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The Midnight’s Children Meander, Week Five

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Welcome to Week Five, in which we careen in a meandery way toward something approaching the halfway mark!

Like Amanda in the comments, I was struck by how Saleem’s newfound Umbrella Academy-ish (hat tip Guzmán) abilities nicely match the experience of reading. And really, what better super power for a narrator?

We continue to be caught in a vortex of prophecies. Enough that I’ve started noting them in the margins, not to track them, but more to acknowledge them and let them go.

And thank goodness because this section ended by rolling up what felt like a wheelbarrow of prophecies: “But Evelyn Lilith Burns is coming; the Pioneer Café is getting painfully close; and–more visually–midnight’s other children … are pressing extremely hard. Soon the cracks will be wide enough for them to escape…”

And even with all that, super enjoying the journey and equally curious what genre it will turn out we were reading when we get to the end — magically realistic historical fiction? a religious tract that could use some reordering? sci fi….?

(And here I thought The Blind Assassin was a mashup.)

Next stop: Let’s meet at the end of the section entitled (look at that!) “At the Pioneer Café” (aka page 254 in the Random House paperback), where “large things [may] be close behind”…

And this? This is the post for comments on sections 2.5 through 2.7.

And lastly: “Pehlwan” is defined by Collins as hindi for “a wrestler” or “a strongman.”

Comments

25 responses to “The Midnight’s Children Meander, Week Five”

  1. Noodle Avatar
    Noodle

    Still working my way through this week’s reading but was struck already by two things: 1) the admirably feverish homage to Padma as one of the Guardians of Life and 2) the dip into the Hindu worldview, in which life is stuck in the Age of Darkness, “where property gives a man rank, where wealth is equated with virtue…” And stuck for roughly another 428,000 years. Bummer.

    Reply
  2. Ute Avatar
    Ute

    I was recently asked which superpower I would ask for and I said “Speak and understand (!) every language on this planet.”
    And I just loved to see this answer reflected in one of the midnight children’s gifts: “…could speak…every language and dialect spoken in the subcontinent” – which again ties in so nicely with this statement from the previous chapter: “Language divided us.”

    Reply
  3. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    Favorite passage: “Why, at this crucial instant when all manner of things were waiting to be described…did I introduce a mere condiment into the conversation?…Because I sniff the air; and scented, behind the solicitous expressions of my visitors, a sharp whiff of danger. I intended to defend myself; but I require the assistance of chutney.” More chutney, less danger I say.

    As a former comic book collector, I thoroughly enjoyed the multitude of diverse superhero powers of the midnight children.

    But, often find it difficult to maintain focus on the story amidst perpetual barrage of tangents. And I like a good tangent.

    Reply
  4. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    I was running late & am now caught up, so I’m not 100% sure this question is for this week’s chapters, but: One of the foreshadowed deaths is that of Amina, said to be crushed under a bombed building in the 1965 India-Pakistan war. But the Wikipedia entry on that war doesn’t mention attacks on civilian targets in Bombay or anywhere else. Did anyone go further down that rabbit-hole to find what the relevant history is?

    Reply
  5. Peaseblossom Avatar
    Peaseblossom

    Pakistan apparently shot down a civilian plane at one point, even after the aircraft identified itself as civilian. There were also several thousand casualties on both sides – quite a mess. This war was mainly viewed within the context of the greater Cold War, with Pakistan and India aligning more with the former USSR as a result.

    I’d like to take the temperature of fellow meanderers this weeks. How many of us put stock in the Zodiac? “Shiva and I were born under Capricorn rising; the constellation left me alone, but it gave Shiva its gift. Capricorn, as any astrologer will tell you, is the heavenly body with power over the knees.” I know that I was born under the sign of Taurus and thus, I am supposedly practical, grounded, and stubborn. I find that most descriptions of zodiacal signs are so general that some portions could apply to any individual.

