The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. The book can be found on the Observer Book List.
Having just read
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, I really enjoyed his writing style and wanted to read his other book that was on my list,
Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Researching it, I discovered it was a children's book and was fairly short (~210 pages), which means I could likely finish it off fairly quickly. Turns out I could, I was able to read the book in four days, so that was the good part. The bad part is that, while it is a fine book, it does not deserve a place anywhere near this list. Within the story, Rushdie combines the feel of
Alice in Wonderland and Dr. Seuss to present this whimsical fairy tale where a father and son are sent to save the Sea of Stories from those intent on destroying them. Rushdie litters the prose with jokes and word play, to the point it becomes practically insufferable. And while this is a children's book, the word play I could see giving children a difficult time to delve into the story. It took me a chapter or so before I was comfortable with it. I have run into this issue with the Observer list with numerous of the entries and I am starting to think that the list compiler purposefully chose this book over Rushdie's other works because he wanted something less popular. Overall, even though it is quick, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, despite Rushdie's sometimes clever wordplay.
