I.

Introduction

When his oldest son had asked him

―Dad, why don‘t you write books that I can read?‖

Salman Rushdie had just been taken under the protection of the MI6. 1His life and the lives of
everyone he cared about were in danger due to the fact that his latest work, The Satanic Verses,
had displeased certain people. Forced by these circumstances into seclusion, the author shapes
this experience into a fairytale in order to fulfill his child’s wish. The product of his strife,
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, is a text tailored to enchant and inspire young minds, brimming
with the secular undertones adults can recognize.

―There‘s no more absolute thing than a promise to your child. You can‘t break it.”2,
Rushdie proudly declares.

Years later, Luka and the Fire of Life, a token for his second son, appears to celebrate, in its
more relaxed tone, the escape from the death threats that burdened him for ten years. After
regaining his life, the author continued to fight against oppressive mind frames even more
ardently by using the works written (not only) for (his own) children, thus exerting two of the
main functions of a fictional text: to provide counsel and to educate. The lessons he passes down
are the ones he himself had learned at the price of sheer terror. Choosing the medium of fairy
tale, enriched, in the case of Luka, by a video game frame, the author ensures that he will be able
to express his ideas freely due to the permissive nature of the medium.

Rushdie’s imaginary realm of Kahani is characterized by a cluster of individualized voices that

may only thrive through dialogue and compromise. The characters that refuse to subject
themselves to this are bound to be defeated and expelled from the Earth’s hidden second moon.
The novels’ themes (identity, tyranny, language) are remarkable not because of a false claim of
originality, but because, according to critics, “the context imbues them with unprecedented
urgency”3. Containing several satirical episodes, memorable antiheroes and making extensive
use of symbolism, both volumes proclaim the perseverance and versatility of words, but most
importantly of the story, that becomes representative for the very essence of humanity and also
the purpose of this paper.

II. Contextualization
1. The fatwa

On February 14th 1989, the spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, sentenced Salman
Rushdie to death for his allegedly blasphemous novel, The Satanic Verses, thus altering his

1
Salman Rushdie, “Joseph Anton”, pg. 12
2
Martin Amis, “Rendezvous with Rushdie”, Vanity Fair (December 1990), pp. 160–3; this citation on p. 163
3
Deepika Bahri, “The Cambridge Companion to Rushdie”, chapter 10, pg. 139

1
destiny as a public figure and consequently, the very purpose and substance of his writing. The
author’s identity had been thrice divided: there was “the fiendish Rushdie” whom the protesters
wanted hanged, the baffled Salman that was forced to hide from the public eye without pleading
his case and Joseph Anton (alias formed from the names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekov), a
new skin to be inhabited for the sake of subsistence, taken on at the suggestion of the secret
forces. His uprooted, heterogeneous self had to set out on a path of rediscovery and
reaffirmation. Not only is Haroun and the Sea of Stories the first step on said path, but also an
expression of the triumph of words, of the joy brought on by captivating narratives and a
rendering of the consuming wish for a dialogue between east and west.

By creatively objecting to a totalitarian worldview through a humanizing portrayal of the

Islamic world, the author had placed himself in a position he never could have anticipated: the
faithful and unfaithful alike had come together in hatred to rally against him. His book was
burned, its translators threatened and killed by a force that would not, could not understand the
language of fiction. The villains that inhabit the world of his fairytale novels are also
purposefully exaggerated images of real life threats: Haroun must face Khattam-Shud, the end of
language, stories and also his beloved family; his brother Luka battles the all knowing, or Aalim,
challenging their abusive reign over none other than his father’s imagination.

