Haroun and the Sea of Stories

“You are only interested in pleasure, but a proper man would know that life is a serious business. Your brain is full of make-believe, so there is no room in it for facts. Mr. Sengupta has no imagination at all. This is okay by me.”

This quote is from the note that Soraya, Rashid’s wife, leaves when she abandons him for Mr. Sengupta. Rashid has always been a loving husband, but Mr. Sengupta has influenced her into thinking that Rashid’s love of stories has made him a person who does not deserve her or good fortune. Her remark that the has no imagination foreshadows the eventual reveal that his shadow self in Kahani is Khattam-Shud.

“A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight.” 

Mr. Butt reinforces one of the themes of the book—that language is slippery and can be exploited by the unscrupulous. Using a figure of speech can add color and depth to a conversation, and allegories and metaphors can be useful. However, a figure of speech can also be used for obfuscation or manipulation. A speaker’s intentions are not always clear based solely on the words they use.

“As I may have mentioned, young Haroun Khalifa: more to you than meets the blinking eye.” 

Rashid will tell Haroun more than once that there is more to him than meets the eye. The trope of an unassuming child who learns that his destiny is greater than he thought is common in folklore, fantasy, and a great deal of literature. Rashid is correct the first time he says it to Haroun, but he will repeat his remark to Haroun near the end of the novel, as the adventure concludes. By that point, Haroun has truly proven that he contains depths that none of them were aware of yet.

“O, Need’s a funny fish: it makes people untruthful. They all suffer from it, but they will not always admit.” 

Mr. Butt talks about the uneasy relationship between the truth and expediency. When people need something, they are more likely to act unethically if it means they can achieve their desires. One of the novel’s themes is that everyone needs fiction, but they can’t always admit it. There are truths that only fiction can convey, but people cannot learn those truths without exposing themselves to fiction.

“Because everything ends, because dreams end, stories end, life ends, at the finish of everything we use his name...It’s finished, it’s over. Khattam-Shud: The End.”

Khattam-Shud’s name translates to The End. He is a constant reminder of death, and of the fragility of life. Everything that has a beginning must have an end. Khattam-Shud exploits this fear by trying to end stories—and lives—before they can truly take shape and exercise transformative power on people. The success of his plan would mean the end of creativity and free speech.

“All names mean something.”

Giving something a name attaches an identity to an object, person, or place. This is comically clear in the book, because the names of the characters in Kahani signal their personality traits. For instance, Khattam-Shud translates to “the end,” while Blabbermouth is an unflattering appellation for a talkative girl. Haroun’s city forgot its own name, thereby losing its sense of identity and diminishing its role in the country.

“He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.”

Even though Haroun asks his father about the point of fiction, he is still a person with a strong imagination. Even though Rashid claims that the Moody Land was only a story, Haroun knows better. He senses that Rashid’s stories could not be pure invention. People would not respond to Rashid’s stories so positively if they did not get something useful from them.

“‘Anybody can tell stories,’ Iff replied. ‘Liars, and cheats, and crooks, for example. But for stories with that Extra Ingredient, ah, for those, even the best storytellers need the Story Waters. Storytelling needs fuel, just like a car; and if you don’t have the Water, you just run out of Steam.’”

The mechanics of storytelling are deceptively simple—one has only to speak or to write words and convey a plot. However, Rashid has what Iff calls that Extra Ingredient. He has access to the fuel of the Story Waters. Despite his natural gifts, when he loses contact with the fuel, his ability to tell stories vanishes. Were he still able to tell stories, they would comprise only the mechanics of storytelling, not the richness that makes an exceptional storyteller memorable.

“Believe in your own eyes and you’ll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.”

Iff reinforces one of the story’s themes: one’s senses are not enough to reveal the whole truth about the world. Much of the story is surreal to the point that Haroun is unable to trust what he sees at face value. Many of the characters hide their true identities or selves; sight is not enough for an accurate assessment. Iff knows that people can deceive themselves, and their senses can be unreliable.

“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.”

The sad city has passed out of being, according to the logic of the quote. It has no identification and remains anonymous in the Place of Namelessness. It is hard to talk about the city because it cannot be referred to accurately, only through descriptions of its sadness. At the end of the story, the citizens remember that the sad city is named Kahani. Its name brings it back into the world because it returns the city’s identity to it. This develops themes around the importance of names.

“Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe.”

Iff and Butt explain the Ocean to Haroun as they travel. Their explanation reinforces the theme that new stories are a mixture of new ideas and old stories. The stories that are in the process of being invented share the same water with old, or even ancient, stories. The Ocean is the ultimate library because it contains every story that has been, or will ever be, told. This speaks to the universality of stories.

“Any story worth its salt can handle a little shaking up.”

Butt the Hoopoe talks about the effect that turbulence has on the currents of the Story Streams. Even though each story is unique, they can tolerate small changes while still having the same outcome, and all while arising from the same source. Currents (and stories) can change direction without suffering, but they cannot be eradicated completely.

