Notes:
1. The content below contains major spoilers. It also contains some words (in fact, just one or two) which do not exist in English Language (or for that matter, any language) and are grammatically incorrect but have been used to depict the essence of the matter.
2. This is the exact replica of the review I submitted during the course on 'Introduction to Literature' at IIT Delhi. Therefore, please do not copy. No. Do not even think of copying a single sentence.
For once, imagine yourself in the shoes of a kid. What would you prefer? Listening to a story with characters having interesting names and styles of speaking along with an even more interesting story, or watching some other kid play a video game which, even if you wholeheartedly desire to play, ignoring all its flawed rules, you cannot do so. The dilemma here is similar to the dilemma of choosing between Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” and its sequel by the same author – “Luka and the Fire of Life”.
The two books revolve around storyteller Rashid Khalifa who has two sons – Haroun and Luka, the latter one being non-existent in the first book, and therefore is the younger one. It’s needless to say which book narrates the story of which son. However, what is needed to be mentioned here is the fact that Salman Rushdie also has two sons – Zafar and Milan. The first book was written for Zafar just after the declaration of Fatwa against Mr. Rushdie following the publication of ‘The Satanic Verses’. It’s quite obvious the younger son also wanted a book for himself and therefore we have, in front of us, the adventures of Luka.
In “Haroun and The Sea of Stories”, Rashid Khalifa, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions, - living with his family in a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it has forgotten its name - loses his ability to tell stories! (Such a self-conscious plot of not being allowed to tell stories!) I won’t divulge the details of whys and hows but, yes, post this mishap, Rushdie makes Haroun embark on a spectacular and spellbinding adventure along with the readers, and, of course, Iff the Water Genie and Butt the Hoopoe.
The name of the city turns out to be Kahani.
In “Luka and The Fire of Life”, Rashid Khalifa, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions, - living with his family in a happy city, the happiest of cities, a city, as mentioned beforehand, called Kahani - falls into a deep sleep! Yet again, I won’t divulge the details of hows and whys but yes, post this mishap, Rushdie makes Luka (or was it Luka himself? After all, he wanted a Harounish adventure of his own! – or a book of his own – Milan!!) embark on a not-so-spectacular and not-so-spellbinding videogamish adventure along with the readers, and, of course, Bear the dog, Dog the bear and Nobodaddy.
It is of general opinion, and quite supported by me as well, that the second book didn’t match up to the grandeur of the first one. Both books are, without any doubt, very well written but the inherent aura is somehow missing in the latter. “Haroun and The Sea of Stories” seems highly inspired by the stories of old world fantasy tales especially Arabian Nights and therefore we have genies and giant talking birds and foolish prince and croaking princess… One can find some exact incarnations of characters specified by Vladimir Propp’s analysis of Fairy Tales – The Hero, The Villain, The Helper, The Dispatcher, The Princess and Her Father, etc.
However, even after being so similar to the much older fiction, one can clearly notice the imagination of a visionary author. The notion of supply of story water, stream and sea of stories, their pollution that has adversely affected the city of Gup (Hinting at the environmental pollution, is he?), giving each story an ID to get identified (For example, G/1001/RIM/777/M(w)I for ‘Rapunzel’) and the whole idea of stopping an alternate moon from revolving and then setting it back to motion using what he calls P2C2E (Process Too Complicated To Explain) is just stupendous. Rushdie, known for his play of words and stylized use of language, uses his skill to create a fantastic world out of his words with a freedom of choosing a Hindi, or an Urdu, or majorly an English word. The names of the characters are the words of daily usage from one of the above mentioned languages and, therefore, the readers of these languages, like me, feel more amused and somehow attached to the characters and the story. After all, how can one forget characters named Iff and Butt who speak typical of their names, Prince Bolo, Princess Baatcheat, General Kitaab, The cities of Gup and Chup, Gardener Maali, Land of Baat-Mat-Karo and a lot more. (He even borrows names of two characters from one of Satyajit Ray’s films) Pathos, Humour, Pity, Action, Adventure - Rushdie sums them all up in those wild 211 pages while keeping its soul confined to the Indian Subcontinent. The only problem I have with this book is the weak and meek image in which the female characters have been portrayed. Soraya Khalifa, Haroun’s and Luka’s mother, and Mrs. Onita Sengupta, their neighbour, have been shown extremely helpless and have not been given much importance and Princess Baatcheat is there just to be made fun of.
