Welcome to the Twilight Strip
"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."
There's no other writer like Salman Rushdie. He was born in 1947, when British India used to exist. These were Indian-born people, mostly socioeconomically affluent, who migrated to the UK. In Rushdie's case, he was educated in Mumbai, Warwickshire, and Cambridge. A Muslim family of Kashmiri descent, Rushdie was aware of the problems hounding the Indian subcontinent. He was a few months old when the Partition of India took place. He was too young to be aware of the happenings and its effects, but he might have sensed it. This won't be a remote possibility. (Günter Grass created such a character. Who couldn't remember Oskar Matzerath?) There was no doubt that the tumultuous events following the creation of the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan would reflect in Rushdie's works, and "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" wouldn't be different. Except this was a children's book.
"What's the use of stories that aren't even true." Rashid, a master storyteller, was supposed to speak in front of a crowd. Alas, he was unable to utter a word. His household was the only one unaffected by the melancholy, which residents suspected of coming from the mighty factories. The black smoke, which hung over the city like bad news, may have entered through the window (of Rashid's house). Haroun, Rashid's son, grew up to be curious and outspoken. And he wanted to find the cause (and cure). Father and son rode on a bus, which took them to a sea of silence.
And they spotted the dark ship
Rushdie had numerous references to other works, most notably "One Thousand and One Nights". It seemed like a collaboration of several authors, who might have requested anonymity, but it was clearly the British writer who also thought of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "The Wizard of Oz". The first chapter would hook readers right away, as if Rushdie cast a spell. But the succeeding chapters revealed a dark aspect of the book. A children's book might be intended for adult readers.
Adults and children alike would be delighted at Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, but those who were familiar with the life of J.M. Barrie would suspect that the mischievous lad could be no other than Scotsman himself. Barrie borrowed other people's children for his playmates, and not a few raised an issue about it. Pedophilia? Maybe not. How about repressive Victorian parents? It could have been possible. The kids could be his form of escape. It was not much different from Rushdie.
"Haroun and the Sea of Stories" was published on September 27, 1990, more than a year after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwÄ against him. "The Satanic Verses", his fourth novel, became a major controversy. Rushdie used magic realism, which a learned man would figure out right away. But Islam and tradition could be considered synonymous to each other. Rushdie's writings would show why literature had no place in traditional societies. (Some would remark that literature has so much power, such that dictators dreaded it.) It gives hope to a troubled world. In Rushdie's case, his children's book would give readers a clue on how he dealt with the death threats.
It will be fine if readers don't figure out the message behind the Sea of Stories. They must take their time (in reading it), which would amuse them. It won't be long before they thought of something. Bitter truth it ain't.
