of men”), with those born less close to midnight having progressively weaker skills. But others can become invisible, step in and out of mirrors, multiply fish, change sex at will, inflict physical pain with words, have perfect memory, heal, do alchemy, time travel, speak all languages, prophesy and more. Appropriately, the child of two Midnight’s Children is mute for three years, then his first word is Abracadabra.There is also a little numerology: 420 = fraud, 1001 = magic, 555 = evil.•tVanishingSeveral characters disappear for a time, or permanently: oblivion via the Djinn bottle, magical invisibility, running away, death, and two who apparently have vitiligo.•tTime and preservationThe time of birth is key to Saleem’s life and self-appointed mission to rescue his country. He ends up (no spoiler – he says this early on) as a pickle-maker and a writer: “I spend my time at the great work of preserving. Memory, as well as fruit, is being saved from the corruption of the clocks.” This reminded me of one of the few other Indian books I’ve read, The God of Small Things, in which the family has a pickle factory. •tSmell and other sensesSaleem has a huge nose, and at different times has no sense of smell and a very powerful, magical one that can detect safety, danger, the “glutinous reek of hypocrisy” and “the fatalistic hopelessness of the slum dwellers and the smug defensiveness of the rich”. “The perfume of her sad hopefulness permeates her.”Emotions can be transferred via sewing and cooking: “the curries and meatballs of intransigence… fish salans of stubbornness and the birianis of determination” and clothes “into whose seams she had sewn her old maid’s bile… the baby-things of bitterness, then the rompers of resentment… the starch of jealousy… our wardrobe was binding us into the webs of her revenge.”•tBloodBlood was in the prophecy in a specific way, but it crops up in many other ways and there are a couple of paragraphs where Saleem rattles them off.•t Spittoon and AnglepoiseA silver spittoon inlaid with lapis lazuli is important, as are spittoons in general. I felt the cultural gap here.Trivial (or maybe not), but within the first hundred pages, I’d noted at least three variants of “Anglepoised pool of light”. Having spotted it, it was almost more distracting to find only two more in the remaining 500+ pages. I'm not the only person to have noticed:Salman Rushdie and Translation:"the Anglepoise lamp, a uniquely individualistic type of lighting which lights up only the small, restricted area of desk or writing materials in its scope. The phrase also seems to imply Anglophone or Anglophile literary writing alongside the notion of writing by lamplight."Salman Rushdie: Critical Essays volume 1:"The trope of the Anglepoise light... suggests the divided sensibility in Saleem, a child born in post-colonial India, not post-Independence India."AND THE MORAL IS?I’m not sure there is one. The subject is raised obliquely a few times, but somehow feels lacking. I’m puzzled that I wrote that: I don’t seek out morality tales, but as I compile this review, I realise this felt like the sort of book that had, or ought to have, such a thread, and yet I lost it in the rich tapestry.The Midnight Children “found it easy to be brilliant, [but] we were always confused about being good”, just as Saleem used his powers to cheat in class in an attempt to gain parental approval.Another gap was precisely WHY Mary Pereira does the thing she does. A reason is given, but it doesn’t really make sense to me, and the implications and effects are so huge, I wanted to understand. Related to that, why did those who found out, not try to investigate and find?“For what reason you’re rich and I’m poor?”OTHER QUOTES•t“His face was a sculpture of wind and water: ripples made of hide.”•t“Most of what happens in our lives happens in our absence.”•t“Even in his moments of triumph, there hung the stink of future failure.”•t“Poverty eats away at the tarmac like a drought, where people live their invisible lives.”•t“He had eyes like road-drills, hard and full of ratatat.”•t“An apartment of such supernatural untidiness.”•t“Blurred the edges of himself by drink.”•t"I have become, it seems to me, the apex of an isosceles triangle, supported equally by twin deities, the wild god of memory and the lotus-goddess of the present... but must I now be reconciled to the narrow one-dimensionality of a straight line?"•t“Uncreated lives rotting in her womb.”•t“We could hear the creaks and groans of a rustling, decayed imagination.”•tArmy recruits “were so young, and had not had time to acquire the type of memories which give men a firm hold on reality.”•tWhen invisible, “I hung in a sphere of absence”.•t“A girl who followed him with eyes moistened with accusation.”•t“The widow’s finest, most delicate joke: instead of torturing us, she gave us hope. Which meant she had something… to take away.”•t“Soft, amorous susurrations, like the couplings of velvet mice.”•t“The quinquesyllabic monotony of the wheels.”•tApparently, Lady Mountbatten “ate chicken breasts secretly behind a locked lavatory door.” It is strange if true, and even stranger to mention it.There were also a few multi-tense strings, which were quite effective in context: “we were are shall be the gods you never had” and he ”will be is already more cautious.”
