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The Midnight’s Children Meander, Week Two

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Welcome fellow Meanderers to our first pause that refreshes. Be careful, though, taking a dip in the river, nosing around the tussock, stepping over the plentiful ordure….

So many great comments this week! From Noodles’ #metameandermoment, to Furiosa’s call out to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, to Susan C sketching out the line that connects this Meander, to the last, to the last.

Like many Meandermates, I found the book challenging early on, but we’re off and walking now, with Padma alongside to keep our narrator in check when he gets too caught up in the dot dot dot, whatsitsname, bounce about.

My phone’s been a handy companion, helping me look up words or pieces of history I didn’t know. And this list of characters has become a favorite bookmark.

So much to enjoy on the stroll-along. One of a gazillion beats I extra dug: “Naseem Aziz who he had made the mistake of loving in fragments.” Loving in fragments. What a phrase. There lots of poetry in this prose. History too. And yes, dung reveries. More than enough reason to pick ourselves back up and launch toward the next sign post.

Where to? How about we meet at the end of “Many-headed Monsters” (pg. 100 in the Random House paperback) where the countdown appears to be underway. No rush, my friends, but seriously, “tick tock.”

And this? This is the post for comments on Book 1.4 through 1.6.

Soundtrack: The companion playlist is up and running already — open to the public, so feel free to add as the weeks go on and the moment inspires….

And lastly: “Kine,” it turns out, is an “archaic plural of cow.” (Merriam-Webster) Another gift from the ever-generous Mr. Rushdie.

Thanks for great company. Onward!

Comments

28 responses to “The Midnight’s Children Meander, Week Two”

  1. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    Wow. What a very plentiful plumpie playlist. It’s only Week Two and we’re already doing the Hippy Hippy Shake!

    Reply
  2. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    Interesting advice for a happy marriage, courtesy of Amina (p. 73 RH Ed.) as she resolved to fall in love with her husband bit by bit…Each day she selected one fragment of Ahmed Sinai, and concentred her entire being upon it until it became wholly familiar; until she felt fondness rising up within her and becoming affection, and finally, love. In this way she came to adore his over-loud voice (etc. etc…..) Then, “My God,” she told herself, “it seems that there are a million different things to love about every man.” But she was undismayed. “Who, after all, she reasoned privately, “ever truly knows another human being completely?” and continued to learn to love and admire his appetite for fried food, his ability to quote Persian poetry, the furrows of anger between his eyebrows.” At this rate, she thought, “there will always be something fresh about him to love; so our marriage just can’t go stale.”

    Reply
  3. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    Great admiration for, among many passages, the one where the monkey (he calls him the monkey-god, Hanuman) throws the bag of money down and sits ‘rocking on a stone.’ Mystical and mythic and fated and weighted. As is much of this week’s reading…

    I went off in search of the word ‘reccine’ and couldn’t find it anywhere – does anyone know it? I did find this:

    http://facweb.st-agnes.org/home/pmcfarlin/html/Midnights%20Children%20vocabulary.htm

    It’s a glossary of sorts for the book and includes reccine but not a definition of it. Also was looking for a map and found one here: https://www.ryc.space/midnights-children-the-road-from-kashmir (I don’t plan to read the article but the map is useful for showing where people go in the story)

    Enjoying the book a lot so far!

    Reply
  4. Guzmán Avatar
    Guzmán

    This is a vivid description of somebody who needs a good night’s sleep: “the dark rings of inbreeding around his eyes are being circled by the whorls of insomnia”.

    Hope this group is sleeping soundly and enjoying the book as much as I am!

    Reply
  5. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    The more I read Midnight’s Children, the more Kurt Vonnegut’s opening lines to Mother Night keep popping into my head: “This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

    That’s it…no more comments from me this week.

    Reply
  6. Ute Avatar
    Ute

    As last week, I’ll add here some of the phrases and idioms I most enjoyed:
    1) I just loved the whole idea about someone being bitten by the “optimism bug”.
    2) Or this: “Things seem permissible underground that would seem absurd or even wrong in the clear light of day” – this certainly could be applied to many a situation by changing the word “underground” to let’s say “in current times”…
    3) Reverend mother “swelling, month by month. The unspoken words inside her were blowing her up” – what an incredible picture of what not saying things can do to you!
    4) “City eyes” as in “When you have city eyes you can not see the invisible people”.
    5) And this incredible description of someone’s way of walking fast, but trying not to run: “Jerkily, in little rushes of speed followed by a few badly-disciplined steps at walking space” – so good!

