#100, Midnight's Children (2)

I’m sure none of you will be surprised, but I may have been a bit ambitious when I said I would read Book 2 (260 pages) of Midnight’s Children over the weekend. Pretty much, with my kinda busy day on Saturday and my lazy day on Sunday, I only completed Book 1.

However, that doesn’t change my plan of posting related to Book 1. So, here goes…

• I’ve found myself chuckling at times throughout my reading of Book 1. Do you think I am misreading, or do you think that under the air of seriousness that there is actually a bit of humor to the story? After all, the main character’s birth at the midnight hour of independence is kind of a farce.
• What do you think of Rushdie’s quirks of combining words to make new words (p. 45: “lowaslow”) and removing commas from groups of items/descriptors (p. 80: “father Kemal Butt”)? Padma doesn’t think he is moving quickly enough through his story, but by removing pauses, isn't a sense of urgency created? I wonder if that urgency will continue now that he has been born?
• In the chapter titled “The Perforated Sheet,” we read the story of the strange courtship (can we call it that?) of Saleem’s (non-biological) grandparents. What do you think about the recurrence of this in Amina Sinai’s life as a technique used to learn to love her husband?
• Related to the above: Is the story of the perforated sheet one that also (in addition to the story of Saleem's life) parallels the independence of India?

I hope these questions refer to things you may not have noticed when reading. I don’t want to be dull or dense, so hopefully that hasn’t happened yet!

I still plan to finish Midnight’s Children by the end of the week (at least by the end of Sunday), but will change my schedule to accommodate the reading of The Shack. After that I will move to the next list book, Main Street by Sinclair Lewis.

Please feel free to answer the questions above or add questions/topics of your own.