Haroun and the Sea of Stories

In an email I received a while ago, Dr. Sexson encouraged us to begin reading our first novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Well, I had some extra time between work shifts and decided to take the time to get started. Now, it is entirely unlike me to start doing the reading for a class before it has even begun! (Though I do admit to peeking ahead in the many novels by Nabokov that we read last semester....I simply couldn't resist) However, start reading I did. A day later, much to my own surprise and chagrin, I had found that I had finished the book altogether.

And I loved it!

The novel reads like a bedtime story, like a fairy tale, and somewhere along the lines of a Scheherazade tale. Yet I was pleased to find, there was an entire subtext to the novel. The imagery is at times very psychological or metaphorical. The lands created stand almost as entire allegories. And the overall themes on language itself have as much depth and color as the Sea of Stories itself.

I jotted down some notes (in my cell phone of all places) as soon as I had finished the novel. I hope we get to talk more on these subjects in class. First of all, there is the overwhelming importance of oral tradition and this....magic...inherent in storytelling. Often times, the real and unreal become fluid and changing in that the real perhaps is not as vivid or as enjoyable as the unreal. Yet the unreal rests on a foundation of reality....some form of reality.....or gains credence from it. In the end, one remains unsure as to what the "real" really is or if that reality truly exists. This fluidity is the nature of stories themselves, especially in the oral traditions, where stories often change based on the teller of the tale. When confronted with the constant changing nature of the story itself, we start to question what existence truly "is" in the face of multiple realities of greater scope. The story, then, has a transformative power over a limited existence. Therein lies a great deal of its magic! So then it is this incredible power of language that effects "actual" events, a power that transforms "reality". What then is language? What does it mean to communicate, to put forth something in written word? Language becomes, then, not merely a form of strict communication based on widely accepted definitions, but rather it becomes a natural force in and of itself, as real as fire or water or earth.

These are some initial thoughts. I'm sure there will me much more to talk about in the future. I can't wait to see what this class has to offer on this and all the works we will be reading this semester. See you on the blogs!

Initial Thoughts--High Brow vs. Low Brow

On the syllabus Dr. Sexson emailed everyone, he asked us to start recording our thoughts on high brow vs. low brow. To be honest, pondering the difference between the two hardly leaves me lacking sleep! The term highbrow literature, as I understand it, has come to mean stories of greater depth, stories often difficult to understand by the average passerby, or stories that are less than favorable to the recreational reader because they are not "easy" reads. Those of us who have come to love these works of art, who have been educated to the point where we can appreciate their complexities, can fall into thinking of ourselves and these works as perhaps "better" than those who would rather not take the time to love these masterpieces.

But to fall into this trap of thinking of ourselves as highbrow or of these works as highbrow is to ignore the value of lesser works, to blind ourselves to truth discovered in unlikely places. Who is to say that any truth or beauty contained in a "lesser" work is any less valid or any less moving than truth contained in masterpieces. We must consider the audience. We must consider the content. We must not indulge our cynical side and automatically condemn a piece of written work to the shelves of "lesser minds" based on labels such as lowbrow.....highbrow... In effect, and I apologize for quoting here a rampant cliché, we must not "judge a book by its cover".

I can only say that I am already excited to delve into both the highbrow and the lowbrow this semester in search of beauty, truth, and immortality. Perhaps the difference between the two is not so simple after all...