Salman Rushdie

1. Salman Rushdie Midnight’sChildren

2. SALMAN RUSHDIE Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947. The only son of a wealthy Indian businessman and a school teacher, Rushdie was educated at a Bombay private school before attending The Rugby School in England where he received an M.A. degree in history in 1968. After that, Rushdie briefly lived with his family in Pakistan, where his parents had moved in 1964. There, he found work as a television writer but soon returned to England, where for much of the 1970s he worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency. Soon after, Rushdie published his first novel, Grimus(1975). A blend of science and literary fiction, Grimus, though generally ignored by critics, nonetheless marked the debut of a new literary talent that incorporated myth, magic, and fantasy into his narratives. Six years later, Rushdie published Midnight’s Children, a fable about modern India, was an unexpected critical and popular success that won him international recognition.

3. However, Rushdie’s great international fame is mainly owed to his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses and the controversy that followed its publication. Muslim religious clerics and politicians deemed The Satanic Verses sacrilegious and offensive for its harsh, critical portrayal of Islam and for its less-than-reverent treatment of the Prophet Mohammed. The novel was banned in Rushdie’s native India and prompted the theocratic Iranian government to issue a fatwa—a religious ruling—calling for his death in 1989. Rushdie spent the next nine years living in secrecy, under the protection of bodyguards and the British government. Fearful for his life, Rushdie nonetheless continued to write and publish books, most notably Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and the Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), as well as two works of non-fiction, The Jaguar Smile (1987) and Imaginary Homelands (1991). When the Iranian government lifted the fatwa in 1998, Rushdie was able to enjoy a return to a moderately normal life and eventually settled in New York City. Rushdie is also the author of a book of stories, East, West, and other two works of non-fiction – Joseph Anton – A Memoir,  and Step Across This Line.

4. Midnight’sChildren «The idea of the “Midnight’s Children” was, yes, it was about my generation, but I also wanted them to embody the possibility. The idea behind giving them magic powers if they were born in the midnight hour was to say, “Freedom is a magical moment, and here is the potential of that freedom.”» Published in 1981, the book tells the story of India's complicated history through a pickle-factory worker named Saleem Sinai. It portraits the political upheaval and constant threat of violence that marked the first three decade of independence and Saleem’s existence as well. The book was a critical and commercial success. The honors included the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction). In 1993 and 2008 it was awarded the "Best of the Bookers," a distinction that made it the best novel to have won a Booker Prize for Fiction in the award's 25 and later 40-year history.

5. Saleem Sinai opens the novel by explaining the exact date and time of his birth: August 15, 1947, at midnight, the moment India officially gains independence from Britain. Then, he goes back to 1915 and from that time, he talks about every following historical event that changed the face of India.Following Saleem’s narration, the setting changes walking from past to present. He considers his existence tied to the fate of his country and every personal change in space and time is justified as an expedient to talk about India’s main historical facts. Saleem’s existence seems to be the representation of life as it is, with its swirling and dancing through wars, geographies and political movements, going from past to present, from Kashmir to Bombay, from Pakistan to India. The novel is glutted with specificities of dating, the time period portrayed goes from 1915 to 1977 passing through India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. HISTORICAL CONTEXT “Such historical coincidences have littered, and perhaps befouled, my family’s exis­tence in the world”

