"Literature is an aspect of the human compulsion to create in the face of chaos" (Frye 31).
The echoes I found in Haroun are probably no different than those discovered by everyone else in class. As Dr. Sexson pointed out, there is the echo of The Wizard of Oz in which entities from Haroun's great dreamland adventure mirror people from his waking life. I also saw echoes of Alice in Wonderland with the drinking of potions, and pages that were pages rather than cards, and themes of twins and opposites and the suspension of "real" time. And let us not forget Peter Pan and his shadow.
But there is something much more subtly familiar about this particular story, and that something is wrought of the intangible images conjured in my mind's eye through the magic of language. At first it reminded me of all the children's books turned movies I have seen, for I have never actually read any of the Alice adventures, or Peter Pan, or The Wizard of Oz. My first impulse was to go online and research these texts so as to write an informed and scholarly post; but I was stopped in my tracks, diverted by other memories of books I had read as a child. Roald Dahl was perhaps my favorite author back then. I loved Matilda and The Witches more than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but my absolute favorite was James and the Giant Peach (Rushdie's Mali instantly reminded me of the cloud men in James). I also loved the books of E.B. White, Charlotte's Web (of course) and Stuart Little, which my son loved so much that he bought it at the book fair and had me read it to him again. But my favorite E.B. White book had to have been The Trumpet of the Swan, and I always much preferred Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle (half a ping pong ball for a helmet--love it!) to Stuart. And while we're on the theme of mice let's not forget Robert C O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, also one of my favorite movies, and a significantly less Disney-fied Disney film considering the tradition. Rounding out the most vivid memories of my childhood reading life would be Bunnicula, a campy tale of a vampiric pet bunny who sucks the juice out of vegetables. The story is told in the first person by the family's dog as he recounts the imaginative family cat's attempts to end the bunny's life. I clearly remember the scene in which the cat takes a steak from the fridge while the family is out and attempts to drive it through the sleeping rabbit's heart (Bunnicula, of course, sleeps during the day and feasts on vegetable juice at night). And I must not neglect the late Shel Silverstein, whose gift of poetry I have passed on to my own children.
All this, this huge rush of memory, has come from the neglected ocean of my past, its echoes churning out other long neglected memories of why I love stories that aren't even true. I remember making stories as a kid, and I say making because I never actually wrote stories--I drew them. I did this because I had an urge to make stories even before I knew how to read and write. I took echoes of what I watched on television or heard at bedtime and retold them in drawings. And though the pictures were static the stories were not. Once I had finished my pages, complete with color, I would take them to my grandma and she would sit me in her lap and I would tell her the story behind the pictures. Afterward she usually asked me questions about my plot and character motives, and this would just get the creative juices flowing again. Then I would take them to my grandpa and "read" the pictures to him, then to my mom...and so on, each new story a slightly different echo than the one that came before. And now I see these echoes resurfacing within my own children. As an English major I admit that I shamelessly emphasize the importance of literature over the importance of math and science to my children. I can't wait to see the books they bring home every Tuesday after school. My daughter loves all the fairy tales, but she doesn't bring home the reductive Disney versions; no, she finds stuff like the Italian version of Rapunzel and the Arabic version of Cinderella, and other obscure myths like one about a brother and sister who run away from their ugly, abusive witch of a foster mother and live in the woods ( but the brother gets turned into a deer because he drinks from a stream the witch has cursed), and a strange tale about a prince and a mermaid which, though it does not end tragically, is not resolved in the typical happily ever after pattern.
My son, on the other hand, prefers to read nonfiction; however, he has discovered Star Wars through the movies, and now he checks the chapter books out of the school library so that we can take turns reading them to each other throughout the week. I used to hate books and movies that take place in outer space, but I have come to appreciate the mythology of Star Wars because of him. He has now followed in my footsteps creating his own Stars Wars based books with pictures and words, and he even structures them into chapters and anthologies. He still desperately needs to work on his spelling, though. One day I looked over his shoulder to see what he was writing and began correcting his numerous spelling errors when he looked up at me and said, "I have a great idea, Mom. You can be my editor!" My daughter doesn't create her own stories, but her Christmas gifts for her immediate family were carefully drawn pictures of "worlds where everybody can just be themselves." They have re-taught me the importance of stories that aren't even true. Through them I have received my letter; it is echoed in their favorite Shel Silverstein poem:
Hector the Collector
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string,
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
Pieces out of picture puzzles,
Bent-up nails and ice-cream sticks,
Twists of wires, worn-out tires,
Paper bags and broken bricks.
Old chipped vases, half shoelaces,
Gatlin' guns that wouldn't shoot,
Leaky boats that wouldn't float
And stopped-up horns that wouldn't toot.
Butter knives that had no handles,
Copper keys that fit no locks,
Rings that were too small for fingers,
Dried-up leaves and patched-up socks.
Worn-out belts that had no buckles,
'Lectric trains that had no tracks,
Airplane models, broken bottles,
Three-legged chairs and cups with cracks.
Hector the Collector
Loved these things with all his soul--
Loved them more than shining diamonds,
Loved them more than glistenin' gold.
Hector called to all the people,
"Come and share my treasure trunk!"
And all the silly sightless people
Came and looked...and called it junk.
"Oh, poor Hector the Collector!" wailed my daughter the first time I read this poem.
"Yeah," my son chimed in, "I wouldn't think it's junk!"
The parallel I'm trying to draw here is obvious. All the jewels and gold I took with me on my journey beneath the sea are the stories of my soul. The stories which came bubbling up before I could write, the stories of my treasure chest full of nothing but junk to the pretentious eyes of a distracted outside world still waiting for its letter.
So, in closing, I offer my favorite Shel Silverstein poem:
Where the Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
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