When Indian novelist Rushdie arrived with Grimus in 1979 we called
him "an imagination to watch." And he'll be watched indeed once
this bravura fiction starts circulating - a picaresque
entertainment that's clearly inspired by close readings of the
modern South American fabulists and, above all, Sterne's Tristram
Shandy. Rushdie's own Tristram is named Saleem Sinai - and he is
born at the stroke of midnight, August 15, 1947, making him exactly
contemporary with the life of India-as-a-nation. In fact, Saleem
and 580 other "midnight children" born at that moment grow up to
find themselves equipped with powers of telepathic communication,
foresight, and heightened individual sensoria: Saleem's particular
gift is a "cucumber" of a nose with which he goes through life
literally smelling change. The Sinai family, originally Kashmiri
Moslems, migrate to Bombay, living in ex-colonial digs. And a
switch at birth with a neighbor's baby seeds narrative trouble that
flowers at different times later on in the book: opera buffa
complications all the way. Saleem seems to be in the middle of all
cataclysmic Indian events, too. He's present during language riots
and a dinner-party coup in Pakistan (where his mother fled after a
marital spat involving the revealed baby-switch). Because of his
olfactory talent, he becomes a "man-dog" tracker for a Pakistani
military unit during the debacle in Bangladesh. And, back in
Bombay, Saleem is clapped into jail with the other "midnight
children" by "the Widow" - Indira Gandhi - during the dictatorial
Emergency. Rushdie swoops, all colors unfurled, all stops out,
through and around his synchronic fable with great gusto and
sentimental fizz. And though such a rodomontade would be shameless
if made out of more familiar material, the sub-continental
excessiveness (and the fascinating history lesson which is
incidentally built in) keeps us loading and firing right along.
Tour de force, in other words - and so, of course, a little
exhausting; but, unlike other fantastical picaresques, this one is
truly worth the effort. A big striped balloon of a book, often
dizzying with talent. (Kirkus Reviews)
A history of India since independence seen through the eyes of
characters born on that independence was granted. Often hailed as a
classic of magic realism, this is a many-layered and entralling
narrative in which the complexities of the sub-continent are
projected through the minds of its many characters, comic, tragic
and fantastic by turns, this is the novel which revolutionized
English literature in one fell swoop. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN was voted
in the Booker of Bookers in 1993.
General
Imprint: |
Everyman's Library
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
Everyman's Library CLASSICS |
Release date: |
September 1995 |
Authors: |
Salman Rushdie
|
Dimensions: |
211 x 132 x 34mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
589 |
Edition: |
Reissued [New Ed.] |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-85715-217-3 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
1-85715-217-4 |
Barcode: |
9781857152173 |
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