Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading for Pleasure
Review: Coming from a land where free speech is not a privilege, Rushdie presents a strong case on its place in society, government and in human relationships. A story with a strong message written in a style of a symbolic fairytale, there is meaning injected into each character and action which inspires and delights a reader willing to take the time to understand Rushdie's opinions on the brutality of censorship and the power of personal expression.

Rating:
Summary: Haroun And The Sea Of Stories
Review: Have you ever watched them? The most amazing part is the way the school changes direction, swooping off the other way.

Rushdie's language is the same. It flows and swoops. And it's funny. If you're not laughing, you're not paying enough attention.

When I was in high school I was obsessed with Voltaire. He was, and probably always will be, beyond my scope, and probably beyond the scope of Rushdie as well, with important ramblings about Nebuchadnezzar and the meaning of revolution.

But I can't change that I thought of V when I read Haroun.

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading for Pleasure
Review: I had to read this book for a humanities lit class. I found myself really enjoying it. It is a really excellent book. It kind of made me feel like a little kid. It is such a fantasy story, but it isn't written for kids. It was quite inspirational too, it made me feel like everything would be ok. I have recomended this book to two other people, they loved it too. I don't want to tell you any of the plot because it suprises you as you read it, but it is a really good book. One that I would recomend to anyone who asks what to read.

Rating:
Summary: Just the Asian Version of The Phantom Tollbooth
Review: I'm sure you have all already read about the begining of the book, so I am just going to start: This book is horrible.
Once i picked it up, i was sort of hooked, waiting for more things to happenl; but they didn't. The whole book, Haroun is just flying around on his magical Hoopoe or something. The ending scene wasn't even too good. Nothing happened in the book. But poor me, i had to keep on reading it as a class assignment. I would've put it down right on the second page if i could. My teacher loved it, but the rest of my class hated it. We were all falling asleep while we were reading it. 14 year olds should not have to go through this kind of torture with Haroun. If you have ever read the Phantom Tollbooth, and loved it, read this...it is just the Asian version of it.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, but a little too fanciful.
Review: I've heard about Salman Rushdie. Both good and bad. The only way to find out the truth for myself was to read one of his books. Being the naturally lazy man that I am, I grabbed the smallest book of his I could find. Little did I know that this book was a fairy tale, and not something that would rouse Islamic fundamentalists.

Anyway, I already purchased it and decided to read it anyway. At first, I saw that Rushdie had a great imagination and could weave a great story.

This book is about Hauron, a boy living in a glum city where his dad is a prime storyteller. He travels to a far away city, only discover that a Water Genie has stopped his dad's faucet to the sea of stories. In order to help his father, he travels to the Sea of Stories and engages in a war to save the sea, and his father, while meeting interesting characters and seeing interesting sights.

The book starts off well, with Rushdie's almost poetic use of language. The book, however, slowly digresses. Not that Rushdie's work disintegrates, but as the fairy tale progresses, with even more characters, and even more anomalies, it gets pretty dull after a while. The ability to shock or dazzle the reader is weened away until it becomes a chore to finish the book.

I would say that this book is good for a change of pace, and at only 200 pages, won't take too long to read, but I could only marginally recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Haroun and the Sea of Stories: a magical world created by Sa
Review: In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salmon Rushdie leads the reader through a magical journey filled with creative characters, parallels, symbolism, and most of all he teaches us the importance of words and verbal expression. When Haroun's mom leaves him, and Haroun's father Rashid, a renowned storyteller known as the "Ocean of Notions" loses his ability to tell stories, Haroun finds himself on a heroic journey to save his father's storytelling ability and learn the importance of stories. Haroun's journey takes place on Kahani, earth's second moon where the source of all stories, the sea of stories is located. Like currents, the stories in this ocean are bountiful and beautiful. The sea itself is being destroyed by Khattam Shud, "the foe of speech," and Haroun must choose whether to save his father, the storyteller, or the source of all stories. Filled with plentimaw fishes, mechanical birds, floating gardeners, shadow warriors and much more, Rushdie continues to surprise the reader with delightful and creative characters. These characters ultimately help Haroun on his journey to defeat the evil Khattam Shud, and save the ocean and it's stories from being destroyed. The following is an excerpt from the book which describes Mudra, a warrior who fights with his own shadow:

"What terrifying eyes they were! Instead of whites, they had blacks; and the irises were grey as twilight, and the pupils were white as milk." (Rushdie 125)

With descriptions like these, Salmon Rushdie paints a picture of the characters in the mind of the reader. Not only are the characters in this story are original, creative, and intriguing, but they are well described.

What's the use of stories that aren't even true? This question is asked repeatedly throughout the book. Haroun questions storytelling when his mother leaves him and his father is no longer able to tell stories. Salmon Rushdie could have been questioning storytelling himself when he wrote this book in hiding after he was censored for his work on the Satanic Verses. Haroun and the Sea of Stories explores literature and its importance. It provides an answer for this question, and the reader learns that words can bring people together and inspire many. Essentially, Salmon Rushdie has created a classic heroic tale where characters help the protagonist achieve a goal. However, in this heroic story, the protagonist learns about stories like his own, and their importance. In a way, Haroun faces the evils of censorship (Khattam Shud). This is not only a heroic story. It is a heroic story about heroic stories. With descriptive characters, unique settings, and flowing words, this book is intriguing, humorous, and fun to read. It is fast paced, and hard to put down. People of all ages will enjoy this book. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salmon Rushdie lets us into a world of creativity, where the importance of story telling is questioned and answered.