    Reply
  6. Furiosa Avatar
    Furiosa

    For what it’s worth, I know enough about the Zodiac to know that while Shiva and Saleem are Capricorn rising, their sun sign is Leo, a fire sign allegedly characterized by a charismatic, narcissistic, passionate presence. That is, they like to be the center of attention. I’ve known my share of Leos who are charismatic narcissists, and I’ve known my share of charismatic narcissists who aren’t Leos. But I’m a Gemini, which allegedly means I’m rather unreliable (and my rising sign is, coincidentally, Capricorn). My aunt who had a Buddha statue in her living room also had a big book about astrology that I read whenever I visited her several decades ago.

    The nod to the Zodiac in the Shiva’s description is part of the cosmological rabbit hole I went down this week regarding Shiva being named after Shiva the Destroyer, and his double/mirror Saleem having “an elephant nose” to go with all the allusions to blue skinned Hindu deity Ganesh (who is the first son of the god Shiva). Ganesh is the Remover of Obstacles, which fits quite nicely for someone whose super power is being able to get into people’s minds and souls. I’m looking forward to seeing how this Shiva-Ganesh duality plays out over the rest of the story.

    I also was struck once again by some of the passages about the mind, memory, and dreams. There was the boy “who had the blessing (or possibly the curse)” of being incapable of forgetting anything. Wise of SR to note that an excellent memory is not always pleasant. There was Saleem’s discovery through Evie Burns that if he invaded the deepest parts of someone’s mind, they could feel he was there. Plus he doesn’t know if what he saw there were Evie’s memories or dreams. Then there was this passage about the effects of Mary Pereira’s lack of sleep that really struck me, probably because I haven’t been sleeping well lately what with the state of the world and all: “and gradually the blurriness of her perceptions merged waking and dreaming into something very like each other…a dangerous condition to get into, Padma. Not only does your work suffer but things start escaping from your dreams.” Maybe that’s why the past two weeks feel a little like a nightmare. But I digress, just like Saleem. Anyway, that’s all I got this week. Loving this meander big time.

    Reply
  7. Lydia Avatar
    Lydia

    I have been falling behind again….but I will catch up again as well. “See” (read) you all next week!

    Reply
  8. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    This week the reading left me thinking about self-mythology. For a book with a panoptic, multi-generational, nation-straddling scope, it’s interesting to see how apparently small events (i.e. Saleem riding his bike into the demonstration) are preluded and alluded to many times before their telling. There’s so much foretelling and retelling of events and images (the sheet with the hole in the center, nose and knees and knees and nose) and the narrative moves forward and back and back and forward so constantly at times it seems we are on more of stationary bicycle than a silver Indiabike. I guess though that feels accurate to human consciousness. Doesn’t everyone carry and retell and return to and remember and project the narrative of their own lives all day every day (eating a piece of toast/thinking about twenty years ago/worrying about next week)? What are we if not the patchwork of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves (and others) again and again? The facts may look a bit different, but with access to the brains of others, I suppose we’d find that everyone has their own private washing chests and clock towers and Evies and identities composed of constant flitting thoughts of past-present-future.

    Reply
  9. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    Just read a description of my zodiac sign and really identified with it. Then looked up a completely different sign and felt it really captured me as well 🙂

    Reply
  10. So-Called Bill Avatar
    So-Called Bill

    So “420 has been, since time immemorial, the number associated with fraud, deception, and trickery.” Hmm.

    Reply
  11. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    I don’t have a whole lot to say about my Zodiac sign (Taurus), but I was very interested in Amanda’s comments about self-mythology. I really haven’t looked at that aspect of my own self-reflections…Hmmm. However, this week, I want to sing the praises of the author’s character description of Evelyn Lilith Burns. Except for the sharp tongue that comes from her metal-mouthed self, she could be Midnight’s Children’s Eddie Haskell. “Destroying flowers with a Daisy, she served notice that she was not to be manacled, not even by a necklace: she was our capricious, whirligig Lill-of-the-Hill. And also Eve. The Adam’s-apple of my eye.” Need we spell out the symbolism? Adam? Eve? Apple? Lilith? Wowza. Some of my fellow meanderers are looking for an opportunity to use “Funtoosh” in a sentence,. Myself, I’d like to find an opportunity to say: “Hey, you! Alla You! Hey, whassamatter? You all deaf or what?

