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The Midnight’s Children Meander, Week Seven

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Past the midpoint are we — midpoint’s children mayhaps? More than that — we’re the ones headed for the finish line!

Like the excellent folks in the comments I’m find it tricky going here and there, but worth the effort.

A few highlights as I dash to make the Sunday night deadline:

  • “When you have things, then there is time to dream; when you don’t, you fight.”
  • “Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.”
  • Rushdie (it seems) making a guest appearance at the Social as a young smoothie….

I also dug the section at the start of the The Kolynos Kid, when Rushdie spells out the many ways he’s weaving Saleem into the actual and metaphorical development of India’s childhood…

Speaking of which, Noodle sent along this excellent helpful graphic to assist in sorting things out:

Fig 7.1: four views of the center (thanks Noodle!)

Next stop: We’ve only got four weeks to go my friends and fellow travelers. Let’s dig in and meet up at the end of the section entitled “Jamila Singer” (aka page 373 in the Random House paperback), where someone “proved to be more believable than what she knew to be so.” (That sounds like a good thing…)

And this? This is the post for comments on sections 2.11 through 2.14.

And also: Merriam-Webster tells us that tergiversatory is an “evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement : equivocation.” Hat tip to So-Called Bill for calling that one out in the thread. Oh, and speaking of SCB, he’s just started what promises to be an excellent exploration of Van “the man” Morrison over on The Philter — well worth checking out if you enjoy words and/or music.

Thanks and have a good week all….!
-Cecil

Comments

20 responses to “The Midnight’s Children Meander, Week Seven”

  1. Ute Avatar
    Ute

    Getting ready for a family birthday get-together this weekend, this sentence simply jumped at me: “…family reunions are more delightful in prospect than in reality”.
    As did this one (for obviously different reasons): “Take my advice: Pick a girl with good brains and bad teeth; you’ll have got a friend and a safe-deposit box rolled into one.”
    [I must confess that I am getting angrier and angrier the more we advance in our reading at the way women and their existence are treated in this book which diminishes my level of reading pleasure quite significantly, but hey, it’s not the first and for sure won’t be the last book where I come across this ugly idea of women being worth less than men as exemplified here: “In cold fury my uncle hurled his son from the room; ‘Pimp! Woman! followed Zafar out of the dining-chamber…”)

    Reply
  2. Noodle Avatar
    Noodle

    I found this section rather difficult to get through, not because the text was any more packed with detail than previous sections, but because SR continues to give his narrator, Saleem, some quite unlikable characteristics and behavior. All in service to narrative authenticity, I know. [And, honestly, can we stop with the warts/verucas, already?]

    Reply
  3. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    Cliffhangers. I’m getting tired of them. Despite Padma’s commands: “Enough. Start. Start now,” I’m starting to not care what happens next to our long-nosed friend. I’m slightly interested in what happens to India and Pakistan, but I’m starting to lose faith (interest?) in the rest of the characters. Someone snap me out of this. Or maybe it’s just the surreal week that started with a raucous shouting match and ended in a hospital. The plot and the characters could have easily fit somewhere into the Meandering Midnight’s Children tome. I seem to be crabbier than usual, fellow meanderers, so thanks for bearing with me.

    Reply
  4. Noodle Avatar
    Noodle

    I’ve read beyond this week’s assignment and do not think you will be disappointed in the next section’s level of action. I won’t say more than that because even with all the foreshadowing…I was…stunned.

    Reply
  5. Peaseblossom Avatar
    Peaseblossom

    Do we have an over-achieving Noodle??? 😉

    My fav phrase of this week is the “glutinous reek of hypocrisy.” Love it. I can’t wait to use this in a conversation. Second favorite is the “vengeful odors leaking out of her glands.”

    But my over-the-moon delight came when I saw that SR used Eschewing. I love that word. Always have. I don’t know why.

    I haven’t settled on a tune this week, but I have a mental image of George Harrison playing the sitar. Perhaps someone else could suggest the actual song.

    Reply
  6. Furiosa Avatar
    Furiosa

    I share Computilo’s grumpiness at the end of what was yet another dishearteningly surreal week in an increasingly challenging month/season/year. So not surprisingly, I underlined this bit from the end of this week’s section: “maybe this was the difference between my Indian childhood and Pakistani adolescence—that in the first I was beset by an infinity of alternative realities, while in the second I was adrift, disorientated, amid an equally infinite number of falsenesses, unrealities and lies.”

