RUSHDIE GOES TO B(H)OLLYWOOD: CINEMA IN MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN

Abstract

Recent criticism of the novels of Salman Rushdie has focused on issues such as the interplay between the individual and history, the questioning of established constructions of identity and of dualistic thought and the problematizing of the national space. In keeping with such readings of Rushdie’s fiction, this essay will argue that in Midnight’s Children references to cinema are scattered throughout the novel and bring about the decenterment and fragmentation of its narrator and of the founding national narrative. Informed by cinematic devices the novel evades resolution in stable, clearEcut images and history is colored with “reelness”.