Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) [Paperback]

Norbert Schürer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Continuum Contemporaries | Publication Date: September 7, 2004

The aim of this series is to provide accessible and informative introductions to the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The series comes as near to squaring various circles - popular / academic, 'good read' / 'classic Lit', novel / film of the book as any I know. And at best it goes a fair way towards reshuffling those categories and redrawing the boundaries. With the first volume, I was relieved. After two or three, I was hooked. The books are invaluable for gathering out-of-the-way or ephemeral comment from TV and radio interviews and the web as well as from literary reviews. Refreshingly upfront and up-to-date… Given the space, there are remarkably balanced film/novel comparisons of the most well-known examples… An important feature is the fully referenced bibliographies, including reviews and copious website addresses - the latter ranging from fanzines and authors' and publishers' own sites to academic discussion lists and online journals. In method as in subject matter, these guides move freely on the interface between print culture and multimedia. Highly finished and pleasantly handleable as books in their own right, they gesture accommodatingly to both words and worlds beyond. Taking the series as a whole, it also confirms two things: that narrative nowadays is generically highly hybrid and increasingly cross-media; and that an understanding of the processes of writing and reading 'contemporary classic' (or at least 'currently famous') fiction cannot be separated - yet must be distinguished - from the processes of making and marketing books and films." —The Times Higher Education Supplement

About the Author

Norbert Schurer teaches in the English Department at California State University, Long Beach.

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082641575X
• ISBN-13: 978-0826415752
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #279,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children: A Reader's Guide, February 2, 2010

By 

Mike Boughton (Moscow, Idaho) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) (Paperback)

Helpful in many ways. The book is difficult in part because of the many references and allusions that are not familiar to everyone. Being able to get past name-changes, historical references, religious words and relationships, and other items covered in "A Reader's Guide" lessened the temptation to skip them and thereby miss the thicker nap of the novel.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destiny vs Desire, October 9, 2009

By 

Lorraine F. Cecil "True Believer" (Bemidji, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) (Paperback)

Readers who like to see main characters overcome problems in their lives and the lives of their loved ones will enjoy this book. Readers who enjoy social commentary and offbeat characters will enjoy it more. Readers who revel in allegory combined with beautiful language, frequent dream-like sequences,, and a plot both outlandish and believable will be ecstatic. Rushdie, a transplanted Indian, views the independence and eventual partition of India through the eyes one of the children born at midnight when India becomes independent.

These children are blessed--perhaps cursed is a better word--with unusual understanding and gifts. His interpretation of Indian development from that point on is so complex that he borrows literary techniques from Lawrence Sterne, Gunter Grass and Gabriel Garcia Marquez to express himself. In his view these childrenf are important because "it is the privilege and the curse of midnight's children to be both masters and victims of their times...."