6. March 1919: Rowlatt Act And Satyagraha The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919 , popularly known as the Rowlatt Act or Black Act, was a legislative act indefinitely extending the emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without trial and judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during the First World War. It was enacted in light of a perceived threat from revolutionary nationalists to organizations of re-engaging in similar conspiracies as during the war. It was so unpopular that in 1919, a group of Indians staged the biggest and most violent anti-British protest since the Great Rebellion, the Satyagraha. 13 April 1919: JallianwalaBagh Massacre On Apr. 11, 1919, General Reginald Dyer, the lieutenant governor of Punjab, declared martial law. Two days later, a peaceful, unarmed crowd of villagers gathered, unaware of the ban of meetings. Dyer’s troops opened fire on the crowd, resulting in 1,500casualties, many of them women and children. This incident propelled the nationalist movement in India, while the British hailed Dyer as a hero for defending Britain’s imperialism in the East. Despite the tremendous use of force against his followers, Gandhi continued to promote the non-violent, non-cooperation movement and began to recruit Muslim support. 1939—August 1942: WWII and The Quit India Movement Gandhi reorganized in 1942 to start the Quit India Revolt, anon-violent campaign of mass struggle and resistance. The strategy soon took the form of guerilla warfare—500 post offices, 250railway stations and150 police stations were destroyed or damaged, trains were derailed and courts were attacked. British police and troops responded by taking hostages, imposing fines, setting villages on fire and staging public whippings. “Colonial panic” set in and by the end of the year, nearly 100,000 Indians had been arrested.

7. 16 August 1946: Direct Action Day/ The Great Calcutta Killings /The Week Of The Long Knives • Under pressure from more strikes, in 1946 the British government allowed an interim, independent “Indian” government to be established. Though there was still no for-mal talk of partition, the British proposed a loose con-federation with three parts, of which two were Muslim-controlled. On Aug. 16, 1946, violence broke out between the Hindu sand Muslims with unprecedented communal riots in • Calcutta, Bombay and Noakhali. With the growing violence, the British began to plan their departure, setting June 30, 1948, as the date for withdrawal from India. • 15 August 1947: Indian Independence And Partition Of India • The combination of nationalist mobilization, • exhaustion and depletion from • World War II finally brought • the British to consider “quitting” • the continent. • These were the principles • of the announce: • 1) Principle of the Partition of British India • was accepted by the British Government • 2) Successor governments would be given dominion status • 3) Autonomy and sovereignty to both countries • 4) Can make their own constitution after partition • In early March 1947 the Muslim League brought down the Coalition government in Punjab and renewed its claim to form the government in the province that was seen as the cornerstone of the Pakistan proposal. In June 1947 it was decided that Pakistan would split off from India. Officials were given one month to draw the borders between India and Pakistan and the rush to independence became the rush toward partition.

8. 1958: Pakistani Coup D'état General Ayub centralized the administration of Pakistan, introducing the One Unit scheme to combine the Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) as ‘West Pakistan.’ This ‘unit’ was then treated as the political equivalent of ‘East Pakistan’ (East Bengal), which contained more than 50 percent of the total population. General Ayub embraced a top-down development strategy. This strategy, pursued through a bureaucracy heavily dominated by the Punjab, exacerbated the economic and political imbalance between the western (Punjab-dominated) and eastern (Bengal-dominated) ‘units’ of Pakistan. 1962: The Sino-Indian War A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. India initiated a Forward Policy in which it placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line, the eastern portion of the Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959. Unable to reach political accommodation on disputed territory along the Himalayan border, the Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962. The war ended when China declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and simultaneously announced its withdrawal to its claimed 'line of actual control'.

9. 1965: Indo-Pakistani War Of 1965/ Second Kashmir War There was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. The conflict began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was designed to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to precipitate an insurgency against Indian rule. India retaliated by launching a full-scale military attack on West Pakistan. The seventeen-day war caused thousands of casualties on both sides and witnessed the largest engagement of armored vehicles and the largest tank battle since World War II. Hostilities between the two countries ended after a United Nations-mandated ceasefire was declared following diplomatic intervention by the Soviet Union and the United States.

