In the bleakness of its vision, Midnight's Children is in many ways the counterpart of V. S. Naipaul's India: A Wounded Civilization, which appeared three years ago. While it is possible to agree or disagree with Naipaul's sobering nonfictional assessment, it would be pointless to do either with Rushdie-Saleem's hyperbolic vision, which is that of a novelist who might at any point begin to laugh at his own intensity.

[In isolating any particular cluster of figures, events, and themes, one neglects scores of others.] Bombay movie stars, millionaire boy gurus, snake-charmers, soothsayers, sadhus, pop singers (Saleem's sister becomes one), purposefully deformed beggars, contortionists, extortionists, merchants, magicians, and servants…. The episodes in which they appear—some of them consisting of hardly more than a paragraph—are wonderfully brought to life, often charming, often shocking. One must not underestimate the novel's playfulness, its absurdities, its highjinks—elements that continuously undercut...