    Reply
  7. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    Riveted by the writing for Amima Sinai’s short journey with Lifafa Das to Ramram the seer, and the fortune/prophecy. Wonderfully intense. And, how Amima lost her ‘city eyes’ when rawly confronted by abject poverty and despair.

    Also, noticed a connection between week 1’s “Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence” and week 2’s “In my family, we always go where we’re pushed.” Looking forward to the mystery of the “nose and knees; knees and a nose.”

    Reply
  8. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    Still enjoying the book quite a bit even though it can be somewhat exhausting to keep up with Rushdie’s/Saleem’s train of thought/voyages through time and space. But in what felt like the most brutal week in memory, this sentence stuck with me more than any other, courtesy of S.P. Butt (p 87): “If they can change time just like that, what’s real any more?” Followed by Saleem’s reply across decades: “What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same.”

    Words to remember after a horrific week of national gaslighting.

    Reply
  9. Furiosa Avatar
    Furiosa

    +10000 to Jeff’s observation about the current resonance of “What’s real and what’s true aren’t necessarily the same,” and the passage leading up to it about time. “Time has been an unsteady affair” also seems to sum up how this year has felt since March. Coincidentally, or not coincidentally depending on your view of such matters, I keep seeing sentences with this, forgive me, timeliness. Take the opening of “A Public Announcement”: “There followed an illusionist January, a time so still on its surface that 1947 seemed not to have begun at all. (While, of course, in fact…)”. Indeed. Other takeaways from this week: I’m going to try to work “funtoosh” into casual conversations, and I just love the observation, “Our Ramram made too much damn prophecy tonight.” Be here now, nose and knees, knees and nose.

    Reply
  10. Peaseblossom Avatar
    Peaseblossom

    I’m really enjoying Rushdie’s descriptions. They’re exquisitely visual and sensuous. “…But, of course, when my father came home late last night, with a ditchy smell on him which overpowered his customary reek of future failure, his eyes and cheeks were streaked with ashy tears….” Yikes! I can feel the weight of the poor man’s doom!

    It’s been a tough week, so tough that I can relate to this man’s odor. More detailed insights next week, hopefully.

    Reply
  11. blue_f Avatar
    blue_f

    Already fallen behind 🙁 but will catch up next week.

    Reply
  12. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    I’m behind too, because I had to go back and reread a good bit of week one to get a better grip on the plot. Where I found this quote about the Reverend Mother’s “domestic rules [which] were a system of self-defense so impregnable that Aziz, after many fruitless attempts, had more or less given up trying to storm her ravelins and bastions, leaving her, like a large smug spider, to rule her chosen domain. (Perhaps, too, it wasn’t a system of self-defense at all, but a means of defense against the self.)”
    And Google gave me this: Reccine is British. : a strong coated cloth usually imitating leather and used especially for bookbinding.

    Reply
  13. pete Avatar
    pete

    Also being struck but lots of phrases. the reference to the scent of future failure. the idea of “city eyes.” Still don’t know what to make of the idea between nose shape and destiny or the ability to detect trouble. But i will stick with it because i cannot resist a good spitoon-related cliffhanger.

    Reply
  14. Noodle Avatar
    Noodle

    I felt the same way about that portion of the book and was searching for the word — riveted is it, exactly.

    Reply
  15. Noodle Avatar
    Noodle

    And, Pete, I can’t recall any other books that offer a spittoon-related cliffhanger. (But perhaps I haven’t read enough Zane Grey…)

    Reply
  16. Drah Avatar
    Drah

    Still behind but will catch up this week!

    Reply
  17. Jennifer E Avatar
    Jennifer E

    Bookmarking this week to try and catch up by next Sunday!

