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Victoria LeagueProfessor Farrah CatoLIT336817 April 2014Saleem Sinai Is as Unreliable as a History BookOften, people say that history is written by the victors, an adage that has lost its original source and has been reworded and quoted by many. This warns against blindly trusting a source. Multiple versions of each historical event exist, and one may find it difficult to discover which one is the true account of what actually happened. Saleem Sinai, narrator and main character of Salman Rushdies novel Midnights Children, sees the discrepancy between the stories that are told and the real event: Whats real and whats true arent necessarily the same. True, for me, was from my earliest days something hidden inside the stories Mary Pereira told meNow, writing this in my Anglepoised pool of light, I measure truth against those early things: Is this how Mary would have told it? (90). He clearly sets a boundary between the truth and reality, noting that the story can change depending on who is telling it and what their own personal truth is. All stories are dependent on the storyteller, and all historical accounts are dependent on the historian. One might wonder if the telling of history can even be distinguished from the telling of stories. Midnights Children is an in-depth history of the life of Saleem Sinai. Through experiences that can easily be described as magical and unbelievable, Saleem tells his own personal story and the story of his family. Saleem knows that the reader will find it hard to believe in occurrences such as his grandfather disintegrating entirely, one thousand babies born with magical abilities, and two characters appearing to be multiple centuries old, and thus repeatedly reminds the reader that he is telling the truth. However, Saleem also makes factual errors in his tale and readily admits to the possibility that he is reworking history to suit his own needs, often prefacing his accounts with phrases like history, in my version (Rushdie 233), therefore diminishing his credibility. Readers can easily see that Saleem is an unreliable narrator and that they must be cautious when deciding whether or not to believe him, but this concept goes deeper than just the story of Saleem. When Rushdie creates an unreliable narrator that gives a historical account, he forces the reader to consider the unreliability of any and all historical accounts; Saleems errors and falsifications are a reality for the way that people tell history in a biased, self-serving manner. Saleem, as mentioned, continually makes factual errors, primarily when recounting the dates of events. The first error that he points out is the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Re-reading my work, I have discovered an error in chronology. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi occurs, in these pages, on the wrong date. But I cannot say, now, what the actual sequence of events might have been; in my India, Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong time (Rushdie 198). This is a cause for concern; if he cannot get a recorded date of death correct, how can the reader trust his memory with the events that happened in his personal life? Gandhis death is well-known enough to have been recorded in multiple places and thus easily be referenced and corrected, but Saleems stories about his life have not been recorded yet. The reader has no way of knowing if Saleem is making errors when he describes his personal life story, and the fact that he makes this type of error encourages the reader to be cautious and skeptical. After noting the error, he does not correct it, instead saying that the incorrect version is the only version that fits with his story. In his India, Gandhi dies at the wrong time. This idea of Saleems own personal India with its separate timeline enforces the idea that history changes depending on who is telling it; many versions of the same event exist, as Saleem himself says: There are as many versions of India as Indians; and, when set beside Cyruss India, my own version seems almost mundane (Rushdie 323). The truth of the stories all depends on who is telling them. Which one is real?The same problem occurs again in the novel: Saleem makes a chronological error and realizes it, but his personal version of the events in India does not fit with the correct version. He notes that he has made another errorthat the election of 1957 took place before, not after, my tenth birthday; but although I have racked my brains, my memory refuses, stubbornly, to alter the sequence of events. This is worrying. I dont know whats gone wrong (Rushdie 265). Once more, the reader is reminded that Saleem is making mistakes with factual information like recorded dates, and that it would be unwise to trust him when he recounts events from solely his memory. With dates, he should be able to find sources confirming the correct date and strengthen his credibility, but he still gets even this wrong; with only his memory to rely on, which refuses to align with correct recorded facts, his credibility is completely gone. This serves as another reminder that history does not remain the same across multiple accounts; Saleems memory mistakes are just as easily committed by the recorders of history.Finally he admits that he has been unreliable and warns the reader that he will become even more unreliable: I am rushing ahead at breakneck speed; errors are possible, and overstatements, and jarring alterations in toneI remain conscious that errors have already been made, and that, as my decay acceleratesthe risk of unreliability grows (Rushdie 325). Saleem is being honest about his existence as an unreliable narrator, admitting that his history may not be entirely trustworthy. Perhaps this same problem occurs in other histories as well. As Saleem himself says, he is a historian: I am only the first historian to write the story of my undeniably exceptional life-and-times (Rushdie 354). He is recording his life and the events connected to it, but because he is the first historian to write about his story, he has no record to refer to and still makes mistakes and cannot reconcile the facts with his memory. Later historians might use his story as a source, trusting it because it is the first record to exist. Rushdie forces the reader to consider that other historians are the same as Saleem; unreliable and untrustworthy, with faulty histories that get passed down over time without being corrected to match reality.Conscious of his unreliability and the fantastical nature of the events in his life, Saleem spends a lot of time trying to convince the reader to believe him. Although he admits to the errors he makes when it comes to timelines of recorded events, he wants the reader to believe his story and the magical moments he remembers. To Saleem, his own story is the truth, and he wants the reader to share this conviction. When telling Padma about his grandfathers demise, in which his grandfather disintegrated into dust, Saleem says, Compare it with the mere fact of the holy fuss over the theft of a hair; because every last detail of that