MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN
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| The First Edition Cover |
And,
I have been reading the book ever since I was in 7th standard. Not
reading and re-reading, but reading. The story of me, and the novel, can
very well be an epic.
Warning: this is completely off-the-track
So,
like every other 19-year old, I was once a 13 year old, who had made up
her mind to read a book every week. From really crappy books (The star
book of horror stories) to the classics (A Christmas Carol, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) to the contemporary ones, she had read
at least 3 pages of every book she could coerce her parents to buy or
threaten her friends to issue from the school library. While her
bookshelves were groaning under the pressure of unread books which never
saw the light of the day because they failed to impress the tyrannous
teenager in their first 3 pages, some were biding their time.
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| Salman Rushdie |
So
this particular book , ‘The Midnight’s Children’, emblazoned with a
golden sticker proclaiming it to be the ‘bookers of the bookers’, was
one of them. Some strange sorcery it knew. How the story of me finally
managing to complete the book, and the story of the book itself, are
related, will be revealed shortly.
The review begins :
The
very first pages greeted me with some very strange vivid imagery. And
with the narrator nowhere in the picture in the first book, I, who was
well-accustomed to reading linear, straight-simple plots which give out
the significance of the title from the first page itself, grew more and
more frustrated and shut the book close, and watched it grow musty and
dusty on my shelves with some sadistic pleasure.
But
then, on our trip to Kashmir, some years later, the images from the
book haunted me. I saw Kashmir through the looking-glass of the
narrator; the dal lake was the place where the german lady killed
herself, the people were the hypocrites Aadam Aziz despised.
So
I had to resume reading the book, only to stop reading it at some
point, a few days later; because the book-reading season had ended, and
JEE preparation had to start.
By
the end of JEE preparation, some force within me was determined to
finish the hideously impossible-to-finish book. While reading the book, I
had already read a total of 5 novels, and finally reached the end after
a year when I had to read the book all over again, at one go, in a day,
not sleeping at all for that period.
Phew?
So, now, where is the parallel? Like the aforesaid period of over six
years, with the last day being the only meaningful day, the story spans a
long period of time, starting from the time before independence, till
the anniversary of India’s independence. Sometimes you wonder why the
author had to tell you the history to everything, which has only
metaphorical significance later on, and perhaps makes up for an
interesting read. And while I (miserably) try to draw a parallel here,
the book is entirely a parallel between the life of a man, born at the
stroke of midnight, the time India became an independent country and
blessed with supernatural powers (of telepathy and an acute sense of
smell), and the history of the country he was born in.
The
parallels are not very evident, and you have to put in a lot of effort,
without really knowing why you are doing that, to ‘get’ it. Infact, the
author himself has to specify the not-so-evident parallels through the
course of the story.
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| Deepa mehta's rendition of midnight's children |
Now, moving on to the rest.
The book is magnificently written.
Not beautifully, neither poignantly, but magnificently. The images are
high-definition vivid. So vivid, they can actually nauseate you.The
storyline is epic. Not effortless. Neither touching. But epic. You will
rarely find a book like it, which will challenge your senses to imagine
more and more, to rack your brains....and all the while you will want to
stop reading the book, only to continue reading it after sometime.
And,very much like the absolutely unnecessary beginning of the piece
I’ve written, you’ll find most parts totally unnecessary.Only later you
realize you enjoyed reading the unnecessary portion more than you did
the rest.
You wonder, is it because the author wants you to believe that the book is not the work of a master storyteller, but is exactly, precisely the narrative of a normal person who is telling the story of his life, unbelievable, modified at times to make it seem grand?
The
descriptions tend to be...completely crazy at times. You think, do
people write this way? Is this how stories are supposed to be told? All
of the facts naked, with absolutely not concealing anything? So much
will some lines, phrases, mesmerise you, that anything the book
describes, you will never be able to describe it in your own words. Your
eyes will be Saleem Sinai’s eyes.
I
am not too sure if the book will be an enjoyable read. It is an open
challenge. But it adds something to you. Perspective? Images? A hell lot
of confusion? I don’t know. You will always have this “I haven’t read
the book properly” feeling in your head.
And you would never want to write a review for the book.
I don’t know why I wrote the review. And I don’t even have the book with me now.
-- Contributed by Anamika Agrawal
