* BilingualBonus
** Many of the [[MeaningfulName names]] don't mean much in English, but are derrived from Hindustani words.  Fortunately most of these are explained in the appendix.
** See also StealthPun for a pun involving two French words.
* BodyHorror: Haroun turning into a spider in his Princess Rescue Story dream.
* CatchPhrase: Butt the Mail Coach driver and Butt the Hoopoe share several, most notably, "But but but", and "no problem".
* ChekhovsSkill: Blabbermouth's juggling skills come in handy when stealing a bomb away from a would-be assassin.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: When Rashid is captured by the Guppees, Haroun wonders aloud what kind of torture he will be subjected to.  Iff speculates that that he might be scolded.  Or made to stand in a corner.  Or have to write ''I must not spy'' one thousand and one times.  [[PerfectPacifistPeople "Or is that too severe?"]]
* DarkIsEvil: Subverted.  When first introduced, the land of Chup is represented as an evil, repressive country where there is everlasting night and all Speech is banned.  However, it turns out that only the leadership of the land is evil; most ordinary Chupwalas turn out to be decent enough.  Moreover, Haroun comes to realise that darkness and quiet have beauty in their own right, and that just as silence can be oppressive, so too can constant chatter be annoying.
-->"If Guppees and Chupwalas didn't hate each other so,' [Haroun] thought, "they might actually find each other pretty interesting.  Opposites attract, as they say."
* DarkIsNotEvil: Played straight with Mudra the Shadow Warrior.  See also DarkIsEvil.

Added line(s) 16 (click to see context) :

Added line(s) 17 (click to see context) :

Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:

to:

Added line(s) 26 (click to see context) :

Changed line(s) 29 (click to see context) from:

to:

* RhymesOnADime: The Plentimaw fish, with the variation that one fish always speaks the first line, and the other the rhyming one.
* RougeAnglesOfSatin: Snooty Buttoo's "plenty more" fish (as in, "There are plenty more fish in the sea.") become the Plentimaw fish of Kahani, who have plenty of maws, i.e. mouths.
* ShoutOut: As usual, Rushdie liberally peppers his narrative with an eclectic range of pop and literary references from both Western and Eastern culture.  Notably:
** The head of the [=P2C2E=] House is called the Walrus.  His underlings are the Eggheads.  At least twice in the narrative, someone utters a variation on the line, "We are the Eggheads.  He is the Walrus."  They stop just short of adding the words, [[TheBeatles "goo goo g'joob"]].
** When the characters encounter Mudra for the first time, he tries to explain that he speaks Abhinaya.  In his garbled English, the sentence comes out as, "[[Franchise/StarTrek Spock]] [[Franchise/StarWars Obi]] New Year."
** Goopy and Bagha are named after two characters in a movie by Satyajit Ray.  "The movie characters are not fishes, but they are pretty fishy."

Added line(s) 32 (click to see context) :

Changed line(s) 35 (click to see context) from:

to:

6th Oct '12 1:00:41 AM BlueIceTea

Send BlueIceTea a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Add page description (Hope you like it!)

Changed line(s) 1,2 (click to see context) from:

to:

->''Even in all the Arabian Nights you will never have a night like this.''

''Haroun and the Sea of Stories'' is a children's fantasy novel by Salman Rushdie.  Haroun Khalifa lives with his parents, Rashid and Soraya, in a city so sad it has forgotten its name.  Haroun, however, is happy - until one day his mother runs away with their neighbour.  This event devastates Haroun, who develops a kind of ADHD as a result.  Even worse is the effect on his father: Rashid, formerly a storyteller of seemingly boundless imagination, suddenly finds himself unable to spin his marvelous tales.

Haroun and Rashid travel to the Valley of K, where Rashid is supposed to speak at a major political rally.  The night before the performance, Haroun catches a magical creature in his father's bathroom who has come to disconnect Rashid's supply of Story Water.  Haroun, insisting that his father still needs his stories, blackmails the creature into taking him back to the magical world of Kahani, where he hopes to plead for Rashid to be reconnected.  However, when he arrives, he finds that the Ocean of the Streams of Story, where all stories come from, has become polluted.  Haroun must now work not only to restore his father's Gift of the Gab, but to save the Sea of Stories from being destroyed forever.

Typical of Rushdie's books, ''Haroun and the Sea of Stories'' is chock-full of satire and social commentary.  However, unlike his adult novels, it takes a decidedly optimistic and idealistic tone.  This is probably because it was written for children.

----

25th Sep '12 10:13:13 AM ChaoticNovelist

Send ChaoticNovelist a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 8 (click to see context) :

Added line(s) 21 (click to see context) :

21st Sep '12 10:36:00 PM BlueIceTea

Send BlueIceTea a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Add trope: In Defence Of Story Telling

Added line(s) 8 (click to see context) :

16th Aug '12 10:21:06 PM FruityOatyBars

Send FruityOatyBars a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 7 (click to see context) :