midnight
- Thread starter luka
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luka
Well-known member
@linebaugh say something clever. entertain me.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Midnight's Children is based on the premise that children born at midnight on the day that India was partitioned have special powers. The nearer to the actual stroke of midnight their birth, the greater the power of the child. Those who were born 59 seconds after the striking of the hour are the weakest of the magical children while the narrator who is also the protagonist was born almost bang on the stroke of midnight meaning that he is more powerful than all of the others... or rather, he is more powerful than all of the others except one, there is one other who was also born at this precise instant and who thus received equally powerful - though different, I will come to that in a sec - powers.
These two most powerful children are enemies, they hate each other for some reason and seek to use their equal but completely different powers against each other.
Now, once you have read that brief summary (the best I can manage from having read it probably more than twenty years ago) of the premise of the book, you are probably thinking to yourself something like "what an incredibly stupid idea for a book". If you are a bit more skilled in critical thought, perhaps a philosopher or some kind of expert in literary theory you might also by this point be thinking "how the fuck did that chancer stretch that out to a thousand pages?"
Well the first of your two thoughts wasn't a question but the second one was and I will answer by saying that, as in many other magical realism megabooks it is made longer by starting with a romance... not one involving the protagonist oh no, nor even his parents, but in fact I think it's his grandparents or maybe great grandparents. There is a load of stuff about a doctor examining this woman over months, every time she is ill it is a different part and so although she remains chastely behind a veil except for her injured wrist or swollen clitoris or whatever he must heal on each visit, over time he builds up a picture of exactly what she looks like in total. And then he marries her and then it goes into similar excruciating detail for countless other characters until we finally meet the narrator about five hundred pages in.
But what always bugged me is, did they use GMT or what? And if so, is that more magical? And also how do you rank the kids in terms of how powerful they are if all their powers are different? Is a teleporter stronger or weaker than a man who can make rabbits disappear etc? And what was the main character's power? I forget but I think it was something to do with picking his nose. Mr Rushdie does make exceedingly good bogeys.
There is also a film but it's much longer and more boring than the book and makes no sense at all.
Anyway, I hope that review of the Booker of Bookers entertained you a little. Good night all.
These two most powerful children are enemies, they hate each other for some reason and seek to use their equal but completely different powers against each other.
Now, once you have read that brief summary (the best I can manage from having read it probably more than twenty years ago) of the premise of the book, you are probably thinking to yourself something like "what an incredibly stupid idea for a book". If you are a bit more skilled in critical thought, perhaps a philosopher or some kind of expert in literary theory you might also by this point be thinking "how the fuck did that chancer stretch that out to a thousand pages?"
Well the first of your two thoughts wasn't a question but the second one was and I will answer by saying that, as in many other magical realism megabooks it is made longer by starting with a romance... not one involving the protagonist oh no, nor even his parents, but in fact I think it's his grandparents or maybe great grandparents. There is a load of stuff about a doctor examining this woman over months, every time she is ill it is a different part and so although she remains chastely behind a veil except for her injured wrist or swollen clitoris or whatever he must heal on each visit, over time he builds up a picture of exactly what she looks like in total. And then he marries her and then it goes into similar excruciating detail for countless other characters until we finally meet the narrator about five hundred pages in.
But what always bugged me is, did they use GMT or what? And if so, is that more magical? And also how do you rank the kids in terms of how powerful they are if all their powers are different? Is a teleporter stronger or weaker than a man who can make rabbits disappear etc? And what was the main character's power? I forget but I think it was something to do with picking his nose. Mr Rushdie does make exceedingly good bogeys.
There is also a film but it's much longer and more boring than the book and makes no sense at all.
Anyway, I hope that review of the Booker of Bookers entertained you a little. Good night all.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Quesadiarrhea?