And by that I don’t mean a book that could be read by young children but will also appeal to adults. This is just one example of how this book was oddly between ages, sometimes seeming to appeal to very young readers and at others appearing meant for adults. I imagine this will delight middle grade boys, but it’s far less interesting to the mom of one. Perhaps there were references I missed that would clue other readers in to the author’s intent.Īlso, there were multiple characters, in a book with few named characters, who were called variations on the word butt. I also had seen it referred to as a Middle Eastern inspired book, but it felt more like India to me, especially after the bit with the buses and driving problems.

Rushdie tried I think to allude to real places by referring to everything by a single letter but multiple names, but it was just very annoying. The setting was not clear – while Haroun’s everyday life was referred to as being on Earth, there was never enough detail to pin the setting to any particular place. It is one of the few fiction books reviewed here that I have not fully read twice.īeyond the capitalizations, the names are also odd. Eventually I pushed through by rewarding myself with a different book after every two chapters read. If I had not already purchased this and the sequel, I would probably have given up. It was difficult to finish this book because of the random unneeded capitalizations in particular. If I wanted all the nouns to be capitalized, I would read it in German. Was that sentence nearly unreadable for you? Now imagine an entire book. The Biggest Thing for me, this Reviewer, were the Lots of Unnecessary Capitals (LUC) and the Frequency of Pointless, Unclear, Initialisms (FoPUI). Rushdie has good elements in an increasingly frustrating telling.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. Catching a Water Genie uninstalling the tap from the Sea of Stories makes Haroun question if his father’s stories might actually have an element of truth to them, and he is determined to set his family right. This causes a problem when Rashid Kalifa the Ocean of Notions is expected to speak at a politician’s rally and can’t perform. Twelve year old Haroun’s father has fallen into a pit of deep despair and he himself can’t focus for longer than eleven minutes at a time. The final paragraphs will contain content warnings and my overall thoughts as usual. NOTE: This is longer than my usual review, as I had much to say about this book. Granta Books London, Penguin Books, New York, originally published 1990, my edition 1991.

Sea of stories