2011 Book #46: Midnight's Children

I'm not quite sure what to say about Midnight's Children except that it's fantastic. Really. If you haven't read it, head over to your local library and pick it up right now. Disregard your Christmas planning, ignore the hurt faces of your family, and hole yourself up for a week, book in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. You won't regret it. Children are resilient: a few years of therapy, and they'll learn that some things are more important than having parents at Christmas.

I'm kidding, of course. Kind of.

At this point, I'm trying to figure out why I haven't read this before. I've ranted several times about colleges not assigning long books anymore, so I won't rehash that here. But everyone should read this novel. It's about everything: history, family, love, good, evil, etc, etc. Just like One Hundred Years of Solitude, which, I'm sure, is why I liked it so very, very much.

That's not to say it's easy reading: Rushdie isn't easy. I had a helluva time with Satanic Verses, but that one was worth it, too. Midnight's Children, though, is my favorite of Rushdie's so far. I picked up a couple of his other novels when I was in Houston, and I'll read them soon. After the Christmas Crunch is over. But I'll talk about that later.

Midnight's Children is about the children born at midnight on India's first day of independence from the British and how they, specifically Saleem Sinai, fit into and affect that history. It's an autobiography from Saleem's point of view, beginning before he was born with an account of his grandfather's life, and then his parents', and then his own.

I had a hard time reading it at the beginning: as I've said, Rushdie isn't easy, and his syntax takes a bit of getting used to. But you read and you read, and then you can't stop reading. A year or two ago, a friend of mine was reading it, and he excitedly told me that it's a challenge until you hit a certain page (which I will not divulge as he refused to remind me), and then BAM. You're in it for the ride, and you can't give up on it because you know it'll be worth it in the end.

The closest analog that I've read is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which gives you a sense of a sweeping history, like all things are encapsulated somewhere in the novel. There's also the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Haruki Murakami. Rushdie creates a whole world around you, and you can't help but be a part of it, swept up in the chaos of Indian independence and what follows. And the end! The end! But I won't go there.

Seriously. If you've never tried Rushdie and you hadn't planned to because of what you'd heard about his books (So many rumors! He's not at all what I expected!) or the man himself. I remember hearing about what happened after he published The Satanic Verses when I was too little to understand what was going on, and now I can see how both of these novels are incredibly controversial - but that's all the more reason to read them. He knew there'd be a scandal (seems like a petty word to use in that case), and he did it anyway. The result is incredibly moving - and, quite often, funny. I had no idea until I puffed up my chest and said, "Hey. Today, I'm gonna tackle Rushdie." I haven't looked back.

2011 Book #12: Catching Fire

Okay, I was wrong. I said I probably wouldn't bother reading Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games. In my defense, Borges made my brain hurt, and I needed some serious leisure reading. This one certainly qualifies.

If you haven't read these books and think you might like to, you should probably stop here. My guess is that if you're reading this blog, this series probably isn't on your list.

So. In The Hunger Games, Katniss won, but the dictator interpreted the way she did it as an act of rebellion, and so did the twelve districts, so uprisings began. (To catch up on the first book, read this post or check out the Wikipedia summary, which, I'm sure, is better than my halfhearted attempt.) The dictator and the Capitol start treating the residents of the districts even worse, and Katniss has become a symbol of the rebellion. The next Hunger Games are coming up, and they're the seventy-fifth. Every twenty-fifth Hunger Games is called the Quarter Quell and is especially nasty. This time the districts are forced to choose their tributes among previous victors, and Katniss and Peeta, the tributes from The Hunger Games, are thrust into the arena again. And we get to read about another year of Hunger Games. Then, things happen, and Katniss is rescued (the Capitol got Peeta, but I'm assuming he's probably not dead), and she learns about the rebellion that's been going on during the Games. The End.

Catching Fire is basically a repeat of The Hunger Games. It has the same general structure, the same general characters, and basically the same ending. The style didn't bother me as much this time, but I'm not sure if it's because it got better or because I realized I'm reading for the plot, so the style is good enough if I can stand it.

I think that Collins's choice of writing these novels in the first person is a misstep. Sure, it adds immediacy (they're also in present tense), but we know, from the outset, especially since there are sequels, that Katniss has to win or, at least, survive. That idea bothered me more in Catching Fire because it's so repetitious.

It's also ridiculously predictable for other reasons. Besides the first-person POV, Collins is over-the-top with clues about what's really going on, even for a book aimed at seventh graders (Wait. Why am I reading this again?).

Despite its flaws, though, I enjoyed it. It's the kind of book I needed after Borges, and I know I'm kidding myself if I don't think I'll read the third one. I even have Mockingjay on my Kindle. The plot is good enough to hold my attention, and, hey, it only took me a couple days to read. I haven't decided whether to read the next one immediately or to put a few books in between. I'm kind of in the mood for another crack at Garcia Marquez.