Customer Reviews
Rich and beautiful but too cold for me. - By: Gillyp, 22 Nov 2008 
The language is as multi-layered & detailed as a Klimt, the imagery, rich & dense as Christmas cake - there's no doubt Midnight's Children is a unique & remarkable book, but I found, at it's core, it was too coldly detached. I never truly connected to Saleem or any of the characters, or the epic, grasshopper story. I was always slightly outside his world, lookingin through closed blinds.
Some books - the books that live onin my mind long after - are the ones that embrace you, wrap youin a warm, soft blanket of themselves & draw youin completely and, awed though I was by the literary achievement (and it is an incredible tour de force, almost certainly deserving the over-used `genius' tag) I could never count it amongst my favourites.
It *is*a fantastical, magical, delight of a book. I did like it very much & thoroughly recommend it as a must read for almost everyone really but especially anyone who loves magical realism & vast, epic fantasy worlds. It's clearly a masterpiece - but I doubt very much if I shall want to read it again anytime soon.
Disappointing and dull - By: PGR Gallagher, 18 Sep 2008 
It's hard to live up to the "Booker of Bookers" tag but this comes nowhere near. Rushdie can write: bursts of compelling narrative display that. Unfortunately the whole story is trussed upin that clever "flash-back", "flash-forward" conceit which eventually bored me. No, I didn't finish it. I got a little further than I did with Ulysses, but eventually hurled this into the same Pseud Bin.
I've read somewhere that the author intends the time switching to be like the digressions of an oral storyteller but I think that's like trying to capture balletin a poem or the moonin a bucket. The device is overused & tiresome. Want a Third World Magic Realism Family Saga? try "House of the Spirits".
An important, and dare I say enjoyable read - By: Ibrahim Ali, 20 Aug 2008 
Whatever controversies arise from Rushdie one cannot but marvel at the depths of his imagination. Midnight's Children whilst containing some of the most beautiful language & imagery is no easy read. As with most Rushdie novels we venture into the world of magic realism & we witness the life of a child born on the stroke of midnight hour when Nehru announces the "tryst with dynasty". Born with special powers Saleem is witness through the whirlwind of events that make up India's first thirty years & we see his attempted interfering. Again with Rushdie's novels we're unable to sympathise with any of the characters but nevertheless the strength of the writing keeps us plodding through.
The emporer's new clothes.... - By: Anthony J. Armstrong, 18 Aug 2008 Having read & enjoyed many of the finest authors of the 19th & 20th century (including many Indian authors) I felt I had to explore Rushdie. What a mistake - pretentious, self-indulgent claptrap.
Comment on previous review - By: C. Vaughan, 12 Aug 2008 
I would not usually indulgein a review. It is only reading the previous review that has prompted, less than a reply, than a reaction.
Midnight's Children is a good book. Does this make me a fraud? No, it just happened that I enjoyed it, savoured it's scope, it's humour, it's allegory - all of this is not difficult to grasp, only if some people did not try so hard. When a person put the word intellectualin brackets it is fairly obvious that they see a distinct 'us & you'mentalityin the literary world. And as much as there are the literary squabblers & vacous acedemic blabbers, these do not rule the litrary roost.
Midnight's children is a book to be read without too much initial analysis. Lap up the world inside the book, not the underlying allegory of Indian independance. Laugh & Saleem's akwardness, do not over-exert yourself by picking apart each sentence. Ride along with this book & you will enjoy it.
I think a large part of the problem is the current image of Rusdhie. He is a celebrity, but for all the wrong reasons. Ignore Rushdie & listen to Saleem himself, it is the work & not the author your reading here.
I find it hard to believe that the previous reveiwer actually finished the book. And these literary deathmatches (Nabakov is better than Rusdhie) are pointless defences for a floundering argument.
I suggest that you ignore the last review & make your own mind up.