    Reply
  18. Lydia Avatar
    Lydia

    I enjoy all this descriptions and pictures that are planted in my brain while reading. I was eager (together with Patme) to find out more about the “parents”. And I loved all the stories around Reverend mother: Quite a lot of backbone – or better: stubbornness. In my opinion she is actually much too quirky to be just fiction.

    Reply
  19. Alyssa Avatar
    Alyssa

    Caught up but haven’t had a chance to post a proper comment. I find myself wishing for an annotated edition as there are so many words and places that sidetrack me into further research. “City eyes” struck me as well.

    Reply
  20. Mike Brodnitz Avatar
    Mike Brodnitz

    In the introduction to Midnight’s Children, Rushdie details his legal confrontation with Mrs. Gandhi, regarding one sentence in his book.

    While I am certainly not an expert in modern Indian history, I found it a bit disturbing to read (on page 62) that “in the Burmese jungle Orde Wingate and his Chindits . . . were drenched by the returning rains of 1945.” Considering that Major General Orde Wingate’s plane had mysteriously and notoriously crashed in Burma, in March of 1944, killing all on board, I doubt that the rains of 1945 affected him very much . . .

    I am not too familiar with the history of the Indian subcontinent, but, I would have hoped that someone would have fact-checked the events listed in the book during the years since its original publication. In fact, the author should himself have fact-checked it, and the error puts a question on all his “facts.”

    Reply
  21. So-Called Bill Avatar
    So-Called Bill

    I must admit to mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand it’s a perfect Pandemic read, with its languorous pace and endless opportunities for rabbit-hole-down-going. On the other hand, in the current state of things I find myself wishing for something a little less intellectually taxing. But we finished this week’s quota and shall soldier on.

    Reply
  22. Barbara B Avatar
    Barbara B

    Don’t give up on me Cecil! I can’t find my book, possibly the cat ate it–she does love paper. I see someone else’s copy here on the coffee table…perhaps a short-term loan can be arranged? Next week, a relevant comment re the text!

    Reply
  23. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    I sort of share Bill’s mixed feelings, except that “intellectually taxing” is why I’m reading this in a group meander. I’m fairly good at finding less taxing stuff on my own. And yes, the digressiveness makes it a perfect pandemic read. The digressiveness and the richness of language and imagery, which invite us to pause over individual sentences.
    I’m also reading with a tablet at hand; new vocabulary includes both reccine and ravelin, which turns out to be an outer fortification of a castle or fortress.
    Well, that was something of a “me, too” post. Next week I’ll try to find something original to say.

    Reply
  24. Susannah Avatar
    Susannah

    I’m behind but I’ll catch up by next week!

    Reply
  25. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    Like Jeff and Furiosa, the line “If they can change time just like that, what’s real any more?”brought to mind the newspeak of contemporary discourse. Tangentially, I am reminded of November 9th, 2016, a day during which I was compelled to read and re-read the opening of a “Tale of Two Cities.” There is certainly a Dickensian quality to this novel; it is, at once, sprawling and microscopic, stretching the canvas inter-dimensionally to fit in lifetimes, decades, whole nations, and then filling every inch of it with moving, ringing, odiferous life in trompe l’oeil detail. Every time I open the book up, I feel like three of four major motional pictures start to play simultaneously in my head superimposed on one another visually, sonically, thematically. Given the socially-distanced state of life, away from other people, the noise, and bustle of crowds, this is a great read for 2020, offering explosive, teeming life in a safe-to-consume format.

    Reply
  26. Just KT Avatar
    Just KT

    I have been loving this rich, spinning tale. I wonder if anyone else is experiencing this phenomenon with the book…I read, engrossed, for what feels like 50 pages, then check how much further I have to read…to find I’ve only made it through 6 or 8 pages. Never had quite this experience before with a book I am enjoying.

    Reply
  27. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    So many great phrases, and ouchie, Reverend Mother’s 3-years-in-the-making rant on page 64, whatshisname, was some classic vitriol!

    Reply
  28. Guzmán Huerta Avatar
    Guzmán Huerta

    A child-hating gynecologist is an interesting concept. A guru under a tap is a new one to me. And what about the frozen balls? Isabel Allende is spiraling out of control into a… (gasping for words).

    Reply

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