"Midnight's Children" Post 7b

In the New York Times Review of this novel, it was stated that "The literary map of India is about to be redrawn... Midnight's Children sounds like a continent finding its voice". Although this is only from the back of the book itself, I think that it is very telling of the novel. Through the plot, the characters, and most certainly the prose, Rushdie creates a story of India. This reminded me much of the way that both Faulkner represents the South in his writing, specifically Absalom, Absalom! and Garcia Marquez represents Latin America in his writing, specifically One Hundred Years of Solitude. All three of these literary giants use their prose to immerse their reader in the place. Faulkner uses semicolons and runon sentences, making the reader feel like their are snared in the heat of the South, or listening to some old story teller going on endless tangents, almost forgetting the original story. Marquez blends realism and magic in a unique way, by including it not as something mystical but something simply to be accepted, much as curanderas are still figures in Latin America. Rushdie combines both of these elements in his novel, but he also focuses on quick sections of extremely vivid description, especially scents, which seems to simply evoke India for the reader. He also uses Saleem's journeys into Pakistan and his fighting on the other side of the war to show how closely the two countries were related, and how twisted their ties had become. Marquez also involves history in his novel: José Aureliano finds a ship left over from colonial times, a banana company comes to plantation the land, and Aureliano finds himself immersed in numerous insurrections and civil wars which to him have no meaning. In Abasalom, Absalom! Thomas Sutpen built his house upon the backs of slaves, all of the children are raised by slaves, and Rose's marriage is complicated and then ruined by the Civil War. 

I extremely enjoyed reading Midnight's Children and would definitely recommend it, but it falls in with both Absalom, Absalom! and One Hundred Years of Solitude in that it is literature. The writing style is not the one we are accustomed to: it is another vehicle for the author to impart their country and their home. This makes for an interesting, tough, yet ultimately rewarding reading experience.