Halfway Done Haroun?
Now that I'm about halfway through the book of Haroun and The Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, I thought I should give you guys more of my perspective towards this story. Overall, my perspective hasn't changed very drastically. The character names aren't as confusing as they were when I first started but the author tends to input so many details within a chapter, it's easy to skim over.
One of my annotations included a quote said by Haroun, "'Here's another Princess Rescue Story I'm getting mixed up in,' ... 'I wonder if this one will go wrong, too,'" (Rushdie 113). This was marked down as a Story at the Level of Story. The fact that this is the second time that pokes fun at the "Princess Rescue Story" enhances irony because the author doesn't feel as if all those stories need to end the same. Happily, that is. This also brings attention to something relating to the Satire group. In the story, Princess Bachete is described as "...a young woman with long, long hair, wearing a circlet of gold, and singing, please excuse, the ugliest sounding song I have ever heard. In addition, her teeth, her nose...'" (Rushdie 102). The fact that Rushdie chose to mock her looks gives the reader a peek into Rushdie's political views. He believes that while government is typically seen as a beautiful thing, up close it's ugly and corrupt.
Regarding the discussion, the new system we've worked out seemed to work. It was nice within the smaller groups because we all had a chance to speak and also had all four annotation groups to provide input. Coming back together for a large group discussion for about 10 minutes gave the class a chance to tie up loose ends from either one of the groups and was helpful. Someone pointed out a literary meaning of Princess Batcheat that is worth repeating. The word Gup means gossip and that would place Princess Batcheat as the ruler of gossip. Chup on the other hand means silence. Princess Batcheat wants to be in the twilight zone which is the border between gossip and silence. Just something to chew on for the next discussion and we'll just have to read on to see where Rushdie takes it.