is true, and by comparison, an old mans death is surely perfectly normal (Rushdie 334). To bolster his own credibility with the unbelievable tale of his grandfather crumbling into dust, here he asks the reader to consider the strangeness of recorded events such as his grandfather stealing a lock of hair that was considered holy and the uproar that this created. When he describes his encounter with a five hundred year old prostitute, he acknowledges the readers potential disbelief and attempts to convince the reader to believe him: You may legitimately ask: Did it happen in just thisAnd surely she couldnt have been five hundred andbut I swore to confess to everything (Rushdie 382). Saleem feels the need to give the reader reasons to trust him, almost as if he is saying, I know this sounds crazy, but you have to believe me! I am telling the truth! Again the concept of truth versus reality appears; perhaps Saleem really is telling the truth, but it is his truth, not the truth of the reader or the truth of reality. The reader must make this judgment and decide whether or not to believe him, or any historian.Ironically, Saleem spends a good portion of one chapter telling the reader that its a dangerous business to try and impose ones view of things on others (Rushdie 254) and that no sane human being ever trusts someone elses version more than his own because memorys truthcreates its own reality (Rushdie 253). Saleem, however, is doing the exact thing he advises against: he writes out his own history to convince people that his view of the truth is the correct truth. He is imposing his view of history on the readers of his story. He also tells the reader not to trust someone elses version, but again, he wants the reader to trust his own version, spending time trying to convince the reader that he should be believed. Is he telling readers that they are insane for trusting his version, if they do so? Or is he simply warning them to not trust his account because it is not their account? It is up to the reader to decipher Saleems intentions and weigh his credibility.In addition to his factual errors and constant reminders that he is telling the truth, Saleem consciously falsifies information and exaggerates events, recreating his history to suit his own goal of being the center of the universe. He wonders, Does one error invalidate the entire fabric? Am I so far gone, in my desperate need for meaning, that Im prepared to distort everything to re-write the whole history of my times purely in order to place myself in a central role? Today, in my confusion, I cant judge. Ill have to leave it to others (Rushdie 198). Here he admits that he might be adjusting history and changing history to suit his own need for validation, to prove that he was crucially important in the history of India. This revisits his factual errors of the timeline of dates, showing that he might really be rewriting reality to fit his version of events and his desire to have had a meaningful life. It appears that this is not the first time Saleem has attempted to rearrange the facts of history; in an act of revenge, he glued [his] completed note[his] first attempt at rearranging historyon to a sheet of paper (Rushdie 312). He mentions that this note was his first attempt, leading the reader to consider the possibility that the writing of this story is another attempt to rewrite history. Continuing to describe the note, he says he was cutting up history to suit [his] nefarious purposes (Rushdie 311), an idea that sounds similar to his admittance that he may be changing history to suit his own desires. At one point Saleem says that what actually happened is less important than what the author can manage to persuade his audience to believe (Rushdie 325), which is nearly a direct admittance to potentially falsifying events; the reality is not as important as his persuasive abilities and the magical events he can propose as real. To continue his dismissal of reality, he says, I have been only the humblest of jugglers-with-facts; and that, in a country where the truth is what it is instructed to be, reality quite literally ceases to exist, so that everything becomes possible except what we are told is the case (Rushdie 389). There are a few important things being said here: firstly, he admits to messing around with facts when he says that he has been juggling facts; and secondly, the country dictates the truth and history so the populace should not believe them, but Saleem is telling the reader to believe what he dictates and thus causing the same problem as his country. Reality loses all meaning, and anything that he can convince the reader to believe is just as likely to be the reality as the government version of events. As he says, the story I am going to tell, which is substantially that told by my cousin Zafar, is as likely to be true as anything; as anything, that is to say, except what we are officially told (Rushdie 400), again noting that his version is likely to be reality and again bashing the government version of history. This ambiguity of his reliability as a truth-teller does not help to convince the reader to believe him; it serves as a warning against blindly believing any version of events. As Saleem considers the unreliability of the government version and the fact that he might also be wrong, he wonders, was that how it happened?...Nothing was real; nothing certain (Rushdie 406). In this entire section of the novel that centers on the war, Saleem is throwing out possible events that may have happened without giving any actual factual information. He tends to only give one main possibility for an event, suggesting that he believes this version to be the truth. The reader cannot trust his version of events because even he has no idea what really happened, and he continuously bashes the official version and decides it is the most unrealistic possibility of events because it is the official version. Saleem is telling the reader, quite directly, to not believe history because of the way it is told and the reasons it is told that way, which may be reasons like politics or self-interest. As everyone always says, history is written by the victors. Facts may be lost or altered to suit the needs of the historian. This is a reminder to not trust Saleems version of history because he is telling his entire story in self-interest and to doubt the credibility of all of history. Saleems errors and falsifications show the reader that they must be careful when choosing who to believe; history changes. His India is different than the readers India. His India was adjusted to fit himself and his needs. Our truths depend on who we are and what we believe and desire. Our truths may not line up with actuality, with the reality of what really happened. Memory is unreliable and often can be changed if a persons desire for a different sequence of events is strong enough to outweigh the value of what actually happened. It is up to the reader to determine which version to believe, and even then, perhaps no version of history is correct.

Works CitedRushdie, Salman. Midnights Children. New York: Penguin Books, 1980. Print.