20 odd years pass by.
It’s the age of PSP and Wii. (or, pisps and wees, as Soraya calls them). And, of course, the age of Luka. The world is becoming global and one cannot remain confined to the Indian Subcontinent. The storyteller has to cover Indian as well as Sumerian and Egyptian and Greek and Roman mythologies. But, as we have expected, he falls into a deep sleep. Luka, go and save your father, like your brother did! And there he goes. Rushdie, after a hiatus, gets back to writing a children’s fiction. He very consciously creates a whole new World of Magic and takes a modern approach to design it – Video Games! Yes, Video Games! So when Luka steps into the World of Magic, the counter of his lives appear on the upper corner of his field of view. There are Save Buttons, Extra Lives, the animated disintegration and subsequent integration of bodies and what not. Rushdie tries well and hard, but alas, he tries too hard. He builds up the character of Soraya as the one who just cannot comprehend video games. Well, Mr. Rushdie, even after his worthy effort at understanding them, fails to create a convincing videogamish world and we can observe a reflection of Soraya in him (or the vice-versa). For instance, in video games, we lose multiple health units at a time, and if they end, we lose a life. But Luka has 999 lives and loses multiple lives in one shot of a gun. There is no notion of ‘health units’. Ok… many will say it’s a variation of the same concept but what about ‘save points’? When one loses a life, one is supposed to start from the last saved point but nothing of that sort happens here (except some exceptions) even when save points exist and have been given much importance as well. Many times, Luka loses some 100 lives, disintegrates and then integrates back at the same place and continues his fight sequence and sometimes he goes back to the saved point. Inconsistent, isn’t it? Another major factor that goes against the novel is the whole setup of you-are-watching-someone-else-play-a-game-you-cannot-play! To me, personally, watching someone else play a video game and make mistakes, add to that the inconsistent rules of the game, had always been depressing. So what, if it’s just a story! It is never just a story.
Even the charm of fairy tales, that was so prominent in “Haroun and The Sea of Stories”, is missing here, maybe because the author, in his quest to create a modern magical world, unconsciously does away with the requisite elements. The humor is almost absent. In fact, the story is much darker as compared to its prequel. There is a lot of killing, gore, betrayal, talks of death and the dead, scary Gods and Devils, etc. which I believe is too much for a children’s fiction.
However, Rushdie improves in the area of depicting women – the problem that I had with the first book. Although, there are only two women in this book, the character of Insultana is depicted as a powerful one who plays an important part in Luka’s quest. The role of Propp’s Magical Helper is quite obviously shared by her and Nobodaddy. Even, the class conflict between Respect-seeking Rats (Respectorates) and Otters (the subject of Insultana) has been depicted very well although in a deteriorating manner.
Rushdie goes beyond the Indian Subcontinent, and this is the part that I liked the most, and incorporates plots and characters from other cultures as well and we get to know that the storyteller has already told the tales of Sumerian origin, or for that matter, Japanese or Egyptian or Greek or Roman. The characters are not only named Captain Aag, Bahut-Sara, Badlo-Badlo, Jo-Hai, Jo-Hua aur (err.. and) Jo-Aiga, but also Ratshit, Insult-ana, Respectorate, Ratatat, and Gods like Huitzilopochtli (Aztec), Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Aztec), Kishimojin (Japanese), Sphynx (Oedipus Rex!) and Ra and Anzu speaking Hieroglyph and Sumerian. To be true, the alternate invisible moon of Haroun’s Adventure stands nowhere in front of the World of Magic of Luka’s Adventure in terms of richness in diversity and magical elements but that’s not enough. The elaboration of the explanation of the world, and more importantly, the connection with it is missing. Even the direct counterparts of certain characters in the first book were as not as memorable as them. (The Elephant-Ducks in the sequel were as if they never existed as against the rhyming fish-duo of Goopy and Bagha). How I wish the cities and creatures, over which the characters in “Luka and The Fire of Life” flew sitting on a flying carpet, would have been a part of the adventure as well.
Salman Rushdie writes on Pg. 13 (Luka and The Fire of Life) – “Life is tougher than video games” and on Pg. 130 (Luka and The Fire of Life) – “We aren’t needed anymore, or that’s what you all think, with your High Definitions and low expectations”. Brilliant comments and hats-off to them Mr. Rushdie, but if this is the concern, why to build up a half-baked extremely pretentious videogamish world when we were so happy with the old world fantasy?
