I really don't know much about magical realism. However, the link that Robin posted claims: "The fiction in form and language often embraces the carnivalesque..."
...???
After using Google to figure out what the hell "carnivalesque" means, I found the following passages to be relevant, within the context of Midnight's Children...
(p. 155-156) Snakes escaping all across India. Rushdie seems to spend a lot of time on this passage, and it later this ties in with Saleem's favorite board game, snakes and ladders (p. 160) I have no idea what the significance of any of this is, but I can see that it's there. Also, there is a snake on the book cover, so cearly this means it has to have some sort of significance! (I'm getting frustrated because whenever I try to grab this novel by the throat and just pin it down, it slips away! Maybe that's the symbolism...slippery like a snake.) But the text does state that "religious leaders described the snake escape as a warning - the god Naga had been unleashed, they intoned, as punishment for the nation's official renunciation of its dieties."
Snakes, particularly cobras, are such mythical animals...a cobra was supposed to have offered the Buddha shade with his hood, no? So within this context, they're royal. (Or is that wrong? To be honest, I'm kind of struggling with the concept of where Hinduism ends and Buddhism begins...)
REGARDLESS...the mythical element remains. That's apparently a big component of magical realism!
It's Eastern! It's exotic! It's got a snake on the book cover! It's Midnight's Children...magical realism and all.
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