>Allegory about the value of storytelling and its role in survival as a human being
> Opening line: "There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. it stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue."
>Characters: Rashid/Haroun's father, storyteller, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions......Haroun/Rashid's son....fears that there is no point to stories that are not true.....many other fantasy characters....they are great
> Rashid...."who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available".....I feel like a kindred spirit!
> Miss Oneeta....."Cause is located in his pussy-collar-jee"...meaning psychology, LOL
> p.26..."They drove past buses that dripped people the way a sponge drips water, and arrived at a thick forest of human beings, a crowd of people sprouting in all directions like leaves on jungle trees"
> I liked the "Moody Land" where the mood of the people determined the weather
> p.63..."To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it--well, that's a way of bringing the said thing into being."
> p.72..."...the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest libraryt 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 the 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."
> UFOs are really folks from Kahani coming to Earth for "tasty and wicked luxury items"....snacks
> p.119.."But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedonm of Speech, declaimed Butt the Hoopoe, if you then say they must not utilize same? And is not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?".......spoken in defense of soldiers voicing the aspects of their leaders which they do not like..........most political statement of the book
> poison cooling down the Ocean of Stories...."No longer did the waters give off that soft, subtle steam that could fill a person with fantastic dreams; here they were cool to the touch and clammy to boot." p.122
> p.125..."...because the dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light."
> p.129...character babbles, "Gogogol" and "kafkafka"...LOL
> p.131..."He has become disgusted with the growing cruelty and fanaticism of the Cult of the tongueless..."
> p. 146..."The oldest stories ever made, and look at them now. We let them rot, we abandoned them, long before this poisoning. We lost touch with our beginnings, with our roots, our Wellspring, our Source. Boring, we said, not in demand, surplus to requirements. And now, look, just look! No colour, no life, no nothing. Spoilt!"...referring to loss of oral traditions?
> mother returns in the end....realization that there is usefulness to storytelling
> LibraryThing Review: What could possibly bring about the end of storytelling? Poisoning of the Ocean of the Streams of Stories would definitely do it. Who would save the day Haroun! Salman Rushdie created a rollicking, beautiful, witty allegory for those of us who appreciate the tremendous value that storytelling has in our lives and in the lives of all humanity! Just read this wonderful story......and watch out for Princess Batcheat's horrible singing and Miss Blabbermouth's courage!
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