Midnight’s Children

bzukowsk
Jan 29, 2021
2 min read

No colors except green and black the walls are green the sky is black (there is no roof) the stars are green the Widow is green but her hair is black as black. The Widow sits on a high high chair the chair is green the seat is black the Widow's hair has a center-parting it is green on the left and on the right black. High as the sky the chair is green the seat is black the Widow's arm is long as death its skin is green the fingernails are long and sharp and black. Between the walls the children the walls are green the Widow's arm comes snaking down the snake is green the children scream the fingernails are black they scratch the Widow's arm is hunting see the children run and scream the Widow's hand curls round them green and black. Now one by one the children are stifled quiet the Widow's hand is lifting one by one the children green their blood is black unloosed by cutting fingernails it splashes black on walls (of green) as one by one the curling hand lifts children high as sky the sky is black there are no stars…

Salman Rushdie writes the most powerful allegory I’ve ever read - illuminating the complex history of India and its people through his magical narrative. Salim Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight, his life takes many fascinating turns as does the fledgling state of India. Corruption, wars, unity, religion - Hindustan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir - the British, the Mughals, and over a billion people play a role in the living history of India.

This book was not only awarded the Booker Prize for best novel in 1981, but it was named the best of the best, “Booker of Bookers”, in the prize's forty year history.

Salman Rushdie maintains a complex relationship with his native country. He was born in Bombay at the beginning of partition. As Midnight’s Children indicates, defining oneself is not easy as one born on the Indian subcontinent, into the complex union of the British Raj and Hindustan. Rushdie discusses many of these themes in his abstract writing, bringing realities of himself and the era into his epic family saga. For all the plaudits received by Midnight’s Children, Rushdie’s later novel, The Satanic Verses, was controversial to many of the Muslim faith. Several Muslim communities around the world protested this fourth novel. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, even issued a nonbinding legal opinion on a point of Islamic law that called for his assassination. Fortunately, Rushdie still lives today and so do his wonderful literary works.