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Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Chapter 1-4

sarahej8
Sep 29, 2017
3 min read

This year in GHEnglish 10, I was given a summer assignment to read Haroun and The Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

First Impressions

Unfortunately, class readings have never interested me and Haroun and the Sea of Stories doesn’t seem to be the exception. I assumed I would not enjoy this book because meta concepts and psychologically complex stories don’t usually interest me. My prediction rang true after the first couple of chapters, which didn't capture my attention and served as simply another reading assignment. Normally, reading is a time to wind down and be immersed in a great story, not a mind boggling tale.

The first thing I noticed when reading this book was the complex language Rushdie uses. He cultivates a complex and completely unusual world with alluded names, places, and stories. At first, Rushdie throws a handful of obscure names at the reader, which are difficult to memorize and understand, especially when the characters themselves are so complex. The book had a rough start, including new concepts and characters to memorize, but later rounded out. Overall, the book is obscure to the point that I lost interest because there were too many things I couldn’t follow or needed clarification on. More often than not, simplicity is key and this book doesn’t seem to follow that, but has its own original take on the story.

HATSOS as Allusion

On page 16 Haroun makes an interesting observation,”his [Rashid’s] stories were really lots of different tales juggled together,” which seems to ring true for this story. HATSOS is truly a tale spun together with various other stories and popular concepts.While reading, there are countless connections and innuendoes made to popular children's and cultural stories. Some of the connections made were Alice In Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Polar Express, as well as other stories.

On page 64 the passage states, “Haroun ran to the window, and saw the Hoopoe floating on the dull lake, grown large, as large as a double bed, easily large enough for a water genie and a boy to ride upon its back.” This line explains the Hoopoe bird Haroun and his gang will be riding on during their great adventure. The Hoopoe can be related to the magic carpet in Aladdin, which is Aladdin's companion and mode of transportation for his journey. In addition, on page 65 it says, “Then they took off and flew rapidly into the sky.” which is the start of Haroun’s journey to the Sea of Stories, a place beyond his world. The journey to a far off place where time stops in his world can be seen in The Wizard of Oz. Similar to Haroun, Dorothy travels to the Land of Oz where time and space in her world stops and she can pursue a great adventure.

Discussion

The first four chapters of HATSOS was discussed in class, along with prepared questions created in small group discussions focused on one lens (allusion). The discussion started off by posing a few questions for students to respond and build off of one another. An interesting point was made discussing if Haroun’s story was a story in the Sea of Stories, which many students added to. I believe the story is a part of the Sea of Stories because all stories in the real world come from the Sea.

Although, this does bring up the next question, whether the happiness fed from the Sea to the people in Alifbay is genuine, which is something Haroun seems to struggle with. In the discussion, someone brought up the observation that Haroun seems happier at the beginning of the book than at the end because he realized the happiness fed to society was fake. On page 208 Haroun states, “It’s all fake. People should be happy when there’s something to be happy about, not just when they get bottle happiness poured over them from the sky.” I hate to leave this on a sour note, but many revelations and new insights were made during the discussion that I ponder as I reread the story.