    I was sad to see the Monkey’s transformation, and how that made her so highly valued. Is that SR or the culture he’s interrogating, or a stew of both? Depends on my mood.

    So I’ll end with the clause that made me laugh out loud because YES I AGREE: “anger, patchouli, treachery and dung were among the heavyweight stinks of the earth.”

    Reply
  7. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    I’m in a small town about to embark on a camping trip. FM radio here picks up on two radio stations – one of which is playing “I Don’t Know” from Blizzard of Ozz. Once again, ambiguity feels appropriate to the state of the world fictional and material.

    I’m about 20 pages behind in my reading, but plan to make great headway en plain aire!

    Reply
  8. Guzmán Huerta Avatar
    Guzmán Huerta

    In past sections I said that I felt like MC is similar to “Umbrella Academy”. Sometimes I feel now that I am in an Indian version of “Forrest Gump”, where the main character is a first line spectator of historical events (“pepperpots”).

    “What did eleven-year-olds hear at dinner?”… “The little men should stay (at the dinner table). It Is their future, after all”.

    Reply
  9. Guzmán Avatar
    Guzmán

    In past sections I said that I felt like MC is similar to “Umbrella Academy”. Sometimes I feel now that I am in an Indian version of “Forrest Gump”, where the main character is a first line spectator of historical events (“pepperpots”).

    “What did eleven-year-olds hear at dinner?”… “The little men should stay (at the dinner table). It Is their future, after all”.

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

    Weird to sit in on a coup being plotted in the current climate. Had been making good progress on the book but now lagging; hoping for a merciful page count this upcoming week.

    Reply
  11. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    Also lagging now, but I blame our current reality, which has been enough of a mindf—- this week that it was really difficult to motivate myself to read fiction. Now planted on the couch and determined to catchup before next week!

    Reply
  12. Pete Avatar
    Pete

    I have not given up but i cant prove it. Behind a whole section this week.

    Reply
  13. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    I”m struggling too. I feel like its all ladders/tough climbs and no snakes/easy downhills. I’m glad to hear from Noodle that there is hope. I’m usually a lover of plot, but is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Just to attach some allusion to the actual text, I’ll note the arresting image of “the fabulous array of mustaches, swagger-ticks, gimlet-eyes, medals and shoulderpips” in closing.

    Reply
  14. So-Called Bill Avatar
    So-Called Bill

    “The Datsun of Her Vengeance”

    Reply
  15. Noodle Avatar
    Noodle

    No worries…only one chapter further…

    Reply
  16. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    I also liked ‘Datsun of her vengeance’ (!). I liked how Saleem proceeded from the categorization of fizzy drink smells directly to love/death, greed/humility, etc. I can remember as a kid trying to decide if I liked the smell of Coke better than Pepsi (but in my case, the battle for the soul of a nation didn’t hang upon the outcome…. or did it???). I looked up ‘itr’ (finally) and discovered that: Ittar, also known as attar, is an essential oil derived from botanical sources. The word ‘attar’, ‘ittar’ or ‘itra’ believed to have been derived from the Persian word itir, meaning ‘perfume’, which is in turn derived from the Arabic word ‘itr.’

    As for the disease of Optimism, it seems to be producing some rather strange results in my television, currently. I’m trying not to watch!

    Reply
  17. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    I too have been waylaid by outside events but hope to catch up soon.

    Reply
  18. Alyssa Avatar
    Alyssa

    I did finish! I just seem to be a couple of days behind. Determined to catch up this week under the weight of a tiny warm sleeping baby who, incidentally, was just one hour away from being a midnight child.

    Reply
  19. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    Just seeing this now, CONGRATULATIONS, Alyssa!

    Reply
  20. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    My meander has turned into a final weekend sprint and this comment is so late I leave it mostly to say I’m still here! I do wish I had truly meandered because then I’d feel I have time to deepen my enjoyment by looking up the India-Pakistan events referenced.

    SR sure can turn a phrase and I enjoy what you all called out above. I’ve also enjoyed the entrance of Uncle Puffs and, look, another sheet with a hole cut out for discovery.

    Reply

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