Haroun and The Sea of Stories

I wanted to love this book. I admire Salman Rushdie. I liked the colorful wording and random references sprinkled throughout the book like Easter eggs. It reminded me very much of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which is one of my favorite books of all time. However, somewhere in the ornateness of the story, Rushdie lost my attention. About halfway through, I felt like I always do while standing in the National Cathedral. Amidst the carefully crafted gargoyles, stained glass, intricate ceilings and decorated door handles, I feel bewildered and overstimulated. I cannot take it all in. I cannot make the kind of sense of it that I would like to.
In trying to comprehend the theme of the story, I feel overwhelmed. I settled on “stories are invaluable”, though I toyed with “speech is worth fighting for” and “family first”. The sole reason I settled on this was that both Haroun and Soraya question the usefulness of a fictional story.
I liked Rushdie’s “real” world better than the dream world of Kahani. The city of K with its sadness factories and tangible characters were easier to grasp. The dream world required long descriptions of every fantastic aspect. I would get lost along the way, having to reread very carefully to try to picture what was being said. The characters, being several different species, were hard for me to focus on. The flowery descriptions of scenery and physical aspects of the characters left little room for their background and development. I wanted more from this book. I wanted more than a world full of interesting looking things. I wanted to feel something. Rushdie failed to make me really care.