    Reply
  12. Just KT Avatar
    Just KT

    I, too, have fallen in love with Evie Burns. I think I can overlook a little mother-stabbing…

    Reply
  13. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    I was enjoying this entire section as a welcome escape from current awful reality, and then right at the very end he goes ahead and talks about elections and voter intimidation. Thanks, Obam—err, Rushdie.

    Reply
  14. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    Oops I posted mine in the wrong spot. Let me just concur with So-Called Bill’s take on 420 reference: hmmmm.

    Reply
  15. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    Behind, feeling full of holes, and firmly planted in Kali-Yuga. Need some superhero talents or maybe a mammary-thumping looker-after.

    Reply
  16. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    Add Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” to the Playlist?

    Reply
  17. Alyssa Avatar
    Alyssa

    Musing about memory is a favorite pastime of mine, so I appreciated this passage from our narrator: “[Memory] selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, it’s heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else’s version more than his own.”

    Reply
  18. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    A great big thank you to Cecil and The Vortex for the last-meander-magnet, which arrived here in mail-slowed, far away Philly this week. As the old saying goes: a strong refrigerator magnet has a field of about 10,000,000 nanoteslas (100 G)

    I remain stuck to the book! A couple of particular likes:
    * When he has come out of his fever in the pickle factory and ‘Someone (never mind who)’ is there to visit. I enjoyed this mode of introduction-by-subtraction, which he also applies to his son.
    * Maybe my favorite thing about the book is hearing the Indian English dialect, which he gets so perfectly that even if you’re someone who doesn’t really know Indian English (i.e., me), you know it’s perfect. ‘…a real rutputty joint, with painted board proclaiming LOVELY LASSI and FUNTABULOUS FALOODA and BHEL-PURI BOMABAY FASHION, with filmi playback music blaring out from a cheap radio by cash-till, a long narrow greeny room lit by flickering neon, a forbidding world in which broken-toothed men sat a reccine-covered tables…’ (We are never far from reccine [rexine] in this novel.)

    Reply
  19. Pete Avatar
    Pete

    caught up but no great insights on this section. kind of surprised at low little pakistan comes up at this point

    Reply
  20. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    I’ve been thinking that this meander magnet, may we all survive the trek to see it, should show a rabbit-hole (or the jeweled spittoon?) and be covered in reccine. Not that I’d volunteer Cecil for anything, of course.

    Reply
  21. Guzmán Avatar
    Guzmán

    Still charging ahead and enjoying the book. I must say that I thought I was not a kindle reader, but having the dictionary one click away is proving to be very useful with this book! I must also say that the stream of consciousness-dreams-fever episode are really vivid and unsettling!

    “And there are feet beneath the table and faces above it, feet advancing toward feet, faces tumbling towards faces, but jerking away all of a sudden in a cruel censor cut…”

    Reply
  22. Barbara B Avatar
    Barbara B

    Welcome Brass Monkey. As for the rest… it is good to understand the ambiguity of snakes…and yet, I’m not sure if it will help Saleem in the end

    Reply
  23. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    I’m feeling sorry for poor Amina with her son invading her thoughts as life imitated bad art at the Pioneer cafe with the “eroticism of the indirect kiss intot he green neon dinginess of the Pioneer Cafe.” Funny. And sad. Like how she blushes at any mention of the Communist party.

    Reply
  24. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    Sigh, I did that quote so badly. Take 2:
    “So it was that life imitated bad art, and my Uncle Hanif’s sister brought the eroticism of the indirect kiss into the green neon dinginess of the Pioneer Cafe.”

    Reply
  25. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    Yes, and how much do we remember vs. how much do we remember how to tell the story of the memory in a way that is “successful” in achieving desired outcome of telling the story? Hmmm….

    Reply

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