Haroun and the Sea of Stories
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| Haroun and the Sea of Stories | |
 1991 Penguin paperback edition cover |
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| Author | Salman Rushdie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Magic Realism Novel |
| Publisher | Viking Books |
| Publication date | 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 children's book[1] 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 11-year-old protagonist Haroun. It is also interesting to note that Rushdie dedicated this book to his son, Zafar Rushdie, from whom he was separated for some time.
It was made into an audiobook read by Salman Rushdie himself, but the more commonly available 2002 edition of the audiobook was read by Zia Mohyeddin.
Contents |
[edit] Plot Summary
Haroun's father is the famed storyteller Rashid Khalifa- sometimes known as the Ocean of Notions or the Shah of Blah, but his wife Soraya grows tired of his imagination and elopes with Mr. Sengupta, a stupid 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 though, Haroun discovers that Rashid has already cancelled his subscription to the magical story waters of the invisible and magical moon 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 ("Batcheat" means chit-chattter) 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 the titular characters of a film by 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
Mr. Sengupta: The dreary man who lives upstairs to Haroun, and who ultimately runs away with Soraya. Later on in the story, it is revealed that Mr. Sengupta looks exactly like Khattam Shud.
Mr. Butt: The mail coach.
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, specifically in the Royal Page Chapter, 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.
Plentimaw Fish Special fish that eat the stories in the water and mix them together to make new stories
The Khattum-Shud and the Chupwalas versus the residents of Gup City, can also be seen as a conflict of imagination and fact, light and darkness as well as sound versus silence .
[edit] Allusions/references in other works
- In May 2006, it came to light that Kaavya Viswanathan may have plagiarized passages from Haroun and the Sea of Stories in her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.[citation needed]
[edit] Allusions/references to other works
The two fishes are called 'Goopy' and 'Bagha', in tribute to Satyajit Ray's fantastical film, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne.
Gup City has a parliament of Eggheads (bald-headed academics) and is headed by the Walrus. This is a reference to the Beatles' song I am the Walrus.
Elements of the story are indicated to have been drawn from Baum's The Wizard of Oz and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
The names Haroun and Rashid are a reference to Harun al-Rashid, who appears in many stories in the One Thousand and One Nights. Frequent use is made of the number "one thousand and one" throughout the novel.
When the character Mudra is first encountered, rather than speech, the noises he emits are the gurgling sound "Gogogol" and the coughing noise "Kafkafka," both obvious references to the writers whose names they are distorting. Rushdie makes another reference to Kafka when Iff describes the Plentimaw Fishes in the sea, who swallow stories, as hunger artists.
[edit] Awards
- Writer's Guild Award (Best Children's Book)
[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.
- An opera, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Charles Wuorinen with libretto by James Fenton, written in 2001, was premiered at the New York City Opera in Fall 2004.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth87 "Salman Rushdie"
- ^ Haroun and the Sea of Stories - New York Magazine Classical Music Review
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