10. 26 March 1971: Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War Of 1971 In 1969, General Ayub Khan passed the mantle to General Yahya Khan, who called for national elections in 1970. These elections were won (outright) by the party of Mujib-ur-Rahman, namely, the Awami League. This result alarmed the military, political, economic, and religious ‘establishment’ in West Pakistan—particularly PPP leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who said that he would have refused to enter the National Assembly if General Yahya Khan had allowed his adversary, Mujib-ur-Rahman, to form the next (majority) government. In due course, the Pakistan Army invaded East Pakistan to maintain control. Concerned about the ensuing civil war, India intervened on behalf of the Bengali ‘resistance,’ leading (rather quickly) to the defeat of the (West) Pakistan Army and the formation of Bangladesh. Mujib-ur Rahman emerged from the 1970 elections as the leader of Bangladesh. 1975-1977: The Emergency The Emergency is a twenty-one-month period where Indira Gandhi ruled India absolutely. The order bestowed upon the Prime Minister the authority to rule by decree, allowing elections to be suspended and civil liberties to be curbed. For much of the Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. Several other human rights violations were reported from the time, including a forced mass-sterilization campaign to limit population growth. The Emergency is often considered a dark time for India.

11. HAYDEN WHITE History as we know it is a kind of narration historical narration ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fictional narration White Mughals Sea of Poppies Midnight Children

12. SYNOPSIS The story itself is the narration of many narrations. The protagonist Saleem feels that his life is going to end soon and his body is literally crumbling into dust. He decides therefore to tell his story from the very beginning to Padma. Padma Saleem's caretaker and listener, she represents the skeptical voice of the novel. Saleem The main character, he embodies within his individual self the totality and plurality of India. CHARACTERS

13. GÜNTER GRASS Die Blechtrommel(The Tin Drum), 1959. By starting to play the drum, Oskar declares his unwillingness to grow up. He is also gifted with a special power which allows him to kill people with his voice. Oskar identifies himself with the post WWII Germany, which must face the horrors it has committed by following Hitler in his madness.

14. THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY Aadamis a doctor, in 1915 he starts to treat Naseem. Three years later, on the same day WWI ends, he sees Naseem's face for the first time. They marry, go to live in Agra and have five kids. Aadam becomes part of the anti-partition movement and his daughter Mumtaz marries in secret Nadir Khan, the assistant of the movement's leader MianAbdullah. Nadir Khan is forced to flee because of Emerald. Mumtaz marries Ahmed.

15. FRAGMENTATION -Saleem feels like his body is going to be crumbling into pieces -India with his plurality of cultures and religions -Love relationships -The narration The family moves to Delhi where Mumtaz changes her name to Amina and receives a prophecy about her son. In Bombay the nanny switches the name-tags of the two babies giving to the poor one a life of privilege and to the rich one a life of poverty. The two kids are named Saleem and Shiva. The major conflict of the novel takes form out of the battle between these two kids: Saleem represents Brahma, god of creation, while Shiva is named after the god of destruction. The constant tension between these two aspects is the milestone out of which the story takes form.

16. The family moves to Pakistan, where Emerald's husband, general Zulficar, stages a coup against the Pakistani government. After Ahmed suffers an heart attack the family moves back to Bombay and India goes to war against China. Saleem undergoes a surgery and loses his telepathic ability. After India's loss against China the family need to return to Pakistan where the whole family is killed but Saleem, who loses his memory. He finds himself conscripted into military service, he even helps to quell the independence movement in Bangladesh. He flees from the war, regains all of his memory except the knowledge of his name and finds Parvati-the-witch, one of midnight’s children, who to remember his name. Parvati and Saleeem grow fond to each other but she, disappointed that Saleem will not marry her, has an affair with Shiva, now a famous war hero. Meanwhile, Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, begins a sterilization campaign. Shiva delivers Saleem to the government, which forces him to reveal the names of the other midnight’s children. One by one, the midnight’s children are abducted and sterilized, effectively destroying the powers that so threaten the prime minister.

17. CREATION AND DESTRUCTION By delivering Saleem into the hands of the Widow (Indira Gandhi), Shiva is responsible for the destruction of the midnight’s children, and yet, by fathering Aadam and hundreds of other children, he ensures the continuation of their legacy. This is the circle of life, constantly in balance between creation and destruction in a circle which will never end. The Widow loses the elections, the midnight children are set free and Saleem moves to Bombay with his son and his friend Picture Singh. He eats there some chutney that tastes exactly like the ones his ayah, Mary, used to make. He finds the chutney factory that Mary now owns, at which Padma stands guarding the gate.

18. MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN STRUCTURE The novelisideallydividedintothree books, whichrefer to threedifferentperiods of bothSaleem’s and Indian life. • BOOK 1 – 1915- 1947 Before Independence, beforeSaleemwasborn • BOOK 2 – 1947 – 1965 Saleem’s/Indianchildhood and adolescence • BOOK 3 – 1971- 1978 Turbulences of youngadulthood and disillusionment

19. BOOK 1 – 1915- 1947 • April 13 th 1919 PeacefulprotestatJallianwalaBagh in Amritsar • ApproachingMidnight of Independence and Partition • Saleem’sgrandfatheractivelyinvolved in the so-called “Free Islam Convocation” led by Mian Abdullah “the Hummingbird”, against  the Partition wanted by Jinnah’s Muslim League.

20. BOOK 2 –1947 – 1965 • 1948: Gandhi’s death • 1964: Nehru’s death (Saleem thinks he’s responsible for his death, having triggered an unfortunate series of event starting from the members of his family) • 1964: Saleem’s family moved to Pakistan - military coup d’état in Pakistan Saleem is deprived of his magical power: the actual line between Pakistan and India becomes a metaphorical wall which prevents him to talk to the other children. • 1965: second Indo-Pakistani war in Kashmir / the bombs in Karachi destroy almost every member of Saleem’s family

21. BOOK 3 – 1971-1978 (sixyearslater) Saleem has lost his memory after the massacre of his family • 1971: third Indo-Pakistani war “the purpose of that entire war had been to re-unite with an old life, to bring me back together with my old friends”. • While the military marshals of India and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) meets, Saleem meets Parvati-the-Witch • 1975: Parvati-the-Witch almost dies while giving birth to Shiva’s son / Indira Gandhi announces the state of Emergency. • “Our private emergency was not unconnected with the larger, macrocosmic disease, under whose influence the sun had become as pallid as diseased as our son.”

22. THE WIDOW AND THE END OF MIDNIGHT’ CHILDREN The mysterious character referred to as “the Widow” for most of the book turns out to be a very well-known political figure in the history of contemporary India: Indira Gandhi.  Fusion of the two narratives with a single crisis. The reforms of the emergency, which included a widespread campaign of forced sterilization, were widely seen as massive abuses of government power and human rights. The nation of India is metaphorically thrown into perpetual darkness. By making Indira Gandhi’s campaign responsible for the destruction of the fictional midnight’s children, Rushdie holds her accountable for destroying the promise and hope of a new future for India.

23. “Those who would be gods fear no one so much as other potential deities; and that, that and that only, is why we, the magical children of midnight, were hated feared destroyed by the Widow, who was not only Prime Minister of India but also aspired to be Devi, the Mother-goddess in her most terrible aspect, possessor of the shakti of the gods [...] Who am I? Who were we? We were are shall be the gods you never had.” (p.612)

24. THEMES, SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS • Genealogies • Binarisms • Religion and mythology • Snakes and ladders • Fragmentation • perforatedsheet and a silver spittoon...

25. THEMES: genealogy Not only Saleem, but also Rushdie has always been a bit obsessed with genealogy, which is one of the preeminent themes of the book. Let’s start from afar, giving two examples of what he means by genealogy: • ImaginaryHomelands(1981) • Yorick(collection of short stories “East, West”, 1994)

26. ImaginaryHomelands (1981) “We are inescapably international writers at a time when the novel has never been a more international form [...] It is perhaps one of the more pleasant freedoms of the literary migrant to be able to choose his parents. My own - selected half consciously, half not - include Gogol, Cervantes, Kafka, Melville, Machado de Assis; a polyglot family tree, against which I measure myself, and to which I would be honoured to belong.”