Raised in a secular Islamic family, Rushdie had been taught that the world’s stories were not
only his heritage, but a collective heritage that encapsulated the creative minds of many
generations, spread before him to be tampered with freely:

“To grow up steeped in these tellings was to learn two unforgettable lessons: first, that
stories were not true (there were no ―real‖ genies in bottles or flying carpets or wonderful
lamps), but by being untrue they could make him feel and know truths that the truth could not tell
him, and second, that they all belonged to him, just as they belonged to his father, Anis, and to
everyone else, they were all his, as they were his father‘s, bright stories and dark stories, sacred
stories and profane, his to alter and renew and discard and pick up again as and when he
pleased, his to laugh at and rejoice in and live in and with and by, to give the stories life by
loving them and to be given life by them in return. Man was the storytelling animal, the only
creature on earth that told itself stories to understand what kind of creature it was. The story was
his birthright, and nobody could take it away.”4

Through writing, one could be given the chance to exercise what it meant to be human, to
dissect ones fears until their enlarged, distorted images would fade to nothing in the light of the
questioning mind. By adhering to the art of the story, by defending it ruthlessly, Salman Rushdie
stood up for our right to explain the world in our own terms.

As a student of history the author had extended knowledge on the Quran and the particular
episode in which Mohamed admits that he had been fooled by Satan had made a very powerful
impression on him:

4
Salman Rushdie, “Joseph Anton”, pg. 19

2
 ―…the story of an incident that afterward became known as the incident of the satanic
verses. The Prophet came down from the mountain one day and recited the sura (number 53)
called an-Najm, the Star… At a later point—was it days later? Or weeks, or months?—he
returned to the mountain and came down, abashed, to state that he had been deceived on his
previous visit; the Devil had appeared to him in the guise of the Archangel, and the verses he
had been given were therefore not divine, but Satanic, and should be expunged from the Qur‘an
at once. The Angel had, on this occasion, brought new verses from God, which were to replace
the Satanic verses in the great book… And in this way the Recitation was purified of the Devil‘s
work. But the questions remained: Why did Muhammad initially accept the first, ―false‖
revelation as true? And what happened in Mecca in the period between the two revelations,
Satanic and angelic?”5

The scene’s humanity lies in the exposure of the vulnerability of a figure that seems immovable.
Mohammed quickly undoes his mistake, while the scribe Salman embraces this memorable
foolishness, choosing to write the “misheard” story.

The mob violently objected his disrespect towards the prophet (one of the author’s making that
merely appeared in dream sequences, accentuating the fact that his narrative was a fiction), his
use of language, because characters swore, and the fact that somewhere, in a brothel in the
imaginary town of Jahilia, there were whores taking on the names of the Prophet’s wives in order
to incite their clients.

2. On misreading “The Satanic Verses”

According to Julian Barnes:

―Fiction is made by a process which combines total freedom and utter control, which
balances precise observation with the free play of the imagination, which uses lies to tell the
truth and truth to tell lies. It is both centripetal and centrifugal.‖6

The fictional narrative can bring up several comprehension issues when the reader assumes that
what he has come into contact with is purely objective by ignoring the signs that indicate
otherwise, becoming overwhelmed by this carousel-like mechanism that spins lies and truths that
are neatly interwoven. This type of text is, by nature, indirect in its communication, and inclined
towards plots based on “what if” or “if only” scenarios. The subjectivity of fiction is inherent
considering that it relies on a sum of perceptions towards a certain topic. The way it is received,
on the other hand, heavily relies on the personality of the reader as well. In the words of Umberto
Eco “mass media has made novels available to people who have not bothered to read them or
who do not share the fictional agreement and for whom the novel’s fictional status does not make

5
Salman Rushdie, “Joseph Anton”, pg. 32
6
Julian Barnes, “Nothing to be frightened of”, pg. 78

3
it immune from causing offense.”7 By choosing a satirical point of view, Salman Rushdie aims
to educate, to amuse and to demolish creatively menacing worldviews that demand the urgent
silencing of the critical mind.

