Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie

haroun and the sea of stories

salman rushdie

c. 1990

224 pages

completed 4/24/2009

read for: TBR challenge, orbis terrarum challenge, and 100 greatest novels

*may contain spoilers*

Haroun and the Sea of Stories begins in a sad city, where Haroun lives with his mother and father. His father is a famous story teller, often called upon by important men to entertain and help promote them to the public. When Haroun's mother runs away with another man, Haroun's father claims he doesn't want to tell stories anymore. Haroun wakes up in the middle of the night to find a water genie taking back a magic story-water faucet, that which enables Haroun's father to tell stories. Thinking his father had spoken without thinking, Haroun determines to go with the water genie to one of the Earth's moons in order to plead his father's case. He is followed to the moon by his father, and the two get caught up in a war between the cities of Gup, a land of eternal sunshine and chatter, and Chup, a land of perpetual darkness and silence. With the new friends they have made along the way, (Iff, Butt, Blabbermouth, and more) Haroun and his father try to take a stand and end the war.

I really enjoyed this book. The story was engaging and the characters were quirky and entertaining. I was thrown occasionally by some of the puns...for example in the land of Gup all the top scientists were known as "Eggheads" and their leader was known as "the Walrus." And not thrown in a bad way, just...I was surprised at some of the cleverness. My favorite thing was the description of the royal pages in the army. Their uniforms were thin rectangular outfits, with stories written on the front. And instead of being grouped into units and brigades, they were grouped into chapters and volumes. Like I said, very clever.

This is an author I have been wanting to look into for a while and I'm glad I finally did.

4/5