12 Comments

I believe a good story will provoke questions, thoughts, and dialog. Your story evoked all three responses for me. A major issue that presented itself via the discussion of the stars throughout the story was the fact that all perspectives on reality are relative or multidimensional, and ephemeral.

This notion is further amplified when one thinks about the perspectives on the King vs the Queen. The King could be considered as a clever scientist, who learned of the stars by studying them closely, and the Queen could be considered greedy and uninspired by demanding more. On the other hand, the King, who calls himself a scientist, could be seen as a dreamer who is not in touch with what is real, while the Queen could be viewed as a scientist, a rationalist, who demands proof of the existence of what the King is claiming and is a skeptic, as many Western scientists are.

The issue can be demonstrated on another level, when one thinks about the Western perspective vs the Eastern one. The Western one might be influenced by a more accepting view of women, while the Eastern one might be influenced by a more conservative one. Or the Eastern storytelling perspective might embrace the notion of the stars as expressed by the King, whereas the Western perspective might demand a what could be considered a more “realistic”, practical, material approach like the Queen did.

All in all, this is just one perspective. Whether it will make sense to others or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that this is an excellent story.

Thank you!

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founding

This reminded me a great deal of some of A. S. Byatt's more mystical short stories. The narrative is more distant but there is that same sense of a familiar yet disjointed mythos.

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Thank you for sharing your stories.

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To read Rushdie is to be enchanted!!! Thank you!

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Sir huge fan here. It switches on everytime I read you 😂

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You have an amazing ability to captivate the reader! excellent story!!

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This ended so well!

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Wonderful !! Thank you Rushdie Sir for presenting us such a moving story. Looking forward to reading more gems

like this.

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sometimes, when I read something, certain songs join the story. for this story my mind called a song, it probably matches the photos and the story: New Day by Shri Sriram, from the album The Letter. Thank you for the story ❣️

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To think of it, there's no story, its all real. That's the problem, its all too real. And the reason we need to tell a story because we can't deal with it being real. We need a lie to sustain ourselves. So much for philo sophia.

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I enjoyed reading that. I was sorry, though, that the queen is the stereotypical grasping female while her husband is the stereotypical rational man of science. I suppose the intention was to replicate the structure of a traditional legend, but I'd have liked it if the roles had been taken in more unexpected directions!

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