Friday October 10, 2008 5:20 am Edmonton

Saleem Sinai: the narrator
Amina Sinai: wife of Ahmed Sinai

• "Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible. Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at first in the back row, and gradually moving up, row by row, until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars' faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque proportions; the illusion dissolves - or rather, it becomes clear that the illusion is itself reality." [p. 165 - 166]
  
  
• "For me, there can be no going back; I must finish what I've started, even if, inevitably, what I finish turns out not to be what I began ... " [p. 166]
  • this web site is another such example. As is each life.
    
    
• "... then, the nearlynineyearold in his midnight bed had no need of machines." [p. 167]
  • lap top computers, 3G cell phones, the internet, GPS systems, ...
    
    
• "Telepathy, then: the inner monologues of all the so-called teeming millions, of masses and classes alike, jostled for space within my head. In the beginning ... there was a language problem. The voices babbled in everything ... I understood only a fraction of the things being said within the walls of my skull. Only later, when I began to probe, did I learn that below the surface transmissions - the front-of-mind stuff which is what I'd originally been picking up - language faded away, and was replaced by universally intelligible thought forms which far transcended words." [p. 168]
  • Chomsky? empathy?
    
    
• "I had learned that secrets were not always a bad thing." [p. 169]
  • Many counsellors would not agree with this statement. I do.
    
    
• "This behavior ... was the direct result of a confusion in his mind, which invariably muddled up morality - the desire to do what is right - and popularity - the rather more dubious desire to do what is approved of." [p. 172]
  
  
• "... beneath the glory of a completely circular rainbow." [p. 173]
  • is this possible? Answer: yes (try circular rainbow in google). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mo9TRHaScw
    
    
• "Because the feeling had come upon me that I was somehow creating a world; that the thoughts that jumped inside were mine, that the bodies I occupied acted at my command; that, as current affairs, arts, sports, the whole rich variety of a first-class radio station poured into me, I was somehow making them happen ... which is to say, I had entered into the illusion of the artist, and thought of the multidunous realities of the land as the raw unshaped material of my gift." [p. 174]
  • My own head is spinning with the logic and implications of this idea. Is the novel autobiographical? Is Saleem Sinai "really" Rushdie? Is this an infinite regress?
    

Saleem Sinai describes his first encounters with his ability to read people's minds.

This was a fascinating chapter. The entire story has taken a turn, although I am not sure of the direction.

Saleem Sinai: the narrator
Amina Sinai: wife of Ahmed Sinai
Evie Burns: American girl - headstrong

• "It has been observed that all Americans need a frontier" [p. 181]
  
  • At least a good many seem to.
    
    
• "... I had also read the Classics Illustrated comic book " [p. 185]
  • I remember these. At one time I think I had an almost complete collection.
    
    
• "You can lay your stategies as carefully as you like, but women will undo them at a stroke." [p. 185]
  • It does seem like it is not a fair fight.
    
    
• "The different parts of my somewhat complicated life refuse, with a wholly unreasonable obstinacy, to stay neatly in their separate compartments." [p. 187]
  
  
• "India had been divided anew, into fourteen states and six centrally-administered 'territories'. But the boundaries of these states were not formed by rivers, or mountains, or any natural features of the terrain; they were, instead, walls of words. Language divided us ... " [p. 189]

Saleem Sinai describes his infatuation with Evie Burns, who arrives suddenly one day, on a shiny bicycle. Sonny has a similar interest in Saleem's sister, The Brass Monkey. They both try to make an impression, and both fail, spectacularly.

Saleem crashes into Sonny while trying to ride a bicycle with Evie's help. They hit head on and the jolt to Saleem's head suddenly allows him to the hear the voices of other children who were born at midnight when India became a country. Hence the title of the novel.

When Saleem deliberately tries to get into Evie's mind, she begins yelling at him to get out - she is aware of what he is trying to do.