27. Yorick (East, West, 1994) “Yorick’s child survives, and leaves the scene of his family’s tragedy; wanders the world, sowing his seed in far-off lands, from west to east and back again; and multicoloured generations follow, ending (I’ll now reveal) in this present, humble AUTHOR.” • tracing back Rushdie’s own literary ancestors • tracing back the literary ancestors of the novel as a literary form (palimpsest, intertextuality) • Sort of poetical manifesto Yorick: very emblematic figure (he perfectly represent the Western Canon Rushdie is trying to take possession of, being both Hamlet’s fool and a character of TristramShandy).

28. GENEALOGY IN MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN Genealogy are a pivotaltheme of Midnight’sChildrenattwodifferentlevels: • Plot-level: Rushdie creates actual and fictitious genealogies between the characters (Saleem and his numerous parents, the relationship between he and Shiva being changelings…) • Structure-level: (Weltanschauung: destiny): Genealogy is strictly bound to the idea of destiny and the (actually not-so-rigid) mechanicistic idea of everything-happens-for-a-reason, which becomes everything-happens-for-Saleem.

29. GENEALOGY IN MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN:doeseverythingreallyhappen for Saleem? «is this an Indian disease, this urge to encapsulate the whole of reality? Worse: am I infected, too?» (p.97)  Attempt to create a genealogy of both India and his personal life events. «I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each ‘I’, every one of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.»

30. THEMES: binarismsSingle vs Many • Dynamic relationship between Saleem’s individual life and the collective life of the nation  public and private will always influence one another • Politically speaking, this tension also marks the nation of India itself. One of the fastest growing nations in the world, India has always been a country of complexity and contradictions (referreing to languages, religions, cultures)

31. Saleem, a character who contains a multitude of experiences and sensitivities, stands in stark contrast to the protestors who demand their own language-based region, the strict monotheism of Pakistan, and Indira Gandhi’s repression of contradictory dissension.  In Midnight’s Children, the desire for singularity or purity—whether of religion or culture—breeds not only intolerance but also violence and repression. (Indira is India and India is Indira? Saleem is India and India is Saleem!)

32. THEMES: binarismsDestruction vs Creation “Two of us were born on the stroke of midnight. Saleem and Shiva, Shiva and Saleem, nose and kneese and kneese and nose… to Shiva, the hour had given the gifts of war (of Rama [...] of Arjuna and Bhima [...] of Kurus and Pandavas united, unstoppably, in him!) … and to me, the greatest talent of all - the ability to look into the hearts and minds of men. But it is Kali-Yuga; the children of the hour of darkness were born, I’m afraid, in the midst of the age of darkness; so that although we found it easy to be brilliant, we were always confused about being good.” (p.277) Shiva and Saleem, victor and victim; understand our rivalry, and you will gain an understanding of the age in which you live. (The reverse of this statement is also true.) (p.604).

33. Saleem and Shiva represent the ancient, mythological battle between the creative and destructive forces in the world. Shiva, the Hindu god of both destruction and procreation, reflects not only the tension but also the inextricably bound nature of these two forces. • By delivering Saleem into the hands of the Widow, Shiva is responsible for the destruction of the midnight’s children; • and yet, by fathering Aadam and hundreds of other children, he ensures the continuation of their legacy. Saleemrepresents Brahma, the god of creation. What Saleem creates, however, is not life, but a story: as the narrator of Midnight’s Children, is responsible for creating the world we, as readers, are engaged in.

34. THEMES: religion and mythology (when Saleem’s family decided to move to Pakistan) (p. 431) «Saleem’s parents said, ‘We must all become new people’; in the land of the pure, purity became our ideal. But Saleem was forever tainted with Bombayness, his head was full of all sorts of religions apart from Allah’s (like India’s first Muslims, I hadlivedin a country whose population of deities rivalled the numbers of its people, so that, in unconscious revolt against the claustrophobic throng of deities, my family had espoused the ethics of business, not faith).»