According to deconstructive criticism, a text is comprised of several irreconcilable and

contradictory meanings and is therefore bound to produce several incompatible interpretations.
Any person who tries to find a single, absolute meaning in a text is inclined to be wrong rather
than right. In the words of Miller

―The hypothesis of a possible heterogeneity in literary texts is more flexible, more open
to a given work, than the assumption that a good work of literature is necessarily going to be
organically unified.‖ 8

In Areopagitica, John Milton argues that it is a greater crime to ban a book than to kill a man,
for “he who destroys a good book kills reason itself”9. In the case of The Satanic Verses, the
course of action adopted by the Ayatollah consisted of focusing his resources on exterminating
both the written work and the man behind it. While censors insisted on the corruptive capacities
of such a volume, the 18th century thinker disparages absurd and controlling justifications by
stating:

―To the pure, all things are pure.‖10

An educated, scholarly readership is bound to discern between fiction and objectivism, between
offense and satire and it is wrong to deny them a literary experience in order to protect the
inexperienced. By questioning and filtering the knowledge we receive, we protect ourselves from
deceit. While literature might use religion as one of many sources, it does not function according
to the same rules. In a well written story, the lines between the veridical and the make-belief can
seem blurred, hence the appalled readership’s inability to detach an element of inspiration in the
creation of The Satanic Verses from the book itself.

In Is Nothing Sacred? Rushdie defends literature by stating that it is imbued with obstinacy and
that it functions as a much needed connection between imaginary worlds and the world we
inhabit. In the target novels, the unfolding of the plot is triggered by both Haroun and Luka
undergoing a transformative journey to such invented realms. Unlike religion, literature does not
grant supremacy to a belief over another, but functions as a mosaic, an “Ocean of the Streams of
Story” that endorses polyphony.

Recently, the author declared his solidarity with the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose
staff was the victim of a terrorist group seeking revenge because of the publication of a

7
cited in Editorial, Economist, 10 February 1990, online edition
8
Jonathan D. Culler, “Deconstruction: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies”, pg. 269
9
John Milton, “Areopagitica”, pg. 13
10
John Milton, “Areopagitica”, pg. 22

4
caricature of the prophet. This merely goes to show that the enemies of free speech are still at
work, trying to subjugate variety, regardless of the century, which guarantees that Rushdie’s
writings will remain of interest.

III. The fairytale novels

Touching acrostic poems dedicated to the author’s children gently usher the reader into the
country of Alifbay (alphabet in Hindustani), where the family of storyteller Rashid Khalifa
functions according to a reversed oedipal formula: Haroun and Luka are fully engaged in quests
that fulminate with the rescue of their father.

According to Andrew Tevernson, ―Rushdie has no one genre in mind when he evokes the
concept of ‗story‘ in Haroun and Luka: he means to refer to every form of narration that is to
hand –oral or literary, low-tech or high-tech. ‗Story‘, for Rushdie, means the entire,
irrepressible and wonderfully various output of the human narrative imagination, and is by no
means to be restricted to the classic storytelling genres of fairy tale, legend, myth and
saga.‖11The validity of the form the author fights for is the form he chooses to shape his ideas in
this respect.

In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, the town of the protagonist’s childhood had forgotten its own
name, seemingly subjected to a terrible farce of memory that underlines the weakness of the
human mind. This suggests that the identity crisis that torments the maturing Haroun is mirrored
by his whereabouts. His mother and father grow apart on the backdrop of Mr. Sengupta’s
objections (“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?”12), which the boy will internalize
and ultimately disprove after having been immersed in the world of language. Defined by his
unflinching opposition to suspension of disbelief, Sengupta is also the one that will complete the
disruption of order and unity in the Khalifa household: he runs off with Haroun’s mother,
Soraya, leaving the father and son frozen in pain at the exact moment of their abandonment
(every clock had stopped13).

When Rashid is asked to be the public speaker of a politico, his character becomes a parody of
itself. From a writer that was renowned for his talent, he is reduced to a beastly creature that
cannot articulate its thoughts. As he engages in the electoral charade, his polluted discourse is
deprived of its magic and potency. After proving unable to captivate the crowd, he is threatened
with the cutting of his tongue, suggesting that trying to politicize literature reduces it to non-
literature. Further examples of this are the signs that the pair encounter on their journey to the
Valley of K (its name, a tribute to Franz Kafka):

“IF FROM SPEED YOU GET YOUR THRILL

11
Andrew Tevernson, “Salman Rushdie: Contemporary Critical Perspectives”, chapter 6, pg. 74
12
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg.9
13
“The clock still stood at eleven o’clock exactly.”, Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 9

5
 TAKE PRECAUTION- MAKE YOUR WILL‖14

Such comical versions of government issued slogans create a tasteful caricature of faceless
institutions by mocking their attempts to prove themselves friendly and relatable.

