Haroun and the Sea of Stories #1
Hey guys,
This is the start of a new series of blog posts I'll be working on. In my English class, we have started reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories (HATSOS) by Salman Rushdie. I have certain questions that I am required to answer, so each blog post will be broken down into pieces that answer these questions.
So now that you know what my game plan is, let's get started.
My Impression:
This book actually exceeded my expectations. I'm only four chapters in, but I'm enjoying it. Required reading tends to make me moan and groan about how much I don't want to read, but honestly this book doesn't do that. I like the story. I like how the characters are written as satire, but we will get more into that later. The simplicity of the writing can be deceiving. The more you look into this book, the more obvious it becomes that this story is far from simple. I find that idea fascinating. I look forward to seeing how Rushdie continues this concept throughout the book.
I predict that, as the story progresses, we will see some sort of revelation from Haroun. He starts the story as a boy who sees no point to stories if they aren't even true. I think that through his journey with Iff, the water genie, and Butt, the Hoopoe, Haroun will learn about stories and begin to understand why they were so important to his father. Frankly, I would be disappointed if it didn't end that way. If Haroun ended the story without changing his mind, then I would hardly see a point to this story at all.
Lenses:
I said earlier in the post that I would get into the satire of this book. Well, the time has come. My teacher asked a group of students (including me) to look at the book through a satirical lens.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I wouldn't see satire unless it slapped me across the face (see: SNL). It is something that I rarely pick up on in my own reading. If I'm being completely honest, I didn't know there was satire in this book until I was told about it. My goal is to try and see it on my own as I read this book. A satirical lens is something I am going to have to learn to see through.
There are some more obvious pieces of satire in HATSOS that my group and I discussed, the most obvious being Mr. Buttoo. He is the stereotypical politician. He molds the public's perception of him and does everything to ensure a successful campaign.
My group and I also looked at a similarly named person, Mr. Butt. He says things that are a satirical play on how humans can find humor in other people's pain. On page 33 of the book he even says, "An accident is truly a sad and cruel thing, but but but - crash! Wham! Spatoosh!- how it makes one giggle and hoot".
This quote can also be applied to a lens outside of satire. The lens of stories also comes up. This quote, when applied to stories, is still true. Who would want to read a book where everything was fine and dandy? We want our books to have struggle, and many books are "horror-scapes" for this very reason.
If we still want to look through a story lens, I'll mention another quote that I found in HATSOS that explains the importance of stories. Iff, on page 72, speaks of how stories can be given to "a young fellow who's feeling blue, so that the magic of the story can restore his spirits". Stories are tools that we use to make us feel better about the things happening around us.
As you can probably see, looking at this story through multiple lenses can produce many different trains of thought.
Discussion Observations:
On Friday, we had a discussion about the book and its many lenses.
One of the most intriguing phrases I heard in the discussion was, "Since this is a story about stories, not having stories kills the story." Okay, I know that this sounds like a totally bizarre statement without context. I realized that as I was typing it out, but let me give you some clarification. HATSOS is a story that focuses on storytelling. The people talking at the time were focused on allusions throughout the story. They were mentioning how important these allusions were to HATSOS. They are used to add clarification and move the story forward. Basically, the sentence I first mentioned is saying that the allusions and stories told within the book are what make a story about stories possible. If there were no stories told in the book, then what would be the point?
Aaaand that's all, folks.
I know that this was super long and went way over the 250 word requirement, but what can I do? I had a lot to say.
I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you all next week for round two!
Au revoir,
Abby