“He is the Arch-Enemy of all Stories, even of Language itself. He is the Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech.”

Iff describes Khattam-Shud to Haroun. Khattam-Shud relies on silence, and the stifling of creativity, to crush dissent before it can storm. In Chupwala, people are forbidden to express themselves. Khattam-Shud does not even trouble himself with crackdowns on free speech, finding it more effective to reign over a country that is forced to be silent.

“Nothing comes from nothing, Thieflet; no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old—it is the new combinations that make them new.” 

Rushdie outlines the nature of stories. Storytellers do not always know where their ideas come from, but they are often an amalgamation of experiences that make the idea for the new story possible. Every story is built on former stories, and yet they are new because every story is unique. Because each person’s life is unique, there are always new stories entering the world with accumulating experience.

“Don’t you know girls have to fool people every day of their lives if they want to get anywhere?”

Blabbermouth’s plight mirrors that of many modern women, particularly in India. She is unable to perform the job she wants—a Page—as a girl. She must pretend to be a boy to secure a chance to prove herself capable. She can only succeed in her chosen career if she is willing to assume a different identity—if she is willing to live as a fiction.

“I always thought storytelling was like juggling…You keep a lot of different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you’re good you don’t drop any. So maybe juggling is a kind of storytelling too.” 

Blabbermouth’s juggling impresses Haroun. He reflects that the art of storytelling is a delicate balance. When Rashid tells a story, he must keep track of the details, characters, and the story’s relationship to any previous stories he may have told. If a detail is forgotten—or a ball is dropped—the story can be ruined.

“‘But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedom 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?’”

Butt’s quote echoes Rushdie’s difficulties arising from the censorship and condemnation of his previous novel. Butt the Hoopoe does not see the value in free speech that is never used. Rushdie uses Butt’s description of free speech to reinforce that he sees storytelling as both a necessity and a right, for both writers and readers. For free speech to be truly free, it must be evident. Storytelling is an act of creation that proves that creation is legal.

“In the Land of Chup, a Shadow very often has a stronger personality than the Person, or Self, or Substance to whom or to which it is joined! So often the Shadow leads, and it is the Person or Self or Substance that follows. And of course there can be quarrels between the Shadow and the Substance or Self or Person; they can pull in opposite directions.”

Mudra’s shadow explains the odd relationship between shadows and their struggles with the people or objects to which they are attached. The shadow-self connotes the psychological struggle between good and evil, or appetite and virtue, which exists in each person. When the shadow-self gains too much independence or power, it jeopardizes the identity of the true self.

“How weird […] that the worst thing of all can look so normal and, well, dull.” 

Haroun watches the Chupwalas work on the deck of the Dark Ship. Their efforts to destroy the Sea of Stories require endless amounts of mundane, banal tasks. He notices how monotonous their work is, given that there is no variation in their tasks. The workers do not have stories outside of their work. They are dull because they are predictable, and they are forbidden to use their imaginations.

“Each and every story in the Ocean needs to be ruined in a different way. To ruin a happy story, you must make it sad. To ruin an action drama, you must make it move too slowly. To ruin a mystery you must make the criminal’s identity obvious to even the most stupid audience.”

Khattam-Shud explains his strategy for poisoning the Ocean to Haroun. Because every story—or current of story—is unique, they each require a unique poison to destroy them. His description of what ruins a story is exactly what makes stories compelling, such as when a happy story becomes sad, or when an exciting story has a lull in the action. He has found an anti-story for each story.

“The Chupwalas did not stand shoulder to shoulder, but betrayed one another, stabbed one another in the back, mutinied, hid, deserted…and, after the shortest clash imaginable, simply threw down all their weapons and ran away.”

At the battle of Bat-Mat-Karo, the Guppees put aside their grievances and fight as a unit. The Chupwalas use the opportunity to take vengeance on each other before quitting and running. Their enforced silence has never allowed them to get to know each other, therefore they cannot trust each other. This moment emphasizes the importance of speech. Without it, there’s no cooperation.

“‘Happy endings must come at the end of something,’ the Walrus pointed out. ‘If they happen in the middle of a story, or an adventure, or the like, all they do is cheer things up for a while.’”

The Walrus is unwilling to talk about happy endings prematurely. A happy ending that occurs too soon is a misdirection or a trick. There are times when an apparent happy ending is only a moment of relief before greater hardships. The Walrus’s quote foreshadows his eventual granting of Haroun’s wish when he restores the sad city to happiness.

“Of course, we didn’t get paid…but never mind; money isn’t everything.”

After Rashid tells the story of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the crowd turns on Snooty Buttoo. Though he did not earn any money, Rashid is elated with the return of his gift. Stories matter more to him than money, and now he knows that he will always be able to make more of both. He is cheerful now that he knows how his gift was lost.