(وَقْع إسم سلمان رشدى على الأُذْن العربيه (وخاصة المسلمة) من أسوأ ما يكون , فهو ذلك الكاتب الذى اتخذ من قلمة أداة لإهانة مقدساتنا والتجريح فيها )هذه هى الصورى الذهنيه التى غالباً ستتكون عندك ولا ألومك فى هذا لأنك لم تقرأ له مثلما كانت هى عندى ولم أكن قد قرأت له بعد. فجرمه المزعوم المتمثل فى (آيات شيطانيه) كان من القوة بحيث أصبح ملازم لإسمه.وللحق فأنا لم أقرأ جريمته تلك لكى أحكم ولكن هى صورة ليست إلا .ولكن بمجرد ما تنتهي من أول 10 صفحات من رائعته(أطفال منتصف الليل) لن تملك إلا أن تقع تحت تأثير سحر أدبى من نوع خاص.هو العمل الذى كُتب ليُخلّد فى تاريخ الآداب العالميه.من الأعمال القليله التى انتهيت منها على مرحلتين(3 ساعات فى الأول و6 ساعات فى المرحلة الثانيه)ولم أكن أريد له أن ينتهى , قرأته بتمهل شديد مخافة أن يضيع منى لفتة هنا أو هناك.عمل ضخم (670ص)ولكنى على ثقة تامة فى أنه معجزة أدبيه متكاملة الاطراف.تمكن مذهل فى أدوات الأديب العظيم والروائى الفحل, لدرجة انبهارى الشخصى بعمره فى حين كتابته(كان يبلغ 34عام)كيف تأّتى لهذا الإنسان ان يكتب بتلك العظمة فى ذلك السن الصغير(نسبياً)للوهلة الأولى اعتقدت أن الكتاب مجرد سيرة ذاتيه له (فالبطل فى نفس سنة مولده) ولكن اتضح أنها سيرة ذاتيه لأمة كاملة.ببساطه مطلقة يقدم لك تاريخ من نوع خاص وأكثر خصوصية فى تناول حياة البشر والمجتمعات.العمل عبارة عن استرجاع كاتب (سليم سيناء) لحياته الكاملة عن طريق (الفلاش باك) فهو يحكى لخادمته الشخصيه أحداث حياته ولكن الموضوع ليس بهذه البساطه الظاهرة فهو قسّم العمل إلى 3 أقسام :الأول : ماقبل مولده : يقدم لك حياته الشخصيه كما لا يحب أى بشر أن يقدمها ابتدأ من لقاء جده بجدته والأحداث الغريبه المصاحبه لتاريخ عائلته (الغريب) مرورا بتفاصيل أكثر غرابة وصُدف إلى أن تتزوج أمه بأبيه ويأتى هو فى لحظة حاسمة فى تاريخ وطنه فنفس لحظة مولده هى نفس لحظة إعلان استقلال الهند بعد جهود العظيم غاندى وتلميذه نهرو , وتشاء الصدف ان يصاحب مولده كوارث اجتماعيه وطفرات غريبه تخص شخصه الغريب.الجزء الثانى: من أعظم ما قرأت فى حياتى على الإطلاق . الإبداع المجسّد أمامك على ورق وكتوب بحبر عادى , هو السحر , وصدق النبي - صلى الله عليه وسلم - : إن من البيان سحرا . فهو السحر الذى ينقلك من عالمك البغيض وواقعك المؤلم لجنة الأدب الحقيقيه , أخشى ما أخشاه ألا اقدر عن ايفاء هذا الجزء حقه فلا يسعنى إلا أن اقول عليه ذلك , فقط.فى الجزء الثالث : الأصاله الحقيقيه فى تناول المجتمع وشرح أحداث بالغة الأهميه وتوصيل معلومات مهمة فى صورة أدبيه بليغة, جزء تراثى بامتياز عبّر فيه الكاتب عن نفسه بواقعيه شديده .يقدم لك الكاتب الإبداع البشرى المتمثل فى تقديمه لحياة من ولدوا فى منتصف ليل إعلان استقلال الهند , فقد ولد فى هذه الساعه أطفال خارقين استغل الكاتب وجودهم وتزعم شخصيته البطل لهم وتفرده عليهم مع فانتازيا من نوع خاص , استخدم الكاتب كل ذلك ليرسم لك لوحته الأدبيه الخالده.فى المجمل : عمل عظيم وتأريخ أدبى بالغ الأهميه ليس فقط لشخصية(سليم)بل لمجتمع الهند وباكستان وحتى بنجلاديش, ليس تأريخ بالمعنى المتعارف عليه من حيث أحداث تاريخ (جامده)يقدمها فى صورة تبليغيه , بل هو تأريخ لعادات مجتمعيه وأحداث إنسانيه جميله.فكلنا يعرف غاندى ونهرو ومحمد على جناح ومجيب الرحمن وغيرهم من الشخصيات الرائدة فى تلك المنطقه الكثيفه(سكانياً وتاريخياً) ولكننا لا نعرف ما يعترك بداخل تلك المجتمعات وهذا ما تكفل به الكاتب فى كتابه.من حيث اللغه : فالترجمه العظيمة لا تأتى إلا من خلال عمل لغوى من أعظم ما يكون , فإذا كان العمل بكل هذه العظمة فى غير لغته فمن المؤكد انه أعظم بمراحل فى لغته الأم .من حيث الشخصيات : وصف وتحليل وعمق انسانى بالغ الروعه والدقة , الشخصيات حية بين الصفحات تكلمها وتكلمك , تتألم لألمها وتحزن لحزنها,الأحداث: طبيعيه وغريبه فى نفس الوقت (ازاى أنا شخصيا ما اعرفش) أحداث دقيقه ودقتها أتت من عمق شخصياتها.قد يكون أعظم عمل قرأته فى هذا العام ومن أعظم الاعمال التى قراتها على الإطلاق , هذا العمل حالة انسانية بالغة الجمال , والجمال الإنسانى بداخله أبى إلا أن ينتقل اليك ويجعلك تشعر بالجمال أيضا.من الملاحظ الحس الإسلامى فى العمل (من حيث بعض التعليقات التى تخص تاريخ الصحابه وحياة الرسول (ص) وإن كانت تحتاج بعض التدقيق , لا أقول أنه عمل إسلامى ولكن أقول واضح خلفية الكاتب المسلمة .
