Well, I'm back. OK, this issue is a week later than I promised, but I was still in holiday mode for a week or so after I got back - and the World Cup was kind of distracting to me as well...  If you're interested in seeing something of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote then click here to see some pictures I took of the islands. I didn't spend the whole fortnight getting sunburnt, you know...just 90% of it.

Anyway, rather than bore you with remeniscences from my holiday, let's get on with this week's recommendation. With all that's going on in India and Pakistan right now, it's a book that's topical, but that's not necessarily a good thing, I feel...

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie's abilities as a writer are often obscured by the worldwide reaction to The Satanic Verses: riots. murders and the infamous fatwa issued against him by the Ayatollah Khomeini. He also has a reputation for being a very 'literary' writer, someone who is read for the intellectual kudos you can get for saying 'oh yes, I've read Rushdie' rather than for any actual enjoyment the reader might get from the book.

However, years before The Satanic Verses would catapult him into global consciousness, Midnight's Children had already established his reputation as a writer of incredible talent. It's presented as the memoirs of Saleem Sinai, a man 'handcuffed to history' by dint of his having been born on the stroke of midnight at the moment of India's independence from Britain in 1947. Along with the other 1000 'Midnight's Children' born in that first hour of India's indepdence, Saleem's life parallels the first thrity years of Pakistan and India's existence as independent nations.

However, beyond just being linked to the history of the subcontinent, the children also possess a variety of supernatural powers including Saleem's own ability to let the children telepathically 'meet'. However, Saleem's intimate knowledge of all the other children will prove to be more of a curse than a blessing as history continues inexorably around them. Saleem's dreams of uniting the children to guide India to a glorious future are as doomed as any dream of uniting the fragmented peoples of India.

I can understand that in summary the plot does sound somewhat bizarre, but Rushdie's skill is to make it all seem possible and believeable. Saleem does not just recount his story in a dry authorial montone but with the voice of someone who seems truly alive to the reader, aware of his own flaws as a storyteller and responding to the inbuilt critique of his lover/fiancee Padma, answering the possible objections to his tale that any reader might have. Rushdie is aware that any first-person narration is potentially flawed, but actually uses those potential flaws to his advantage, making them an integral part of the novel.

One of Rushdie's great skills is in his use of words. At times, Midnight's Children has an almost poetic rhythm, his language conjuring up a sense of India as a place, mixing the mystical and banal, using all the senses, even smell and taste, to capture the essence of character and country. You're drawn into Saleem's world and by weaving the fantastical story of the children in among the real history, you can actually understand what these events meant to the people who experienced them.

Finally, Midnight's Children is of interest in terms of history itself. Even if you know only the broad outlines of Indian and Pakistani history this book can actually educate you about the thirty years of seemingly wasted opportunity and mutual antipathy between the countries and the people. Saleem's link to history means he finds himself at the crucial points of history, despite his best efforts to avoid them, from the first days of India's indepdence through the first Pakistani coup and the war for the independence of East Pakistan/Bangladesh through to the climax in the days of Indira Gandhi's 'Emergency'.

As with so many of the books I recommend here I could go on and on about this, but I think it's something you need to read yourself to truly understand the magic of it.

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OK, I should be back to weekly recommendations after this, but if I am late with the recommendation next week, you can probably put it down to World Cup related euphoria/depression (delete as appropriate after England's match on Friday). Or it might just be down to laziness and the return of holiday mode.

Nick