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Loading... Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Puffin Books)by Salman Rushdie
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  ffortsa | Dec 20, 2009 |  This is a lovely book, which I think Salman Rushdie wrote at least in part for his son while he was in hiding under the fatwa, and thus not able to see his son often. As such there are a lot of points about freedom of speech and oppressive regimes. It also has something to say about the conflict in Kashmir. But on the surface it's really a children's adventure book with fantastical characters and a happy ending. (  ) Honto | Nov 26, 2009 | The book is an obvious allegory of events of the late 1980s and 1990s in the Kashmir Valley, but the tale is spun so well that it is easy to set aside the real political landscape and escape into Rushdie's Sea of Stories. I think I liked it especially because Rushdie borrows so many tropes from other children's and fantasy novels, and yet somehow, they seem completely original when you encounter them in this book. Not even Rashid al-Khalifa could have told this story this well. ( ) rohwyn | Jun 16, 2009 | This book was a continuous, fast-paced bedtime story full of clever imaginings and funny little half-references to the real world. Haroun is the son of a reknowned story-teller who always claims that his stories come from an invisible story tap installed in the bathroom by a water genie. Haroun assumes that this is just yet another story, but when his father loses his story-telling ability, Haroun is plunged into a bizaare adventure where he meets many previously fictional creatures and must, in the end, save the great Ocean of the Sea of Stories itself. Like I said, the best thing about this book was its continuous inventiveness. It is full of surprising and delightful little details, and gives the impression, much like the story-teller, of simply over-flowing with fairy tale ideas. A very fun, quick read. (  ) Foxen | May 14, 2009 | This was a sensitively told story about a young boy whose mother leaves him, who embarks upon an adventure with this father. Original and imaginative, and interesting (like The Phantom Tollbooth) in the allegorical nature of some of its material – making us thinking about opposites like ‘light’ and ‘darkness’, ‘speech’ and ‘silence’, and the powerful nature of stories ... (  ) seekingflight | Apr 12, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0140157379, Paperback)Immediately forget any preconceptions you may have about Salman Rushdie and the controversy that has swirled around his million-dollar head. You should instead know that he is one of the best contemporary writers of fables and parables, from any culture. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a delightful tale about a storyteller who loses his skill and a struggle against mysterious forces attempting to block the seas of inspiration from which all stories are derived. Here's a representative passage about the sources and power of inspiration:So Iff the water genie told Haroun about the Ocean of the Stream of Stories, and even though he was full of a sense of hopelessness and failure the magic of the Ocean began to have an effect on Haroun. He looked into the water and saw that it was made up of a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents, each one a different colour, weaving in and out of one another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each coloured strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead, but alive. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
There is a little politics under the covers, pro-democracy and anti-totalitarianism, but it's pretty mild. More than that, Rushdie draws from both his cultures, as well as much modern culture, even the Beatles! But it all fits together, and the adventure is both exciting and funny. I highly recommend it. (