On most vacations or days at the beach, I bring chick lit. If I'm feeling slightly less motivated, I bring tabloids and People magazine. They are cheap, usually slim and packable. Only intriguing enough that your mind may float away from reality, still finding time between margins and page turns to look up and notice the sea rolling in and the pink on your stomach.
This past October in South Florida, we stayed on the coast. And let me tell you, being a few floors above the beach is quite a bit closer than being a few states above it in Minnesota. What a treat. Packing for Florida weather is a cinch-- my suitcase was half as full with twice the clothing. Which might explain my change of taste in vacation literature... you'd have to bring a hundred dollars worth of People magazine to fill all that good, open space. And why let good space go to waste? So I scoured my bookshelves in search of something that would fit the bill. I came up with a selection from a Post-Colonial Lit class that I'd always wanted to finish, but hadn't made the cut of my "Social To-Do List" of Senior year in college.
It was not purely the lack of time that kept me from this book... it was the lack of quality time. This is the kind of read that deserves-- really, it demands-- your undivided attention and deserves to be read somewhere where the only distraction is a sea breeze (or, maybe the ringing of your unanswered cell phone).
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a book I have started about twelve times. It is not a hot and cold feeling, not a lack of devotion... it is only that there is so much to chew on in these pages that I couldn't move on before tasting every flavor. In short, it is a narrative portrait of India that allows the complexities of one man's life, history, and future to speak for that of a nation. It's main character, Saleem Sinai, is born on the stroke of midnight of August 15, 1947-- the moment that marks India's independence. But Midnight's Children is more than a seriously complex portrait. It is lively, thought-provoking, hilarious, candid, surprising, unpretentious, vocal, often beautiful, and often not at all.
While on vacation, I did manage to read about one hundred pages before going home. Here's a (sort of heavy) sample if you're interested:
"And I must work fast, faster than Scheherazade, if I am to end up meaning-- yes, meaning-- something. I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity" (p.4)
"When young Aadam was barely past puberty the dilapidated boatman said, 'That's a nose to start a family on, my princeling. There'd be no mistaking whose brood they were. Mughal Emperors would have given their right hands for noses like that one. There are dynasties waiting inside it,' and here Tai lapsed into coarseness- 'like snot.'" (p. 8)
"Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance; in which case Musa-- for all his age and servility-- was nothing less than a time-bomb, ticking softly away until his appointed time; in which case, we should either-- optimistically-- get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning, and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-- as pessimists-- give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway; things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or chaos?" (p.86)
So what does one gain for reading five hundred pages of Rushdie instead of fifty with glossy photos? Easy reads satisfy a certain brand of craving, but. When instant, easy reads and tabloid style writing are standard fare and getting stale... this book will satisfy any depth of lit-craving in one chapter-length serving. It's worth the weight in your bag. Happy Reading!
