The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. The familiar outline -- E. M. Forster's outline essentially -- will always be there, because India will always offer the dualities essential for the Forsterian vision: the open sewer and the whispering glade . . . . But it would be a disservice to Salman Rushdie's very original genius to dwell on literary analogues and ancestors. This is abook to accept on its own terms, and an author to welcome into world company . . . . Much of the dialogue (the best parts) reads like the hip vulgarity -- yaar!-- of the Hindi film magazine. The dessicated syllables of T.S. Eliot, so strong an influence upon other Anglo-Indian writers, are gone. Midnight's Children sounds like a continent finding its voice . . . . Of course there are a few false notes. There is a shorter, purer novel locked inside this shaggy monster. A different author might have teased it out, a different editor might have insisted upon it. I'm glad they didn't . . . . The flow of the book rushed to its conclusion in counterpointed harmony: myths intact, history accounted for, and a remarkable character fully alive." (N.Y. Times Book Review Apr. 19, 1981)
