History Literature / MidnightsChildren

-->To save time, I shall place all of us in the same row at the Metro cinema; Robert Taylor is mirrored in our eyes as we sit in flickering trances -- and also in symbolic sequence: Saleem Sinai is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with Evie Burns who is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with Sonny Ibrahim who is sitting-next-to-and-in-love-with the Brass Monkey [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers who is sitting next to the aisle and feeling starving hungry]].

The novel is structured as the hastily-written and occasionally verging-on-incoherent autobiography of Saleem Sinai, born [[note]]sort of[[/note]] into a wealthy Indian [[UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} Muslim]] family at precisely midnight on 15th August 1947[[note]]the exact point in time at which India became independent from UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire[[/note]]. This results in Saleem and 1,000 other children born between midnight and one a.m. developing odd supernatural powers, with those born closest to midnight being the most powerful. The two children born at midnight exactly have the strongest powers of all: Saleem, whose telepathy manifests at the age of nine and allows him initially to read everyone's thoughts and later to telepathically connect the five hundred and eighty-one surviving midnight's children; and Shiva, whose powers are never described in great detail but whose name - the destroyer - he lives up to.

Saleem has an incredibly strange and convoluted life, but this is not, in many ways, a novel about Saleem; nor is it a novel about cool supernatural abilities. First and foremost, it is a book about India.

** After the traumatic events of the Widow's Hostel, Saleem hears the outcome of the historic 1977 election, where Indira Gandhi is defeated and loses her iron grip on the country. But when we return to the present day, Saleem dejectedly notes that she is experiencing a political second wind, and stands poised to become prime minister again. (In RealLife, this did happen in 1980.)

* LoveTriangle: During Saleem's childhood there is a [[TriangRelations Type 5]]. He develops a crush on [[MeaningfulName Evelyn Lilith Burns]] (an American girl who moves into his gated community), but ''she'' develops a crush on his friend Sonny, who in turn is enamored with Saleem's sister the Brass Monkey. The Brass Monkey doesn't love anyone, and reacts violently to shows of affection.

* PositiveDiscrimination: Averted. Though there are many women in the book, they're just as varied and flawed as the men. [[TheNarrator Saleem]] himself scoffs at the notion that WomenAreWiser.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Taken UpToEleven, possibly even to the point of parody. Though the narrative is mostly linear, Saleem acts like a literature student performing a deep reading of a work, and excitedly references future events whenever he notices something significant. It may even overlap with DoomedByCanon, as Saleem will sometimes spoil future events outright (particularly the deaths of certain characters). But in particular, [[spoiler:the negation of Saleem's {{Telepathy}} after his sinus operation foreshadows that surgical operations can remove the midnight powers, which occurs when the Widow castrates all of them at the end of the story]].

-->-- '''Jawaharlal Nehru''' to '''Saleem Sinai'''

-->-- '''''Jawaharlal Nehru''' to Saleem Sinai''

* {{Asexuality}}: Doctor Narlikar, possibly. He has no children of his own and is downright ''ecstatic'' when Ahmed confides that he's lost his sex drive.