I had a feeling that I will not be able to even grasp the Rushdieness of this book, however innocent the title sounded. I picked Haroun and the Sea of Stories, just to 'sample' it. The edition I read actually has this less interesting cover, but I love the exuberant display on the above cover, plus it gives a face to all the myriad names and characters I came through in this book. On the eve of a possible career- and life-destroying performance at a political rally, Rashid and Haroun fret about their bad luck when a genie appears in Haroun's bathroom. One day, Rashid's wife runs away with the neighbor, leaving Rashid heart-broken and incapable of making new stories, and Haroun unable to concentrate on anything for longer than eleven minutes. In this land of the sad, Haroun's father, Rashid, was the cheerful storyteller, whose never-ending stream of tales made people either very happy or very jealous. The people had forgotten how to laugh or smile, and even the fish that lived in the nearby sea were called glumfish. Set somewhere in the land of Aladdin and Sinbad, Haroun lives in a city so sad that it had forgotten its own name.

Rashid went out on to the stage in front of that vast jungle of a crowd, and Haroun watched from the wings - and the poor storyteller opened his mouth, and the crowd squealed in excitement - and now Rashid Khalifa, standing there with his mouth hanging open, found that it was as empty as his heart.

Then the thing happened, the Unthinkable Thing.

A Duke by Scot by Amy Jarecki