Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Midnight's Children My daughter read Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie for a class in college and suggested I read it too. It was an interesting novel about India just before and after independence from Great Britain. The main premise of the novel was that children born near to midnight on the night of independence were granted various supernatural gifts. The main character was able to read minds and communicate with all the other children. Some of the children could travel through time, others were able to travel from place to place via smooth surfaces, such as mirrors. The main character finds out when he is 10 that another child was born at the same time and the two babies were switched. He, who was the natural child of a poor family was raised in luxury, while the child of the rich parents was raised in poverty. They became rivals. The story follows the upheavals with Pakistani independence and the war that split Pakistan and Bangledesh. The history of the countries mirrors the narrator's life. It was a very interesting book, with many illusions to both Hindu and Muslim religious practices. The book woon the Booker Prize in 1981. 4:37:21 PM

© Copyright 2008 Jocelyn Shaw. Last update: 3/13/2008; 12:05:32 PM. Photo curtesy of Marjorie O'Brien