Their coach driver, the rhyme speaking Mr. Butt, unlocks the novel’s meta-textual character:
later on in the narrative, Haroun shall use the experience of their encounter and project it on his
trusted sidekick, Butt the Mechanical Hoopoe, the author thus explaining the function of
elements of inspiration in fictional narratives. Although the Hoopoe and the coach driver are
similar in some ways, the mechanical bird seems to be a superlative product of imagination
resulting from a few of the former’s features.

When first describing Khattam-Shud to his son, Rashid names him

―the Arch-Enemy of all Stories, even of Language itself. He is the Prince of Silence and
the Foe of Speech. And because everything ends, because dreams end, stories end, life ends, at
the finish of everything we use his name. ―It‘s finished,‖ we tell one another, ―it‘s over.
Khattam-Shud: The End.‖15

All conceivable tragedy bears the antihero’s name. According to Rushdie, existence is
proclaimed through acts of language: when an act of language is denied, existence ceases. The
fact that Khattam-Shud is primarily a spiritual death inspires terror, for it attacks the essence of
the individual, not the shell.

Arriving at the boat house “Arabian Nights+1” after diving deep into the realm of Kosh-mar
(Nightmare), father and son are greeted by electoral candidate Snooty Buttoo, the representative
of censorship that orchestrates Rashid’s commissioned performance, thus robbing it of its
authenticity:

―If you want pay, then just be gay.‖

The Khalifas temporary home is decorated with scenes from popular tales (“the Roc of Sinbad
the Sailor, the Whale that Swallowed Men, a Fire-Breathing Dragon and so on.”16), which further
underlines the symbiotic character of Rushdie’s writing, remarkable due to its ability to
assimilate Universal Literature, thus celebrating its existence and availability.

Iff the water genie and Butt the Hoopoe, both named after conjunctions that hint to open
discussions and debates, lead Haroun to Kahani (story in Hindustani), the Earth’s hidden second
moon, in order to show him the Ocean of the Streams of Story, “the biggest library in the
Universe”17. Elementally, stories are fluid in Rushdie’s vision because they are subjected to

14
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 15
15
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 16
16
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 20
17
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 28

6
change and can undergo it easily while continuing to flow endlessly. The vast story sea “is
18
characterized more by interconnection and intersection than by separation and distinction” .
The corruption of its water is a very powerful metaphor for the horrible consequences that ensue
once literature is acted against: the fiendish spider that infests the princess story ruins it.

Avatars of the modern writer and yet another homage brought to Franz Kafka, the plentimaw
fishes redefine what it means to “devour” a book: named after the main characters from Satyajit
Ray’s film19, Goopy and Bagha let their appetites guide them through the Ocean of the Streams
of Story, mixing old tales to create new ones in their stomachs. The resolve the author suggests
for the crisis of originality is creating a subjective collage from preexisting material.

The first civilization Haroun comes into contact with on Kahani is that of the Guppees. Their
society thrives thanks to perpetual dialogue that might seem cacophonic at times. The citizens of
Gup live in perpetual day, on the side of reason, questioning everything openly. Its royal family
is decorative, acting as a parody of authority: the prince is quite shallow and a coward, the
princess ridiculous and unpleasant. Their tokens of affection create wonderfully crafted comical
situations, as is the scene in which her highness had turned the royal guard’s uniforms into
classical stories reworked around her beloved. Yet again Rushdie pleads for freedom of
expression by rendering the absurdity of interference with an author’s written work. The royal
family is unmoved by the situation of the Ocean of the Streams of Story, choosing instead to
rescue its kidnapped princess. Priorities are set straight when the matter is publicly debated, thus
underlining the importance of effective communication for the well being of a community.