1. The content below contains major spoilers. It also contains some words (in fact, just one or two) which do not exist in English Language (or for that matter, any language) and are grammatically incorrect but have been used to depict the essence of the matter.
2. This is the exact replica of the review I submitted during the course on 'Introduction to Literature' at IIT Delhi. Therefore, please do not copy. No. Do not even think of copying a single sentence.
For once, imagine yourself in the shoes of a kid. What would you prefer? Listening to a story with characters having interesting names and styles of speaking along with an even more interesting story, or watching some other kid play a video game which, even if you wholeheartedly desire to play, ignoring all its flawed rules, you cannot do so. The dilemma here is similar to the dilemma of choosing between Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” and its sequel by the same author – “Luka and the Fire of Life”.
The two books revolve around storyteller Rashid Khalifa who has two sons – Haroun and Luka, the latter one being non-existent in the first book, and therefore is the younger one. It’s needless to say which book narrates the story of which son. However, what is needed to be mentioned here is the fact that Salman Rushdie also has two sons – Zafar and Milan. The first book was written for Zafar just after the declaration of Fatwa against Mr. Rushdie following the publication of ‘The Satanic Verses’. It’s quite obvious the younger son also wanted a book for himself and therefore we have, in front of us, the adventures of Luka.
In “Haroun and The Sea of Stories”, Rashid Khalifa, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions, - living with his family in a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it has forgotten its name - loses his ability to tell stories! (Such a self-conscious plot of not being allowed to tell stories!) I won’t divulge the details of whys and hows but, yes, post this mishap, Rushdie makes Haroun embark on a spectacular and spellbinding adventure along with the readers, and, of course, Iff the Water Genie and Butt the Hoopoe.
The name of the city turns out to be Kahani.
In “Luka and The Fire of Life”, Rashid Khalifa, the Shah of Blah, the Ocean of Notions, - living with his family in a happy city, the happiest of cities, a city, as mentioned beforehand, called Kahani - falls into a deep sleep! Yet again, I won’t divulge the details of hows and whys but yes, post this mishap, Rushdie makes Luka (or was it Luka himself? After all, he wanted a Harounish adventure of his own! – or a book of his own – Milan!!) embark on a not-so-spectacular and not-so-spellbinding videogamish adventure along with the readers, and, of course, Bear the dog, Dog the bear and Nobodaddy.
It is of general opinion, and quite supported by me as well, that the second book didn’t match up to the grandeur of the first one. Both books are, without any doubt, very well written but the inherent aura is somehow missing in the latter. “Haroun and The Sea of Stories” seems highly inspired by the stories of old world fantasy tales especially Arabian Nights and therefore we have genies and giant talking birds and foolish prince and croaking princess… One can find some exact incarnations of characters specified by Vladimir Propp’s analysis of Fairy Tales – The Hero, The Villain, The Helper, The Dispatcher, The Princess and Her Father, etc.
However, even after being so similar to the much older fiction, one can clearly notice the imagination of a visionary author. The notion of supply of story water, stream and sea of stories, their pollution that has adversely affected the city of Gup (Hinting at the environmental pollution, is he?), giving each story an ID to get identified (For example, G/1001/RIM/777/M(w)I for ‘Rapunzel’) and the whole idea of stopping an alternate moon from revolving and then setting it back to motion using what he calls P2C2E (Process Too Complicated To Explain) is just stupendous. Rushdie, known for his play of words and stylized use of language, uses his skill to create a fantastic world out of his words with a freedom of choosing a Hindi, or an Urdu, or majorly an English word. The names of the characters are the words of daily usage from one of the above mentioned languages and, therefore, the readers of these languages, like me, feel more amused and somehow attached to the characters and the story. After all, how can one forget characters named Iff and Butt who speak typical of their names, Prince Bolo, Princess Baatcheat, General Kitaab, The cities of Gup and Chup, Gardener Maali, Land of Baat-Mat-Karo and a lot more. (He even borrows names of two characters from one of Satyajit Ray’s films) Pathos, Humour, Pity, Action, Adventure - Rushdie sums them all up in those wild 211 pages while keeping its soul confined to the Indian Subcontinent. The only problem I have with this book is the weak and meek image in which the female characters have been portrayed. Soraya Khalifa, Haroun’s and Luka’s mother, and Mrs. Onita Sengupta, their neighbour, have been shown extremely helpless and have not been given much importance and Princess Baatcheat is there just to be made fun of.
