clock … watching time, the only true currency

I’ve kept Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children since college, when I was supposed to read the celebrated 1980 novel. My paperback copy is from 1991, and 17 years later, I’ve finally completed this sweeping story.

In only his second novel, Rushdie creates language and pulsating imagery like few I’ve read. Only immediate comparison would be Umberto Eco, but Rushdie is earthier and more direct, though just as erudite. Also, Rushdie stays in this century for his play with history. Midnight’s Children’s conceit is the narrator’s intimate connection with the history of the subcontinent.

I’d appreciate pointers to an all-in-one history of the creation of India and Pakistan, and the subsequent disintegration of “East Pakistan” into Bangladesh.