On the other side of the moon, lurking in the darkness under the control of the dreaded cult
leader Khattam-Shud, the Chupwallans have sworn their loyalty to silence. Their society is
united in fear of its oppressive master, but divided on the battle field because “their habits of
secrecy had made them distrustful of one another”20. On capturing the mechanical Hoopoe, they
take out its brain, suggesting that all thinking must be silenced and that their battle is one in the
name of unreason.

The Twilight Strip that separates the land of Gup from its counterpart, Chup, is where people of
both countries escape to in order to learn about each others’ customs, thus proving that the
natural inclination towards socialization, fueled by curiosity, transcends all governments and
tyrannies. After crossing the border, the Guppee army encounters Mudra (named after a gesture
used in Indian dances), the shadow warrior that can only utter ambiguous sounds
(“kafkafka…gogogol”21, yet another tribute to some of Rushdie’s favorite writers). Using a
language both parties understood, namely Abhinaya (language of gesture), they manage to
negotiate and reach a consensus, thus creating a connection between people that seemed

18
Andrew Tevernson, “Salman Rushdie: Contemporqary Critical Perspectives”, chapter 6, pg. 69
19
“Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” (“The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha”), 1968
20
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 185
21
Salman Rushdie, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, pg. 49

7
unconceivable mere minutes ago. Compromising to this mode of expression for the sake of
enabling the exchange of knowledge, the Guppees gain an important ally and Mudra joins them
to fight for the liberation of the unhappy, voiceless Chupwalas, which underlines the idea that
change comes from within a flawed system and flourishes thanks to external aid.

Upon confronting the metamorphic Khattam-Shud, that takes on the face of Mr. Sengupta and
utters his mocking rhetorical question, Haroun realizes that this mighty foe is nothing but a
projection of his fears. Wishing for a quite literal revolution and managing to make Kahani turn
on its axis, the hero restores balance in the world of Chup and Gup, offering them both day and
night, thus revealing the importance of balance between silence and speech. The timelessness of
literature manages to surpass its oppressors: the Stream of Stories cannot be plugged.

“The use of stories that aren’t even true” becomes evident as the tale reaches its end: to Rashid
Khalifa, they are a way of life; to his son, they are a mechanism he uses in order to make sense
of a world that is beyond his control and comprehension, to all of mankind, they are a spiritual
inheritance waiting to be seized. The hopeful ending that crowns this story is born out of the
necessity to inspire and perpetuate hope rather than to disillusion the reader by subjection to the
characters’ potentially harsh fate. For the triumph of language to be absolute, the politicos must
be chased out of town and Soraya must return to her husband, thus rebinding what had been
initially destroyed. The saddest city in the world is suddenly aware of its name, Kahani, like the
moon, which suggests that collective fiction is the essence of its identity as a community.

Luka and the Fire of Life is the elemental counterpart to Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The
youngest of Khalifas realizes the amazing power of his words when freeing circus animals from
the tyrant owner of the Great Rings of Fire, captain Aag. By shouting out a curse against his
cruelty, Luka proves that thoughts, speech and reality are interconnected, influencing one
another.

The dog named Bear and the bear named Dog, whose identities create conflict between signifier
and signified thus challenging the reader to dive deeper into the text, become the boy’s trusted
friends and sidekicks and join him on his journey to the World of Magic. Although Luka has a
gift for turning back time, he is unable to stop Rashid Khalifa’s decline into slumber.

Confronted with Nobodaddy, a representation of death that impersonates his father, the hero
must cross over to the imaginary landscape “crammed with allegorical figures and places”22 (that
reaffirms Rushdie’s preference for literary pluralism) and free the mind of his parent from the
Aalim (Jo-Hua, the Past, Jo-Hai, the Present and Jo-Aiga, the Future). Enablers of destruction
deprived of all feeling, the all knowing are symbols of the continuous advancement of time that
spares no one.