What do You think about Midnight's Children (1995)?
منذ الصفحات الأولى شعرت أنني موعودة بقراءة نص غير اعتيادي، وقعت تحت سطوة سحره فوراً، أسلوب الكتاب، المحتوى، طريقة السرد كانت مميزة بشكل لافتنص الرواية خرافي وكأن كاتب الرواية أصيب بالبكم وبداخله الكثير الذي لم يبح به بعد، وعندما منحوه ورقة وقلم، تفجَّر القلم و خطَّ على الورق ما تضخم بداخله ليصنع لنا هذه التحفة الفنية من "الثرثرة اللامتناهية" .. .. نعم ثرثرة ولكنها ليست فارغةما هذه الثرثرة؟!! طوال 667 صفحة لم أشعر أبداً أن هناك حشواً زائداً يُثقل كاهل النص، بل كانت ثرثرة من الطراز الرفيع، ثرثرة فخمة، ثرثرة أقل ما يقال عنها أنها خرافية .. .. على رأي إخواننا في مصر إيه الهبل دهسليم سيناء يحكي ويُحيي ماضية بطريقة سردية تعتمد الكشف عن الأحداث بطريقة متداخلة تكاد تكون عشوائية لنا، ممنهجه ذات أهداف له، تجعل الصورة لا تكتمل إلا في الصفحة الأخيرة وهذا ما زاد النص تشويقاً وإثارة غير عاديةلم أشعر أني مفصولة عن الأحداث، فالحوار موجَّه للقارئ/ة أيضاً بجمل تطلب منَّا أن لا نتسرع وأن هناك شيء سيحدث ولكن علينا أن ننتظر قليلاً لأن الوقت لم يحن بعد، وشخصيات يكشف عنها بشكل جزئي كأنها خيال شبح يؤدي دورة الجزئي فقط في تلك اللحظة قبل أن يحين دوره ( قد ننتظر لنهاية الرواية ليظهر) .. .. هذه الالتفاتات خلقت نوع من الارتباط الحميمي بالرواية، فطريقة الراوي جعلتني جزاءاً رئيسياً منها مثل "بادما" تماماً التي خصَّها "سليم سيناء" بحكايتهأيضاً:-رغم أن الرواية ترتبط بتاريخ دموي (فترة مهمة في تاريخ الهند والباكستان ) بالإضافة لتاريخ "سليم" البائس إلا أن في ذروة البؤس لا يبخل علينا الكاتب بالدعابة، فللكاتب حس دعابة عالي جداً فالابتسامة والضحك من الأعماق لم يفارقني طوال القراءةملاحظة مهمة:- الترجمة راااااااااائعة
—Lona
Update:Just back from watching the movie and.... well... it kind of highlights the less great parts of the book, just because it's a movie. You notice the non-plot, you notice that the characters get dragged around from India to Pakistan to Bangladesh depending which big political event or war is happening as we make our way from 1947 to 1977; and we really notice how gushingly sentimental it all turns out in the end. All of these problems are there in the book but are melted, dissolved, and blended like tasty spices in a piquant dish. All is made good by Rushdie's fantastic prose style which is utterly stunning and makes the book a MUST READ. And the prose, even the bits read by the narrator, who is Mr Rushdie himself, is not in the movie. Because it's a movie not a book. SUMMARYBook : 10!Film : 5.5************An earlier non-review:Everyone knows Salman was once a humble copywriter for an ad agency. And he came up with a couple of good ones – famously, one for the National Dairy Council, when they were advertising cream cakes. The slogan was “Naughty … but nice” and the ads were televised around 1980.I was listening to a lot of American pop stuff from the 50s the other day and what came up but Frankie Avalon, singing a daft song called “Gingerbread”REFRAIN Ginger bread ginger bread ginger bread ginger bread Ginger bread ginger bread ginger bread ginger bread You're full of sugar you're full of spice You're kinda naughty but you're naughty and niceSalman Rushdie – you’re busted. And you're outed as a Frankie Avalon fan.
