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.