20 odd years pass by.
It’s the age of PSP and Wii. (or, pisps and wees, as Soraya calls them). And, of course, the age of Luka. The world is becoming global and one cannot remain confined to the Indian Subcontinent. The storyteller has to cover Indian as well as Sumerian and Egyptian and Greek and Roman mythologies. But, as we have expected, he falls into a deep sleep. Luka, go and save your father, like your brother did! And there he goes. Rushdie, after a hiatus, gets back to writing a children’s fiction. He very consciously creates a whole new World of Magic and takes a modern approach to design it – Video Games! Yes, Video Games! So when Luka steps into the World of Magic, the counter of his lives appear on the upper corner of his field of view. There are Save Buttons, Extra Lives, the animated disintegration and subsequent integration of bodies and what not. Rushdie tries well and hard, but alas, he tries too hard. He builds up the character of Soraya as the one who just cannot comprehend video games. Well, Mr. Rushdie, even after his worthy effort at understanding them, fails to create a convincing videogamish world and we can observe a reflection of Soraya in him (or the vice-versa). For instance, in video games, we lose multiple health units at a time, and if they end, we lose a life. But Luka has 999 lives and loses multiple lives in one shot of a gun. There is no notion of ‘health units’. Ok… many will say it’s a variation of the same concept but what about ‘save points’? When one loses a life, one is supposed to start from the last saved point but nothing of that sort happens here (except some exceptions) even when save points exist and have been given much importance as well. Many times, Luka loses some 100 lives, disintegrates and then integrates back at the same place and continues his fight sequence and sometimes he goes back to the saved point. Inconsistent, isn’t it? Another major factor that goes against the novel is the whole setup of you-are-watching-someone-else-play-a-game-you-cannot-play! To me, personally, watching someone else play a video game and make mistakes, add to that the inconsistent rules of the game, had always been depressing. So what, if it’s just a story! It is never just a story.
Even the charm of fairy tales, that was so prominent in “Haroun and The Sea of Stories”, is missing here, maybe because the author, in his quest to create a modern magical world, unconsciously does away with the requisite elements. The humor is almost absent. In fact, the story is much darker as compared to its prequel. There is a lot of killing, gore, betrayal, talks of death and the dead, scary Gods and Devils, etc. which I believe is too much for a children’s fiction.
However, Rushdie improves in the area of depicting women – the problem that I had with the first book. Although, there are only two women in this book, the character of Insultana is depicted as a powerful one who plays an important part in Luka’s quest. The role of Propp’s Magical Helper is quite obviously shared by her and Nobodaddy. Even, the class conflict between Respect-seeking Rats (Respectorates) and Otters (the subject of Insultana) has been depicted very well although in a deteriorating manner.
Rushdie goes beyond the Indian Subcontinent, and this is the part that I liked the most, and incorporates plots and characters from other cultures as well and we get to know that the storyteller has already told the tales of Sumerian origin, or for that matter, Japanese or Egyptian or Greek or Roman. The characters are not only named Captain Aag, Bahut-Sara, Badlo-Badlo, Jo-Hai, Jo-Hua aur (err.. and) Jo-Aiga, but also Ratshit, Insult-ana, Respectorate, Ratatat, and Gods like Huitzilopochtli (Aztec), Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Aztec), Kishimojin (Japanese), Sphynx (Oedipus Rex!) and Ra and Anzu speaking Hieroglyph and Sumerian. To be true, the alternate invisible moon of Haroun’s Adventure stands nowhere in front of the World of Magic of Luka’s Adventure in terms of richness in diversity and magical elements but that’s not enough. The elaboration of the explanation of the world, and more importantly, the connection with it is missing. Even the direct counterparts of certain characters in the first book were as not as memorable as them. (The Elephant-Ducks in the sequel were as if they never existed as against the rhyming fish-duo of Goopy and Bagha). How I wish the cities and creatures, over which the characters in “Luka and The Fire of Life” flew sitting on a flying carpet, would have been a part of the adventure as well.
Salman Rushdie writes on Pg. 13 (Luka and The Fire of Life) – “Life is tougher than video games” and on Pg. 130 (Luka and The Fire of Life) – “We aren’t needed anymore, or that’s what you all think, with your High Definitions and low expectations”. Brilliant comments and hats-off to them Mr. Rushdie, but if this is the concern, why to build up a half-baked extremely pretentious videogamish world when we were so happy with the old world fantasy?
