Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Posted: 02 Nov 2015, 06:00
It is very rare that a book intended for children engages and immerses adults who look for politics, discourse, subtexts as in a literary classic. However, if you are reading Salman Rushdie, chances are you will get the best of both the worlds. This is what HAROUN & the SEA of STORIES gives you, besides the pleasure of awe-inspiring you. This is a book about a boy, Haroun, whose father is a professional story teller, who moves from town to town telling stories. He is the Shah of Blah, as Rushdie describes him. However, fate has different narrative in store for him when a powerful politico and his henchmen hire him (rather push and shove him) to use his gift of the glib and gab for their political campaigns. On stage, at the very moment of speech, he gets tongue tied. His 'blah' deserts him. Back home and sunk into the depths of despair, to add to his woes, his wife deserts him with an ordinary, oily-haired, vapid clerk, Mr. Sengupta, who lives upstairs. Now, it falls upon young Haroun to find out the reasons for his father's loss of tongue.
What transpires over the next 100 odd pages is sheer, inventive narrative: what has come to be known as Rushdie's brand of magical realism. Suffice it to say Haroun comes up with the rescue act, but not before Rushdie has taken you on a fantastic detour. This book was written by Rushdie for his son, at a time when the fatwa was on him (it still is!). The hallmark of a timeless writer is the ability to transcend personal situations and Rushdie goes one further, by creating an allegory of his life situation where he is himself the Shah of Blah in the Land of Guppees being threatened by the Evil Lord Chup! Read it for a delightful roller-coaster.
What transpires over the next 100 odd pages is sheer, inventive narrative: what has come to be known as Rushdie's brand of magical realism. Suffice it to say Haroun comes up with the rescue act, but not before Rushdie has taken you on a fantastic detour. This book was written by Rushdie for his son, at a time when the fatwa was on him (it still is!). The hallmark of a timeless writer is the ability to transcend personal situations and Rushdie goes one further, by creating an allegory of his life situation where he is himself the Shah of Blah in the Land of Guppees being threatened by the Evil Lord Chup! Read it for a delightful roller-coaster.