Salman Rushdie is a writer who lives in a legion of his own. His works are a rich amalgamation of creativity, novelty and
literary excellence. Midnights Children, winner of the Booker of bookers prize, is one of Rushdies most prolific novels, and this abstract is an ode to the book and its author. Midnights Children chronicles the life of the Republic of India from the night it got its independence from British rule (15th August 1947) all the way through to the mid ''80s when the rule of then prime minister Indira Gandhi came to an abrupt end. Agreed, there are umpteen books on this topic, but none that have quite so skillfully managed to make the history of a nation sound like it was inextricably linked to the life of a single person, whose time and date of birth matched that of his motherland vis-à-vis at the stroke of the midnight hour.
The creativity with which Rushdie manages to portray every major event that India as a nation witnessed as a direct corollary of a certain incident or a series of incidents in the life of Saleem Sinai, the protagonist in the story, is truly remarkable. The characterization of Saleem and his super human abilities, which forms a central part of this master tale, and the connections this has with the life and
times of India and her people is a true testimony to the
literary genius that Rushdie is. Although the graphic description of the times and the highly verbose text can bog ones reading speed occasionally, it still is worth the experience. It makes the best of us wonder how one person can actually have a skill to stimulate ones own mind to such a degree and more so manage to write in such a away that it stimulates those who read what he/she writes.
All in all, the book is a masterpiece and a standout in the annals of literary history! A must read!