Haroun and the Sea of Stories
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 1991 Penguin paperback edition cover |
|
| Author | Salman Rushdie |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Magic Realism Novel |
| Publisher | Viking Books |
| Released | November, 1990 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 218 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-670-83804-7 |
Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 novel by Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's first novel after The Satanic Verses. It is a phantasmagorical story set in a city so old and ruinous that it has forgotten its name.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories is an allegory for several problems existing in society today, especially in India and the Indian subcontinent. It looks at these problems from the viewpoint of the preteen protagonist Haroun. It is also interesting to note that Rushdie dedicated this book to his son, Zafar, from whom he was separated for some time.
In 2002, the novel was produced as an audiobook, read by Zia Mohyeddin.
Contents |
[edit] Plot Summary
Haroun's father is the famed storyteller Rashid Khalifa, the Ocean of Notions or the Shah of Blah, but his wife tires of his imagination and elopes with Mr. Sengupta, a dull and dreary clerical drone. This leaves Rashid heartbroken, and unable to continue his profession of storytelling. Haroun feels he started the problem (by asking his father "What's the point of telling stories that aren't even true?") so he must fix it and help his father. Soon, however, Haroun discovers that Rashid has already canceled his subscription to the magical story waters of Kahani, which give all storytellers their imagination, and in order to reverse the cancellation Haroun must go to Kahani. Thus Haroun embarks on a mystical journey to Kahani (meaning "story" in Urdu), a hidden moon of the Earth, in a quest to restore his father's gift of the gab.
On Kahani, stories are everywhere, they make up the ocean (which gives the book its title). However, the evil Khattam-Shud (whose name means "The End", "completely finished") is attempting to poison the sea of stories and render the inhabitants of Kahani silent by plugging the spring of stories (where all stories come from). He has also started a war with Gup, the central city where stories are made, by kidnapping the king's daughter, Princess Batcheat, angering her fiance Prince Bolo (in a reversal of the traditional prince-princess story myth, Batcheat is incredibly ugly and a terrible singer, while Bolo is a hyperactive idiot and implied to be cowardly). Haroun, along with various interesting characters such as Iff the water-genie, Butt the mechanical hoopoe, the eggheads at the P2C2E (Processes Too Complicated To Explain) House, Mali the floating gardener, and a pair of rhyming fish, (Goopy and Bagha, named after characters from a film of Satyajit Ray) set out to stop Khattam-Shud, thus saving Rashid, Batcheat, Kahani, and the stories of the world.
[edit] Characters
Haroun: Rashid's son and the main character/central consciousness in the story
Rashid: Haroun's father, also known as the Shah of Blah and the Ocean of Notions
Soraya: Rashid's wife who tires of his imagination and leaves him for the dull and dreary Mr. Sengupta
Butt: The bus driver
Butt the Hoopoe: A machine in the form of a Hoopoe and Haroun's transportation in Kahani
Iff the Water Genie: A water genie from Kahani who accompanies Haroun
Blabbermouth: A Page in the Library, or army of Gup, a female disguised as a male and Haroun's possible crush.
Mudra: Second-in-command to Khattam-Shud who, along with his shadow, joins Haroun and the land of Gup in the battle against Khattam-Shud.
Khattam-Shud: The Arch-Enemy of all Stories, even of Language itself. He is the Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech.
Walrus: The head of the eggheads at P2C2E House.
The Khattum-Shud and the Chupwalas versus the residents of Gup City, can also be seen as a conflict of imagination and fact.
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
- In May 2006, it came to light that Kaavya Viswanathan may have plagarized passages from Haroun and the Sea of Stories in her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- A play, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, based on the book was adapted for the stage by Tim Supple and David Tushingham. It had its stage premiere in 1998 at the Royal National Theatre in London.
