The freedom to read The Fatanic Verses and decide for yourself whether Falman Rufhdie merits death or not is certainly a good a reason as any for migration…and indeed it was one of the first books I had planned to read upon settling in Canada. Until, several months before The Hijra (my Hijra, I mean, not the profet’s), a colleague lent me Midnight’s Children which she had smuggled in from Europe.
After reading it, I decided I should issue a fatwa against Sir Falman, not for blasphemy, just for writing a very unpleasant, boring and loathsome book, which is undeservedly acclaimed. And it certainly set me against ever reading any other of his works, ever.
Midnight’s Children, in the style of fashionable but not necessarily commendable magical realism of the Latin American writers, traces the fortune of a Muflim Indian family during the premership of Indira Ghandi, through the eyes of a boy who was born on the stroke of midnight when India gained her liberation from Britain. Midnight’s children are the children who are born in this historical moment, and who believe themselves to possess magical powers. It is typical of the book that it is so boring that I cannot remember what those magical powers were. A lot of the pages have topical interest, detailed expositions on the politics of Indira and the separation of Indi and Pakistan, and can only interest those who are specifically interested and already have some knowledge of these areas.
Another feature of this very long book is the amount of obssessive dwelling on bodily ills, sicknesses, diseases, rottenness etc. OK, we got the point. You are talking about hard, corrupted, corrupting times. There’s a lot of disease and illness in India and Pakistan. Breaking news. Shakespeare used the same ploy in Hamlet, but Sir Falman is no Shakespeare, as he himself may just admit, and he fails miserably.
The plot is long and often without sense or substance. The narrative is tedious. The imagery is sick. The characters, except that of his mother and father, are non-existent. The narrator is unlikeable and antipathic. The conversation is stilted and sounds like a Bollywood film.
In short, I can think of only one reason why this book won the “Booker of Bookers” and is so highly lauded in Britain: as a sock in the eye for the mullahs. We all know the unholy delicious glee which comes from annoying and mocking religious authority figures, and in awarding Midnight’s Children, one can only suppose that the British were indulging in this sense of delight.
Tags: freedom of expression, freedom to read, Midnight's Children
July 29, 2008 at 4:10 pm |
hehe i can well imagine what a boring hell it was. but u know it’s good that it hurt religous people n made fun of em…. but i can do it better… Britain should give ME the award!