Rushdie attempts to swallow all of India in his epic novel [Midnight's Children]. Therein lies his ambition and his downfall. He is authentic when he writes about Bombay, the place of his birth, the city where he grew up. Probably there is no other Indian novel that captures the sights and smells of Bombay as Midnight's Children does, but when Rushdie writes about the rest of India, he is neither so forceful nor so authentic.

Rushdie attempts to answer the question of one's identity, both individually and nationally, but the story gets lost in his myriad digressions. Up to a point, the digressions are "entertaining," but they seriously detract from the form and the flow of the novel. In trying to be too clever, Rushdie loses control both of himself and of his art. Midnight's Children is a brilliant piece of writing, but as a novel it lacks...