Haroun and The Sea of Stories

This was easily my favorite novel that we read. The story itself had so many fun elements, and whimsy. It's also unusual for me to read a "children's" story set in India. There were certain traditions in the story as well that either diverged from traditional western traditions or paralleled them. The importance of names of places for one follows the western tradition, but a lack of focus on the character's name or a lack of a "true" name for them was a diverge. There was more of a Roald Dahl quality, I thought, than Dr. Seuss. The sort of silly names for places, or simplisitic explanations for settings, etc. The sort of experimentation that Rushdie did with playing with the adult tones in the novel were really interesting and sometimes shocking. Moments like the play on words with the graffiti were well thought out. The scene with the attempted bombing was disturbing to me, because it was obvious that the politics of that scene could easily be over looked. There were a lot of political moments in this novel. Mr. Snooty Buttoo was a sort of general attack on Democracy. I actually recommended this book to my mom and she thought it was boring. Most adult fiction is very vivid, and since this one intentionally leans toward the childish I guess she didn't find it as interesting. I still liked it, but then again I like to read a lot of children's fiction, especially Roald Dahl.