Midnight's Children
Nov. 8th, 2018 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearContinuing with my plan to read more widely in terms of global settings, I recently read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.
It's an odd book. The story is about a boy born on the stroke of midnight when India gained independence in 1947. The book follows his life as he grows up and also tracks the events of India's subsequent history, but in a very roundabout, fractured way. The narrator is telling the story to someone who comments upon it in the narrative, and the narrator jumps around a lot and makes multiple references to things that will happen later. It also contains a lot of magical realism, with the boy (and many other children born at the same time) possessing powers and the ability to influence certain events.
I mostly enjoyed the book, though a lot of the historical, societal and political significance of the events was probably lost on me. But it's an interesting, if unusual, read.
It's an odd book. The story is about a boy born on the stroke of midnight when India gained independence in 1947. The book follows his life as he grows up and also tracks the events of India's subsequent history, but in a very roundabout, fractured way. The narrator is telling the story to someone who comments upon it in the narrative, and the narrator jumps around a lot and makes multiple references to things that will happen later. It also contains a lot of magical realism, with the boy (and many other children born at the same time) possessing powers and the ability to influence certain events.
I mostly enjoyed the book, though a lot of the historical, societal and political significance of the events was probably lost on me. But it's an interesting, if unusual, read.
