Sunday, 3 July 2011 08:46 pm
Book Review: Luka and the Fire of Life
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deckardcanineMy college had a weekly Storytime, where students took turns reading aloud mostly literature for younger adults or even Dr. Seuss-level kids (more fun than it sounds). It was there that I sampled a middle portion of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, an amusing Salman Rushdie fantasy in the same vein as Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. I regretted that my local library never had a copy available. I may have to look harder, now that I've read the sequel.
You see, Rushdie wrote HatSoS for his son, with a closely based hero. Two decades later, he did the same favor for his much younger son with LatFoL. When I consider the probable parallels between the real family and the characters, it's pretty cute. But that's not why my mom recommended the latter book to me. It's the video game theme.
That's right: Luka's a gamer, and this shapes his dreamlike adventure, which wastes little time in establishing a vital mission. It's most evident in the presence of extra lives, save points, and numbered levels. I sense that Rushdie, like his avatar Rashid Khalifa, has rather limited experience with the games -- none that I've seen lets you get up to 999 lives or lose more than one at a time, and Luka solves more problems by talking than anything else -- but that's OK. Heck, a bigger gamer might have put too many cliches in the way of a good story. And here he is trying to convey that the electronic game medium lends itself to modern folklore.
Speaking of which, the virtual dreamworld, based on Rashid's story-filled mind, contains a plethora of gods no longer (widely) worshiped, many of whom I never heard of before, tho Google assures me he didn't make them up. Most surprising to me was the brief mention of Amaterasu, seeing as (1) Shinto isn't gone and (2) she's also a game character in Okami. Nevertheless, I won't begrudge Rushdie a few slips any more than I'll begrudge Juster. There's still valid trivia to be learned and several lessons that... may or may not be relevant to reality.
If you don't care for games and find the premises insipid, you may still like the characters. Luka, at least, has gifted traits that take him further than I'd go in his quest. If you don't care for the cast either (maybe the juvenile Insultana gets too big a role), you may still like Rushdie's way with words. My mom was drawn in by the first sentence. I was drawn in by the first chapter title.
It's not the next Harry Potter. It doesn't try to be. This is world building on a smaller scale, and therefore more intimate. That should satisfy many from preteens to elders.
You see, Rushdie wrote HatSoS for his son, with a closely based hero. Two decades later, he did the same favor for his much younger son with LatFoL. When I consider the probable parallels between the real family and the characters, it's pretty cute. But that's not why my mom recommended the latter book to me. It's the video game theme.
That's right: Luka's a gamer, and this shapes his dreamlike adventure, which wastes little time in establishing a vital mission. It's most evident in the presence of extra lives, save points, and numbered levels. I sense that Rushdie, like his avatar Rashid Khalifa, has rather limited experience with the games -- none that I've seen lets you get up to 999 lives or lose more than one at a time, and Luka solves more problems by talking than anything else -- but that's OK. Heck, a bigger gamer might have put too many cliches in the way of a good story. And here he is trying to convey that the electronic game medium lends itself to modern folklore.
Speaking of which, the virtual dreamworld, based on Rashid's story-filled mind, contains a plethora of gods no longer (widely) worshiped, many of whom I never heard of before, tho Google assures me he didn't make them up. Most surprising to me was the brief mention of Amaterasu, seeing as (1) Shinto isn't gone and (2) she's also a game character in Okami. Nevertheless, I won't begrudge Rushdie a few slips any more than I'll begrudge Juster. There's still valid trivia to be learned and several lessons that... may or may not be relevant to reality.
If you don't care for games and find the premises insipid, you may still like the characters. Luka, at least, has gifted traits that take him further than I'd go in his quest. If you don't care for the cast either (maybe the juvenile Insultana gets too big a role), you may still like Rushdie's way with words. My mom was drawn in by the first sentence. I was drawn in by the first chapter title.
It's not the next Harry Potter. It doesn't try to be. This is world building on a smaller scale, and therefore more intimate. That should satisfy many from preteens to elders.
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no subject
nice idea
Re: nice idea