Midnight's Children
I recently finished reading Midnight's Children. This is the book which catapulted Salman Rushdie to fame and remains one of the more popular Booker Prize winners of all time. To the best of my recollection I had not read anything by Rushdie previously, and I have generally enjoyed other pieces of art inspired by the partition of India and Pakistan, so this seemed like a fine place to start.
Based on a sample size of one book, Rushdie has a lot in common with Tom Robbins, including the 'seriocomedy' perspective, a bunch of magical realism and a focus on smells. Since I like Robbins, this wasn't a drawback.
As I am not an expert or even particularly knowledgeable on the history of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh outside of the partition, I'm sure I missed a lot of the references that were being made to historical events and how the main character's life relates to the country. This slowed me down sometimes (imagine reading a novel about the Civil War if you didn't know much more about it than who Abraham Lincoln was; you'd be confused), but the surface connections were still enough to keep me moving.
Having said that, the main reason I'm writing this is because the book had a quote about memory that really resonated with me, which I include here. This is from page 253, which is in the chapter "At the Pioneer Cafe" in the edition I borrowed from the library. As always, transcription errors are on me.
Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.
And less about memory, but still worth recording, from page 457 in the chapter "Sam and the Tiger".
Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each "I", every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude.
So - reminds me of one of my favorite authors AND had not one but two quotes that I marked while I was reading it. I definitely enjoyed Midnight's Children enough to read more of Rushdie.
Based on a sample size of one book, Rushdie has a lot in common with Tom Robbins, including the 'seriocomedy' perspective, a bunch of magical realism and a focus on smells. Since I like Robbins, this wasn't a drawback.
As I am not an expert or even particularly knowledgeable on the history of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh outside of the partition, I'm sure I missed a lot of the references that were being made to historical events and how the main character's life relates to the country. This slowed me down sometimes (imagine reading a novel about the Civil War if you didn't know much more about it than who Abraham Lincoln was; you'd be confused), but the surface connections were still enough to keep me moving.
Having said that, the main reason I'm writing this is because the book had a quote about memory that really resonated with me, which I include here. This is from page 253, which is in the chapter "At the Pioneer Cafe" in the edition I borrowed from the library. As always, transcription errors are on me.
Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.
And less about memory, but still worth recording, from page 457 in the chapter "Sam and the Tiger".
Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each "I", every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude.
So - reminds me of one of my favorite authors AND had not one but two quotes that I marked while I was reading it. I definitely enjoyed Midnight's Children enough to read more of Rushdie.