22
Alex Clark, “Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie-review”, the Guardian (October 2010)

8
The Respectorate represents a type of totalitarian society that has lost all joy and color in its
attempt to avoid offending any of its citizens. Convinced that it holds the absolute truth, it prides
itself on its principles and is prepared to conquer neighboring states. The red haired Insultana of
Ott is the leader of the revolt against this realm of rats and fights back with attacks that seem
more like practical jokes, thus underlining that those of the Respectorate do not understand or
appreciate humor. Using her reasoning to rewrite the hymn of her rivals(“Two and two make
four, not five/ The world is round, not flat..”23), the Insultana manages to shatter an absolutist
worldview that had claimed it held all answers. She is unafraid of causing offense and cannot be
subjected to censorship.

The chorus of the hymn: “We all say I, I, I…”24 defines the rats’ governing system: it centers on
the well being of the individual above that of the community and functions by denying everyone
something that might be unpleasant to one citizen. Named “Infestations of the World of Magic”,
the inhabitants of the Respectorate have tried to bend more states to their unbending ways and
failed miserably.

Further along on his journey, Luka arrives in the Land of Naughty Gods, where deities from
every mythology have gathered to waste away their eternity in this apparent Purgatory. No
longer worshipped by anyone, the gods have stuck by their hedonistic ways and hold beauty
competitions where the goddesses fight to exhaustion. This fascinating image is a commentary
on the fate of all religions, destined to be turned into a chapter of history by the advancing
human race that tailors its gods according to its changing spiritual needs.

One of Luka’s most valuable allies is none other than “Old Boy” Prometheus, who charges
behind the flying carpet of King Solomon the Wise and helps the boy steal the Fire of Life.
Known for his love of humanity and his self sacrificing ways, the ancient thief chooses to fight
on the side of young Khalifa, suggesting that a life of knowledge is something worth suffering
for.

When put on trial by the other deities under the Tree of Terror, the boy objects to their
accusations by reminding them that their whole world was imagined by his father and that
Rashid’s demise would bring it to an end. Consequently, if a religion is abusive to its followers,
it is bound to self destruct by determining them to walk away from it. Gaining the help of the
gods, Luka is now prepared to face the Aalim, whom he shall disparage with the force that is the
timelessness of literature.

“Luka and the Fire of Life zings along with a palpable sense of Otter-like excess: its exuberance
is inextricably linked to its profligacy with puns, rhymes, one-liners and snippets of nonsense”25

23
Salman Rushdie, “Luka and the Fire of Life”, pg.79
24
Salman Rushdie, “Luka and the Fire of Life”, pg. 77
25 th
Alex Clark, “Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie-review” published in the Guardian, 16 of October 2010,
on-line edition

9
that celebrate language. After defeating a series of video-game like villains, the hero is finally
able to awaken his father and restore order to the city of Kahani.

IV. Conclusion

Be it the Chupwalans, giant rats, Khattam-Shud or the all mighty Aalim, the lesson Salman
Rushdie means to pass on is quite clear once we have analyzed the characters that
counterbalance the evil doings of these unhappy gatherings: contemporary writing will be
compromised if we deny our literary heritage through censorship, the same way the plentimaw
fishes would die in the tainted story waters; it is not acceptable that forces external to literature
decide its fate, and who other to prove this better than the caricature version of Rashid; to avoid
offense completely is impossible- that is why the Insultana of Ott brought a large supply of
itching powder to a land that could not take a joke; knowledge and the fundamental right to
express yourself is very valuable and worth fighting for, and who better to fight for it than the
chit-chat loving Guppees and the awe-inspiring Prometheus?

The author’s fairytale novels are in themselves droplets in the Ocean of the Streams of Story, a
wonderful undiscriminating mixture of elements from various books, movies and even the
alternate reality of video games. The rift between eastern and western culture is inexistent in
these two narratives for their purpose is to demonstrate that language inhabits a world of its own
whose necessity is intertwined with human nature itself.

“Language is courage…the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it
true.” 26

Witty, captivating and extremely incisive, both Luka and Haroun remind us to fearlessly word
our thoughts and defend our interior universes, be it from the threat of time’s passing, by sharing
them with others, or from a dreaded khattam-shud, proclaimed upon us by representatives of the
Respectorate.

Diana Dupu

26
Salman Rushdie, “The Satanic Verses”, pg. 281

10