35. MOTIFS: snakes and ladders Symbol of the binarismswhich dominate the novel. « All games havemorals; and the game of Snakes and Ladderscaptures, as no otheractivity can hope to do, the eternaltruththat for everyladderyouclimb, a snakeiswaitingaround the corner; and for everysnake, a ladderwill compensate. Butit’s more thanthat; no mere carrot-and-stickaffair; becauseimplicit in the game is the unchangingtwoness of things [...] we can see, metaphorically, allconceivableoppositions [...] But I found, veryearly in my life, that the game lackedonecrucialdimension, that of ambiguity.»

36. Early in the novel, a snake’svenomsavedSaleem’s life (in terms of the game, here a snakeparadoxicallyrepresents the ladder). • Generally considered to represent evil, snakes are, in fact, much more complicated. While venom has the power to kill, it also has the ability to bring life (it’s the same of the greek concept of the Pharmakos/Pharmakon). • Snake venom represents the power of Shiva, both destroyer and procreator. • Snakes are also associated with Picture Singh, Saleem’s closest friend, whose career is both dependent upon and destroyed by snakes.

37. MOTIFS: fragmentation and multiplicity • Saleem claims that, much like his narrative, he is physically falling apart. His body is full of cracks, and, as a result, the past is spilling out of him. • India itself is fragmented. Torn apart by Partition, it is divided into two separate countries, with the east and west sections of Pakistan on either side of India. This division is taken even further when East and West Pakistan are reclassified as two separate countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. • Within India, language marchers agitate for further partitions based upon linguistic lines.

38. LINGUISTIC FRAGMENTATION (p. 261) “India had been divided anew, into fourteen states and six centrally-administered “territories”. But the boundaries of these states were not formed by rivers, or mountains, or any natural features of the terrain; they were, instead, walls of words. Language divided us: Kerala was for speakers of Malayalam, the only palindromically-named tongue on earth; in Karnataka you were supposed to speak Kanarese; and the amputated state of Madras - known today as Tamil Nadu - enclosed the afiocionadosof Tamil.”

39. OTHER SYMBOLS/MOTIFS • The perforatedsheet(s) Saleem’sgrandfatherfalls in love with herwifethrough a perforatedsheet, whichalsocondemnstheirdaughter Amina to «love in fragments» hersecondhusband Ahmed Sinai. Saleem’ssisteralsosings from a small holeinto a richlydecoratedveil. The hole of the perforated sheet represents a portal for vision but also a void that goes unfilled. It is as well a reference to the mythological Veil of Maya. • The silver spittoon Only tangible remnant of Saleem’s former life; it’s the symbol of a vanishing era, but also, being a receptacle, it is the container of memories.

40. STYLE AND LANGUAGE: narration • First-personnarration(authodiegetic, almostomniscient) • Frame story (Saleemtellshis story to Padma and continuallyshiftsbetweenpast and present tense) (easternliteraryancestors: OneThousand and OneNights, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Panchatantra...) • Saleem: unreliable narrator (Unreliable Narration in Midnight's Children, chapter of Imaginary Homelands where Rushdie explains all the “errata”) “As I worked I found out that what intersted me was the process of filtration itself. So my subject changed, was no longer a search for lost time, had become the way in which we remake the past to suit our present purposes, using memory as our tool. […] [Saleem] is cutting up history to suit himself.”

