Butts, Buttoo and More Butts plus a Book

This past week I was assigned to read the first five chapters of Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.

If I am honest, I did not originally enjoy reading the story until the discussion my class had on Thursday. I was not drawn to it because I often feel that when books are assigned for class, I focus too much on the assignment at hand and less on the creativity of the story. The other reason I was not into the story was because the plot felt a little boring and predictable. Also, the names of characters and places in the story were also very confusing and at times stressful..... a little overwhelming. Though the beginning of Rushdie's story under performed in my eyes, the rest of the story should be better because of my new lenses and questions.

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My lens is the Hero's Journey or in the case of the book at hand, Haroun's Adventure. While I think this lens does not take a lot of work to notice within the story, it does play a very important role that needs recognition. The journey probably began on page 27 or the end of chapter 1 of the tale, at this time I cannot be certain. So far I have only learned the basic names for the different stages of the monomyth and matched them to events

based on the story. What I found most interesting with the topic was not necessarily story related. Instead, learning that Joseph Campbell spent many years developing a map that works almost as a formula for story plots. I am sure when most people think of stories, they don't realize that they are all so similar, but Joseph Campbell really put that concept into perspective for me this week.

As far as annotations go, my favorite were those about Language as a Tool. Salman Rushdie uses a lot of insightful figurative language and repeating phrases to create a vision for his story. One that stuck out most to me comes from pg. 34. Rashid, the father says, " As I have mentioned, young Haroun Khalifa: more to you than meets the blinking eye." I picked the phrase because I knew I had seen it at some other point in the book. Upon checking, I found the phrase on pg. 19, again said by Rashid. Clearly it is of some importance, otherwise it would not be mentioned repeatedly. I will be waiting to see if it continues to appear more throughout the story.

Another annotation that I focused on while reading the first five chapters was the main question my class talked about prior to reading," What is the use of stories that aren't even true?" On the pg 22 of the story, Haroun yells the phrase at his father. It was ultimately the interaction that started the main conflict of the story, Haroun traveling to Kahani to save his father's storytelling ability. As my lens is the Hero's journey, I have found it important to mark this as a crucial plot point in the book.

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On Thursday, I felt like my class had a very meaningful discussions about Haroun and the Sea of Stories that opened my eyes to many ideas and concepts I would not have thought about otherwise. One of my personal favorites was the debate on what classifies a children's book as "for children". I thought it was very accurate to say that the books are not always for the kids, but rather the adults who can understand the author's references to the world and humor. Another question that really made me think was, 'Do you have to be happy to tell stories?'. I loved that question because it caused me to evaluate what is necessary to be a storyteller especially because Rashid became depressed and lost his ability to tell stories.

On Friday, during the Touchstones discussion, my class revisited Haroun and the Sea of Stories, specifically the correlation between truth and trust in the father-son relationship as well as Haroun's question of doubt. I hope that Rushdie expands on this idea in the coming pages.

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Overall, the first five chapters of Haroun and the Sea of Stories were not as engaging as I would have liked, but the conversations my class had were very thought-provoking and insightful. I am hopeful that the next set of chapters will bring similar questions and comments and further developments of the ones already created.