Rating:
Summary: Context and Censorship
Review: The key to understanding "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" is to look at the context during which it was written. Salman Rushdie was in hiding, and on the run, after a fatwa had been placed on his head for writing the Satanic Verses. He was away from his wife and child (the latter for whom the book was written).
Essentially, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" is a story about censorship. The protagonist participates in a war between the forces of speech and the forces of silence. There are two events which precipitate this war: 1) Princess Batcheet, of the land of storytellers (Gup), is kidnapped by the armies of the land of silence (Chup), and 2) the Ocean of the Streams of Stories, the source of all the stories in the world, is poisoned by the ruler of Chup.
The people of Gup are faced with a major decision. They only have resources to fight one battle and the question is often asked: "What is more important? The Story? Or the Storyteller?" Is the story more important than the ability to tell it and the person who is communicating it?
What is even more poignant in this tale is that Rushdie has made the Princess an unlikable character: she is ugly, has a screechy voice, and makes improper, invaluable, or disrespectful comments when she speaks. Rushdie was Princess Batcheet at the time this book was written. The price on his head was placed over improper, invaluable, or disrespectful comments (as viewed by some populations in the world) he had written in the Satanic Verses.
In the end, both the person and the stories are saved and Rushdie makes his crucial point: one could not exist without the other. Even though the princess is disliked, she is saved because all ideas must have the chance to be expressed- even ideas that have been deemed "bad" or "dangerous". Censorship kills the story and will eventually kill mankind.
Rushdie illustrates that freedom of speech is integral to the survival and evolution of our human culture. In a time when our world is becoming increasingly paranoid about expression and is enacting stricter laws to regulate the dissemination of ideas (perfect example: the fallout over Janet Jackson's Superbowl appearance), Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" stands out as a beacon to those who believe in freedom. This is such an inspirational book for children, and adults, to read. Rushdie is a man who risked his life to share his thoughts with the world- and he lived to tell a story about it.

Rating:
Summary: Starts with Potential, but the Rest is Obviously Forced
Review: This book is written with quite beautiful laguage and wonderfully descriptive words. Rushdie's talent to form perfect pictures with words and to let you enjoy it while he does is unique. Sadly, I'm afraid his ability with words is wasted on this book (and possible all his books, but this is the only one that I've read).

This book is often said to be a fairytale for both children and adults, but I couldn't posssible agree. I am only fourteen years old, but I could not stand this book. I don't see how any adult could find any value in this book, besides the language. I can't even really grasp how anyone below the age of seven would find this book enjoyable.

Haroun, the protagonist, has absolutely no motivation throughout the entire book. Nothing he does seems believable, from yelling at his father for no reason, to simply telling the supposedly terrifying antagonist, that he reminds him of a man he knows back home. A sub-plot in the story is Haroun's inability to pay attention for more than 11 minutes, which simply goes away at the end of the book, and is supposed to be character development. ABSOLUTELY nothing happened throughout the book to cause this change, he just is suddenly able to concentrate longer.

This doesn't even scratch the surface of the problems in the book. Rushdie uses pathetic tools to give the reader information, such as the antagonist walking around his boat with Haroun, carefully telling him all his evil plans, not to mention a secret way to escape from the boat if he really needs to.

Don't buy this book. It is an incredibly lacking story that shouldn't have been published and would not be half as talked about if the author hadn't been so controversial in his other books.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Storytelling
Review: This is a tale about a young boy named Haroun and his father the storyteller Rashid (The Shah of Blah to his enemies). It is also about magic, wonderful adventure, the power of love, a good story, and the importance of free speech and democracy.

When his father's magic ability to tell stories dries up, Haroun desperately wants to help him. When he by chance encounters the water genie(!) Iff, Haroun "persuades" Iff to take him to the secret story Moon Kahani, to renew his father's subscription to the wonderful water from the Ocean of the Stream of Stories.

At their arrival to Kahani, however, they discover that a great shadow threatens the Ocean, and Haroun soon learns that most of the myths and legends of his father's stories are indeed very real!

Rushdie skillfully weaves the different layers of reality and imagination together, and the result is a breath-taking tapestry, which keeps surprising (and delighting) you, as you go along.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and recommend it to everyone who loves getting lost in a good adventure, and having their imaginations sparkled with story-water! There's also plenty of "food for thought", and students and adult readers will certainly benifit from this experience as well a younger readers!

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Fairy Tale for All Ages
Review: This was the first Rushdie book that I have read, but I am very impressed. He has an amazing knack for storytelling. It was evident that he had a plan in mind when he began writing the book rather than just letting the story meander without purpose like some authors are prone to do. This is the story of a boy named Haroun who tries to help his father, a storyteller, regain his ability to tell stories. His father had always told him that his storytelling abilities came from something called the "Sea of Stories". Haroun was surpised to find that this was, in fact a real sea located on the earth's elusive 2nd moon. Haroun travels there and is acquainted with magnificent characters such as the Water Genie, the flying mechanical bird the Hoopoe, the Shadow Warrior (who's shadow has a personality of it's own), Pages that look like pages. The book wouldn't be complete without a villain: Kattam Shud. It's the age-old story of good versus evil with a new twist. It's also a fanciful explanation of where good stories come from and how good stories get tainted. The book is quick-paced and can be read in 3 to 4 short sittings. It's not so much suspenseful as it is refreshing and enjoyable. However, why does Rushdie use apostrophes instead of quotation marks during dialogue?