Haroun and the Sea of Stories

flat out stolen from Pajiba (course he just stole it from Wiki, so)

from another post:

The book the Frenchman in the temple tunnel had on him was Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.

from Wiki:

"The title is a reference to a line from Philippians 2:12, "...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling."

Fear and Trembling presents a highly original and provocative interpretation of the Binding of Isaac story as told in Genesis Chapter 22, and uses the story as an occasion to discuss fundamental issues in moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion, such as the nature of God and faith, faith's relationship with ethics and morality, and the difficulty of being authentically religious."

"In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard introduces the "Knight of Faith" and contrasts him with the "knight of infinite resignation". The latter gives up everything in return for the infinite, that which he may receive after this life, and continuously dwells with the pain of his loss. The former, however, not only relinquishes everything, but also trusts that he will receive it all back, his trust based on the "strength of the absurd".

For Kierkegaard, infinite resignation is easy, but faith is founded in the belief in the absurd. The absurd is that which is contradictory to reason itself.

[en.wikipedia.org]

The book Des was reading on the plane was Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie.

From Wiki:

"Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 children's book[1] by Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's first novel after The Satanic Verses. It is a phantasmagorical story set in a city so old and ruinous that it has forgotten its name.[2]"

The book includes the following things:

- an ancient city so old that people forgot it existed
- a war between the rulers of that ancient city
- a main character who is represented by two sides of himself: an "anthropomorphic shadow" and a "diminished man"
- a "poisoned ocean" caused by above man's splitting of himself into two parts
- a potential mutiny of one of the warring tribes led by a man who isn't the leader
- the anthropomorphic shadow has the ability to "appear identical" to some of the people in the city
- a plan to destroy the ocean using "complicated machines powered by electromagnetic induction"
- the Big Bad is killed at the end after his ice palace melts and his giant statue falls on him
- "a landscape whose weather changes to reflect the emotions of the people currently present in it"
- the two tribes are kept apart "by a force field named Chattergy's Wall"
- "At the South Pole of Kahani is a spring known as the Source of Stories, from which (according to the premise of the plot) originated all stories ever communicated. The prevention of this spring's blockage therefore forms the climax of the novel's own story."

Posted by: shawnp at February 3, 2010 3:54 PM