Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (2.5 stars)
I finally managed it! It took me over two months to read this book, but I have finally managed it. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this one much at all. There were certainly passages that I found quite engaging, and there's no doubt that Rushdie is a talented writer, but the topic and density of the story just really wasn't for me. I'll admit that prior to reading this book, I didn't know much at all about the history of India and Pakistan, and I found the majority of the book to be incredibly confusing. Having a knowledge about the history would probably have been helpful, especcially because the story is told by an unreliable narrator who points out multiple times that it's entirely possible that some of the historical details he mentions aren't true at all. Because I couldn't really interest myself in the historic facts even while reading this book, they seemed a bit annoying and redundant to me - and seeing as the whole "point" of the story kind of is to see how the history of the entire country connects with that of an individual, I suppose the entire thing just completely went over my head. I'll have to see if I tackle this book again when I'm older, and if it will make more sense to me then, but this time round I'm pretty sure most of the analogies and metaphores and images just went over my head completely. It's true that after following the characters for such a long time, they do kind of grow on you, and I guess I'll be thinking about this book for a couple of days, it just wasn't an enjoyable read for me. However, it was part of my Man Booker challenge, and it is a modern classic, so I am glad that I read it.