Ed's Reviews > Midnight's Children

Midnight’s Children did not quite live up to my expectations, which were set very high by the book’s reputation. It’s a complex, messy novel; colourful, filled with a blend of fantasy and possibility, and a mood that is at once hopeful and resigned. It presents history as memory and story rather than settled fact, and beautifully weaves the human with the epic and the mythic.

I did appreciate the central metaphor and structure: the expression of the birth and growth of a nation through that of its children; the promise of greatness, and the eventual decline of its potential through human failings – these work on the personal and national scale (and in a third mystical, metaphysical dimension at which the novel hints), and what the novel does well - though perhaps a little too heavy-handedly at times - is draw together these parallel lines and overlapping themes. But I often got a sense of the author losing himself within the novel’s framework, desperately seeking something tangible to point to among the random happenings and loose connections - the final section itself seems entirely a uncertain search for a meaningful resolution. The result is a novel that is too much concerned with the frenzied antics of its array of fantastical characters, each with his own peculiar quirk – a strange physical feature (nose, ears, knees, breasts), a recurring phrase ("whatsitsname") – though some of these characters and events are memorable, many seem shallow and superfluous, and I found the repetition of this formula less and less compelling as the novel wore on.

Rushdie is an accomplished writer: he writes elegantly and with great energy. However I was not drawn to the voice of Saleem Sinai, or generally captivated by his characters. I found the whimsical tone a little overbearing at times. Too often there were little tricks and tropes that stood out to me, such as the aforementioned inexhaustible cast of quirky characters, and repeated abuse of minor cliff-hangers, which often made promises that were never suitably fulfilled. I did enjoy the many forays into Indian history, but I think that is interesting in itself, not necessarily made more so by the novel.