I found this book a slog and was sorely disappointed as I enjoyed The Satanic Verses so much and have read it twice. This made me question whether Verses is as good as it seems or if the controversy makes it more exciting to read. But I don’t believe that. I’ve read everything before Verses and although Grimus and Shame weren’t my favourites, Midnight’s Children was a delight.

I think what unnerved me about this book was the choice of narrative style. Why should I care about the narrator and his family? Also, many of the characters in the story die, but I never felt any loss when the characters died as every character felt cartoonish and not real, which is the style of the novel.

I also believe much of the Indian background where the novel takes place made it less relatable to me. Whereas Verses takes place partially in India and partially in London, this takes place completely in India. A country the author was unable to travel to at the time of this writing. But again, I did not find this a problem when reading Midnight’s Children

What I believe we see here is an author struggling, as this was written when Rushdie was in hiding. Publishers were getting killed for the act of publishing Verses and publishing a novel afterwards had high expectations and there was caution about the subject matter. The narrative style makes the actions that occur in the novel seem more distance, less impactful and more cartoonish. This could be intentional as it tones down the critiques of Indian society.

Purchased a paperback for $6 then later found it on hardcover for free in a little free library. Read the first 400 pages by hardcover but then went on vacation and wanted to travel light and switched to my paperback copy.

Definitely a different experience. I would not recommend this to anyone I know. I picked up on circularness of the plot and a couple of other things. Read the plot summary on wikipedia to learn what I missed.

Long, banal and depressing. I started this and didn’t like the vibe. I took a vacation by the sea and didn’t want this to be my sunny read so took ten days off from reading this and read some more jovial summer reads.

So I read it slow at first but then powered through it to get it finished. This was a book that I read and kept with based on reputation so I could put a notch on my belt that I’ve read it.

I read Freedom before this which is also critically acclaimed and enjoyed it. I found the characters in this novel more tragic and detestable at times. As the novel progressed my reading pace increased and I had sympathy for the entire family.

I found out about this book because a female Mossad agent in The Little Drummer Girl reads it and this is mentioned several times. So when I found a used copy for $5 I picked it up.

Did I find this book absolutely enthralling? No. But it kept me reading and I liked that because it was a serial the chapters were short and I enjoyed reading it at a steady pace of only a chapter or two each day.

I can see why John Le Carré referenced the book. Henchard is a tragic character following a tragic path and many of his novels post Smiley’s People are in the same vein.