Tag Archives: Midnight's Children

Trump’s Wall, Symbolic or Literal?

By Robin Bates | Published: January 7, 2019

Monday Literature majors will find their training useful in understanding why Donald Trump has chosen to shut down the government. It has to do with the difference between the symbolic and the literal. A literal wall makes very little sense, with the $5.5 billion dollars that Trump is demanding from American taxpayers (not from Mexico) […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beloved, Donald Trump, magical realism, Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, symbolic vs literal thinking, Toni Morrison, Trump's wall | Comments closed

Using Lit to Battle Fake News

By Robin Bates | Published: June 7, 2018

Authors can fight back against autocratic attempts to define reality but can no longer resort to classic realism, Salman Rushdie argues.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, fake news, Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, Two Years Eight months and Twenty Eight Nights | Comments closed

Food Is More Than Food for Esquivel

By Robin Bates | Published: April 19, 2018

Esquivel captures the greater significance of food in “Like Water for Chocolate.” I also share a whiskey cake recipe and reflect on the magic in magical realism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 100 Years of Solitude, cake recipe, Confessions, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate, magical realism, Marcel Proust, Midnight's Children, Remembrance of Things Past, Salman Rushdie, whiskey cake, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle | Comments closed

Can a Dream Hold Us Together?

By Robin Bates | Published: April 5, 2018

In “Midnight’s Children,” Rushdie shows the forces destroying India’s dream of national unity. Americans will find it familiar.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Constitution, Declaration of Independence, founding fathers, Gunfighter Nation, Midnight's Children, Regeneration through Violence, Richard Slotkin, Salman Rushdie | Comments closed

Snakes, Ladders, and National Disunity

By Robin Bates | Published: February 26, 2018

Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” gives us profound insights into the forces that divide people–Indians as well as Americans–and also offers solutions.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trumpj, electoral politics, Midnight's Children, Salman Rusdie | Comments closed

The Joker (Trump) Takes Over America

By Robin Bates | Published: February 16, 2018

Rushdie compares Donald Trump to Joker in his latest novel.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 2016 election, Donald Trump, Golden House, Joker, Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie | Comments closed

Leaders Who Make Their Own Reality

By Robin Bates | Published: February 15, 2018

What to make of Trump’s non-stop lying? Rushdie in “Midnight’s Chidren” describes what happens when “reality quite literally cease[s] to exist.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, fake news, lies and lying, Midnight's Children, Salman Rusdie | Comments closed

Caught between Faith and Doubt

By Robin Bates | Published: February 3, 2018

Rushdie has a great passage about a character caught between faith and doubt. The passage gives me an opportunity to determine where I myself stand.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Doubt, Faith, James Joyce, Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, skepticism | Comments closed