41. STYLE AND LANGUAGE • Fragmented • Intertextual(continuousreferences to bothmythology, IndianepicpoemslikeMahabharata and Ramayanaand the Western tradition, from the ProustianSearch for lost time to Shakespeare and even the cinematographictechniques) • Sensory(large use of synesthesia)

42. STYLE AND LANGUAGE: sensorywriting Food, smells, personalities (p.190): Amina began to feel the emotions of other people’s food seeping into her - because Reverend mother doled out the curries and meatballs of intransigence, dishes imbued with the personality of their creator; Amina ate the fish salans of stubbornness and the birianis of determination. Saleem as a “lexicographer of the nose” (p.441-2) Only when I was sure of my mastery of physical scents did I move on to those other aromas which only I could smell: the perfumes of emotions and all the thousand and one drives which make us human: love and death, greed and humility, have and have-not were labelled and placed in neat compartments of my mind. [...] the only important divisions were the infinitely subtle gradations of good and evil smells. Having realized the crucial nature of morality, having sniffed out that smells could be sacred or profane, I invented, in the isolation of my scooter-trips, the science of nasal ethics.

43. STYLE AND LANGUAGE Beginning of the novel: «I was born in the city of Bombay... once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it’s important to be more... On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A Few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what had befallen me in that benighted moment, because thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country.”

44. The first sentences show how the story is going to be told. The narrator discusses with himself and shifts between a fairytale way of telling, that is “once upon a time”, and a telling based on facts. • The story goes back and forth in time, circling the events. Rushdie was, among others, influenced by The Arabian Nights, where Scheherazade has to tell stories in order not to get executed. Saleem hints that he also has to tell the story well enough, in order not to fall to pieces. • At times Saleem questions himself, “discrediting the belief that truth is one and absolute”, and holding that it is instead multiple and conflicting.  is he really unreliable or is he just telling a too complex, multifaceted story?

45. CRITICAL READINGS • Midnight’sChildrenas a rewriting of history(Saleemhimself use the word «chutnification») • «StrangerGods» by Roger Y. Clark (centralrole of mythologyin Rushdie’snovels) • «Orientalism and the Institution of World Literatures» by Aamir R. Mufti (critique of the Indian-English novel)

46. «StrangerGods»:Rushdie’smytholog(ies) Thiscriticalessaytries to readRushdie’s first novelsthrough the lens of hismythologicalreferences. Rushdie employscosmology, mythology and mysticism to structure «otherworldlydramas»  mythologyas a narrative techniquewhichislinked to intertextuality to create hybrid (bothEastern and Western) characters, plots and themes.

47. «Orientalism and the Institution of World Literatures» (In World Literature in Theoryed. by D. Damrosh) Thisessayisnotspecificallyabout Rushdie, butdiscusses World Literature in a critical way. • Global relations of force at the heart of the concept of world literature (sort of colonialheritage) to the detriment of the truediversity of Indiancultures and languages. «The deepencounterbetween English and the other Western languages and the languages of the global peripheryas media of literaryexpressiondidnot take place for the first time in the postcolonial era, [...] butespeciallyat the dawn of the modern eraitself.»

48. Moving from thisassumption, Muftimakes a sharpcriticism to Rushdie’s statement that «Indo-Anglianliteraturerepresentsperhaps the mostvaluablecontribution India hasyet made to the world of books». «Rushdie’sisnot, ifwe are to be precise, an Orientalist statement, butrather an Anglicistone [...] Ifthere are echoes of Macaulayhere, thisis far from beingaccidental. [...] In Rushdie’scomments, Macaulay’sjudgmentisupdated for the twenty-first century [...] Rushdie, whoseMidnight’sChildren first introduced world audiences to the global ambitions of the AnglophoneIndianbourgeoisieat the threshold of the neoliberalrestructuring of the Indian economy, establishes the properrelationship in the world literarysystembetween English and the Indianvernaculars.»

49. ANGLOPHILIA, MIMICRY, POSTMODERNISM... Ideal response to Mufti’scriticismgiven by Saleemhimself. “In India, we’ve always been vulnerable to Europeans… Evie had only been with us a matter of weeks, and already I was being sucked into a grotesque mimicry of European literature [...] Perhaps it would be fair to say that Europe repeats itself, in India, as farce.”

50. Chiara Ghezzi • Mariano CetroniMariani • Maria FiorellaSuozzo