Midnight's Children

By: Salman Rushdie

Narrated by: Lyndam Gregory

Length: 24 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Man Booker Prize Winner, 1981

Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.

©1981 Salman Rushdie (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

“Burgeons with life, with exuberance and fantasy . . . Rushdie is a writer of courage, impressive strength, and sheer stylistic brilliance.” (The Washington Post Book World)

“A marvelous epic . . . Rushdie’s prose snaps into playback and flash-forward . . . stopping on images, vistas, and characters of unforgettable presence. Their range is as rich as India herself.” (Newsweek)

“Extraordinary . . . one of the most important [novels] to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation.” (The New York Review of Books)

A superb reading of an important novel

Gregory's narration is astonishingly effective, with shifting tones, accents, and moods all thoughtfully executed. He is a perfect match for Rushdie's complex and compelling prose.

a complete masterpiece

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would - and do - wholeheartedly recommend it!

Who was your favorite character and why?

There are SOOOO many simply fabulous, unique, entertaining characters, but, as it is told from the perspective of Saleem, and he is funny, smart, clever, confused, curious and every other appealing adjective you can think of, he wins my deepest affection.

Have you listened to any of Lyndam Gregory’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but you can bet I will now! He performs this book as if he were channeling it - as if he were creating it. His different voices are wonderful. I really can't say enough about how terrific he is, so I won't even try.

Who was the most memorable character of Midnight's Children and why?

Again, Saleem. Though, again, the 'pages' are peopled with such rich, fleshy, funny, sad characters that one could easily compile a list.

Any additional comments?

I really cannot recommend this highly enough. It is a world to get lost in - a world that often feels more real than the real world. I had heard so much about Rushdie's masterful writing, but I could not have imagined just how worthy he is of that praise. This book will last forever and I know I will listen again and again. Don't pass it up!

Meh

All of the Magic in the book was inconsequential to the story. Magic could have been removed without altering much of the story at all. It's a bait-and-switch, to keep us looking forward to the promised significance of that magic. With it removed what remains is a long rambling story about a family. I can't even tell you how it ended because by the end my mind had glazed over like a corpse. Kill by in the endless cycle of non sequiturs and grandiose pontificating on nothing.
That being said it was often entertaining in the middle.

A classic, and well read

I have loved this tale since I read it for the first time back when it came out. It's one you can re-read at different points in your life and get something new out of it each time. The performance by Lyndam Gregory in reading it is great.

A deserved classic

Some of the best and most colorful writing I've ever read! The story gets a bit rambling but the phrases used and story building is absolutely enthralling. I absolutely understand why this book is a classic!

A truly multicultural story set around Indian independence.

A quite wonderful if somewhat daunting listen(reading would be much more difficult). Led by a Muslim child of India’s independence in 1947 amid the promise of democracy in the wake of British colonial power threatened constantly by corruption and religious strife between Muslim and Hindu. We are led by Saleem Sinai, a Muslim boy and an enormous cast of characters, family and not. Rushdie certainly a master. You must be patient and love the sound of hearing his expert command of English told/spoken by Saleem and other characters, in character. The reader is masterful as well. This does not mean it is boring. Good luck!

Cute

The three generations of men in this family yarn share the feature of an extra-large nose that tingles when big things are afoot. The grandfather is a country doctor who falls in love with a patient one body part at a time via the hole in the sheet through which her strict father allows him to view her. Etc. This a romantic and magical take on life in India pre-to-post British rule that, unfortunately for my tastes, may borrow magical realism tropes from Marquez but has the spirit of Dickens--all tongue in cheek ironies in service of a broad morality, without the raw guts or psyche-tapping imagery of 100 Years of Solitude. It never feels dangerous or sexual or bold, even when danger or sex are happening; it's more cute in its approach--winking, neutered and PG. Charming and precocious, with some insights into Indian history and family structures, but feeling too much like a Disney adaptation for me to carry on.

WHAT a pickle!!

I knew nothing about this exhorbitantly gurgitated patchwork of modern Indian lore before mounting my headphones onto my one and a half good ears and allowing Lyndam Gregory to channel Rushdie's stream of consciousness into the waiting room of my wobbly pink blob that some call a brain, but I call a pastiche of swallowed worlds - worlds that were and are not, worlds that can never now be because they once were, and by being, cannot really exist. Wait, no! They can, because they do, in my brain. But what is a brain but a vessel, a hard, silver vessel into which passersby (or is it passerbys?) hock their ideas and desires and wipe the drips from their gaping pink labial mouths, while I, trapped beneath their swirl of congealing consciousnesses desperately try to climb out, only to find that the ladder to which I was clinging was in fact a serpent, and down its oily scales I slide like a slippery fingered double bass player… down, deeper and deeper, between the commas and full stops and semiquavers, now past a bright green prepositional pickle that tears the skin off my nose and knees, off my knees and nose, tumbling, twirling, curling, swirling I smash full bodied into a whole, illegitimate pandulating paragraph that is not mine but the progeny of my Nemesis whose name I’ve now forgotten but it rhymes with Cravis; until at last, oh! At last! peering out from my pink pasticheo world so that everything is tainted by a nutty salmon hue, I see this salmon Rushdie tapestry for what it really is and what I’ve been staring at all along - a mirror; and there, yes there! in the middle, a terrific yawn. No! not a yawn (that was me in the mirror), a hole about the size of a black mango and a universe and an idea, a holey trinity; through which I see..... I see..... I see books! Beautiful, articulate, sensical books, delicious books, full of coherent thoughts and chronological histories, humour, yes! actual funny more than MORE THAN 15 inches long, curling, chunky humour in sentences that don’t triple-entendre themselves up in fruits and body parts and pareidolia-magnolias, books about life happening as it really happens, without magic and self-inflated superfluity, without killer knees and cucumber noses that leak their last laborious drops of ponderous viscosity into my now one and 17/35ths good ears. And so, having swallowed Rushdie's inexhaustible pickle (and oh WHAT a pickle!), I put Midnight's Children all to bed and crawl into my own cosy washing basket, for I, too, am tired. Goodnight.

a fascinating novel

I am a latecomer to this book and about 2/3 through the audio version (the narrator is wonderful). This is a fascinating novel, with motley of very unusual characters and relationships and twists. There is so much to say about this imaginative and absorbing book. The main character drifts back and forth between his external world and what at times seems like a delusional internal life where he wields omnipotence and omniscience among the Midnight's children in contrast to a pathetic external world. I will savor the last 1/3 of the book. I am delighted with this recommendation. At times it is laugh out loud funny.

Slightly flawed masterpiece

The writing style is superb. The delivery is superb. The only problem is in the "plot"; a weird mixture of history and fantasy. Also, it goes on for too long in a number of places. But it is a real pleasure to listen to, and I could not imagine a better verbal rendition of it.