—Paul Bryant
If beating around the bush was a crime; then, Salman Rushdie would be charged with aggravated assault and attempt to murder of that bush.If there was of contest of master of digressions; he would emerge as the undisputed winner. And, if any novel could even come close to portraying India’s vast cultural identity;that novel would be Midnight’s Children .Salman Rushdie is a wicked, WICKED author. In this booker of booker’s novel, he has given us one of the most unreliable, irritating, annoying, clumsy, distracted narrator ever!; Saleem Sinhai . Saleem addresses the readers directly and informally. He writes in a prose style which is spontaneous and improvised, because, of course, he is afraid that he doesn’t have much time left, and has no time to revise or edit. Saleem rambles and veers off, follows as many tangents possible, rephrases and reworks and OH, he is also constantly interrupted by Padma, the mud princess (unlike him, I don’t mean that kindly )Formal conventions of narrative, (apparently) can’t sufficiently convey his story. So, Saleem breaks all those conventions and playfully violates the rules of time, space, and language. Have no doubt; Saleem is the kind of narrator which makes you go:Like I said, Salman Rushdie is a wicked author. With his narrator’s crazy antics, it’s as if he is tempting the reader to quit. He also robs the readers of any romantic notions one may have about reality and life in general. Sometimes beautiful, but mostly, the grotesque facets of a person’s, a society’s, a nation’s nature is highlighted. Throughout the novel, he remains intent on dismantling the false veneer of faith, exposing and exploring the essential human frailties and complexities that lie beneath. He redefines the term harsh reality .Through symbols, and allusions, this novel also has a scathing portrayal of life and politics. There are mothers committing adultery, there is incest and betrayals, there is failure, and then there are the atrocities of war. Rushdie is also quite vocal about his opinions about the Gandhi family. His views had me flinching, laughing out loud, and had my eyes popping out. Controversial doesn’t even begin to describe him! It’s a wonder he is still alive.This is the 4th time I am coming across a novel which has so thoroughly frustrated and enchanted me. During book 1, I was mad at Rushdie for using such an eccentric narrative style. By the end of book 2, I was desperately wishing to return to the less-convoluted narrative of book 1 and by book 3, I was at the edge of my seat, reading like a maniac.Was sticking with this book, and tolerating Saleem worth it? Yes,I think it was! . If, not for the story and the characters, then, for the symbolism of the snakes and ladders, the perforated sheets and the silver spittoon. Salman Rushdie can definitely conjure magic with his words.
—Shayantani Das
