Between Classes on "an upandown ladder"

I found a short passage, only one sentence, that really spoke to me. Eerily enough, I just opened the book and turned to page 125. The first sentence that I saw (about midway through the page) really caught my eye. It goes "And uses noclass billiardhalls with an upandown ladder?" Instantly I thought about my job as manager of the Rec. Center in the SUB basement. Between this class and my capstone class which gets over an hour earlier I will often run over there to try and get some stuff done before returning to Wilson. Aha! The "noclass" refers to this time when I literally have no class and the billiardhall is a reference to the Rec. Center.

It gets even creepier though. Recently (about in November of last semester) I have been complaining to my parents and my girlfriend about how tough it is going from the highbrow world of literature classes directly to managing a billiard hall with all it's petty, paper-pushing concerns. It seems that right when I'm getting into a fascinating discussion of lit. I have to vacate my pursuits and go fix something over there. This HAS TO refer to the "upandown ladder". Literature is a way of elevating my intellect while managing the billiard hall really degrades it. This doubles the "noclass" meaning too. It adds a layer, in my context, of meaning "without refinement". Basically, I am on this ladder between here and the SUB where I move in between highbrow and lowbrow within minutes!

Perhaps I'm crazy. But it really doesn't feel like it. I read the passage and for an instant everything made sense. I felt the "meaning" of the passage and it spoke to me. Needless to say, today I'm staying in Wilson and writing this blog!... THEN it's off to climb the downladder into the noclass billiardhalls.

List of Allusions in "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"

It seems very fitting to me that a story about the Ocean of Stories would contain many literary allusions. However, for the supposed "low-brow" nature of this book I was really surprised on how saturated it is with allusions, and, I was even more surprised how many I missed the first time around! Here is a list of some of the allusions and their pagination that I found throughout the book! Notice that some appear very frequently... :)

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov-- Epigraph poem.
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge-- Epigraph poem, pg. 88
Prisoner of Zenda-- Epigraph poem
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by STC-- "Water, water everywhere; nor any trace of land" I can't find the page.
A Thousand and One Nights-- Frequently throughout the book...
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll-- Frequently...
Dr. Seuss (use of language)-- pg. 164
Matthew 21:21-- pg. 172
Joshua 6: 20-- pg. 189
Samuel Beckett (as told in class)-- pg. 125
Jason and the Golden Fleece-- pg. 99
Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare-- pg. 99
Sinbad the Sailor-- pg. 99
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves-- pg. 99
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp-- pg. 99
Bluebeard-- Iff's blue beard and outfit.
Franz Kafka-- pg. 129 (mutterings of shadow warrior). These may be a stretch but they seem to coincidental to be a mere chance occurrence.
Nikolai Gogol-- pg. 129 (mutterings of shadow warrior) These may be a stretch but they seem to coincidental to be a mere chance occurrence.
"I am the Walrus" The Beatles-- The eggheads and the Walrus... also probably inspired by Alice in Wonderland. John Lennon was a big fan of Lewis Carroll.

*Undoubtedly there are many more allusions in this wonderful book that I've missed or forgot to include. I would love for others to find allusions and post them in the comments page! We could work up an annotated Haroun pretty fast!*

Stories & Ecology

One of the most interesting themes that I've ran across in Haroun and the Sea of Stories is the importance of stories as an ecological feature. It seems Rushdie found the natural environment of earth, specifically the focus on water, as the best way to metaphorically display the nature of stories. Not only does he create an intimate relationship between the environment and stories he also draws upon the contemporary fear of destroying the planet through pollution. Rushdie notes "and if the source itself is poisoned, what will happen to the Ocean-- to us all?" (Rushdie 87). He continues this argument when the characters look to "the thick, dark poison was everywhere now, obliterating the colours of the Streams of Story, which Haroun could no longer tell apart... 'It's our own fault,' he wept. 'We are the Guardians of the Ocean, look at it... No colour, no life, no nothing. Spoilt!" (Rushdie 146). While we are the "Guardians" of our earth/stories we also are the ones who are causing the damage.

Surprisingly this theme does not only appear in this appealing children's novel but in the theories of noteworthy author/historian/theorist Karen Armstrong. In her book A Short History of Myth (which I talk about in length on my other blog) Armstrong states "we need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a 'resource'. This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet" (Armstrong 137). Furthermore, it seems if we do not re-establish stories as "important", an argument against the extermination of stories in what Armstong calls The Great Western Transformation, it appears that we will not save our humanity. With the rise of ecological criticism in literary criticism we must see how these two works are both excellent examples of this rising trend.


The lesson (if you want to call it that) is that there is one great similarity between the nature of earth and the nature of stories-- as Rushdie puts it through the mind of Haroun "It was not dead but alive" (Rushdie 72). This living nature of each appear to be the greatest similarity and makes their existence tied inseparably in each other.

Disclaimer for Blog in Emergent Lit.

This semester I am doing 2 Sexson lit. blogs-- one for this class and then another for Capstone (the theme is Epiphanies in that class). While this prospect sounds very exciting it also sounds EXTREMELY fatiguing to my graduating-senior mind! I tend to write very long, involved blogs that take quite a bit of time and devotion to compose. However, I don't know if I can manage to keep up on doing two, super-involved blogs for two classes. This blog will be more of quick thoughts, brief postings, and things of that nature while I've designated my capstone blog as the space allotted for deeper ruminations. Some of my blogs may come on the same day as one another in order to play "catch up" but I will try and avoid that because it can mean that the updates will get buried beneath each other.

At times the themes of each class blog will overlap (even more than each classes focus on Toilest's "Four Quartets"). Please note that this does not mean this blog will be fluff. It will retain much of the high standards of discourse that students in Sexson classes expect (perhaps some of you will enjoy it even more for it's lack of "stuffy academic" tone). Anyway reader, I hope that you will cut me some slack and allow me a lot of room for play in this blog... that is probably the best purpose of the blog anyway!

Highbrow vs. Lowbrow

This is my first blog for the emergent lit. class (yay! yay! cheers abound!) The theme in emergent lit. this semester, as chosen by Dr. Sexson, is "highbrow" lit. vs. "lowbrow" lit. This theme should spark some interesting... *ahem*, debate in the class. Hopefully, people won't have their favorite book shown as lowbrow and get defensive-- this is definitely the risk of this class. Also, we run the risk of showing ourselves to be "elitist" in the contemporary, negative sense of the word. I think with careful deliberation and discussion we should avoid most of the pitfalls for this subject and have illuminating discussions on the subject!

For this introductory blog, I will mostly dictate my personal feelings towards the differences between highbrow and lowbrow literature. I would definitely say that the main difference between between highbrow and lowbrow, to me, is intended reading audience. For highbrow lit. the audience is a rather small, elite group of knowledgeable readers. Often times the readers of highbrow lit. would include people like professors, and other highly "cultured" people. The obvious criticism of this group is that it is "elitist" (in the negative sense) and is noninclusive of all readerships.

The other group is the lowbrow lit. It seems that this group is intended for a more broad readership which often lends it to a "dumbing" down of themes that appear in highbrow lit. While this style of lit. is more democratic it doesn't provide the same depth that highbrow readers look for. This is for the "common reader" (negative connotation).

So often we set the two against each other like it's some sort of competition as to which is "better" (what a stupid pursuit). I would like to think that this semester will be an exploration of the benefits and characteristics of each. I hope we will learn that they do not hold each other down but lift each other up!

*Highbrow*

















*Lowbrow*