Thursday, April 5, 2012

Title

After reading chapters 1 and 2 of Midnight's Children, I really like when he made the Arabian Nights reference. It wasn't obscure, but obvious. Even though it was pretty obvious, it really added to the point he was making in that section and it reminded me of people often refer to famous stories in america. Patiene of jobe for example.

3 comments:

Shaina Lu said...

I agree with you. I like how he makes a commentary on storytelling with this allusion. I also like how he juxtaposes his storytelling with that of Arabian nights. Salem seems to just want to get everything down before he runs out of time whereas the girl in Arabian nights has to tell her stories in bits and pieces to keep the king interested night after night. This allusion is an interesting commentary on the power of storytelling.

alyb said...

I really liked the alluision to fairy tales at the very beginning of the book. Im not really sure yet if it was ment to be sarcastic or what but I think it adds to the way the reader views the narrator. It makes Saleem's story appear to be fanciful and perhaps untrue, however i dont think i have read enough yet to know if this idea has merit.

Ravin S said...

Aly, I'm right there with you. It's pretty cool that Rushdie mentions Scheherazade, even though it is an Arabian story. It is a story that many Indian children heard before bedtime, simply because it is a fairy tale well known to Indians. I was one of those kids. I never heard typical fairy tales like most of you did (even though I was born here). My parents had only lived here for a few months before I was born, so they were basically 'off the boat'. Anyways, I just like the fairy tale nature of the novel as it makes sense to me.