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One Thousand and One Nights
| Title | One Thousand and One Nights |
| Writer | |
| Date | 2023-06-10 18:30:06 |
| Type | |
| Link | Listen Read |
Desciption
Erotic, brutal, witty and poetic, One Thousand and One Nights are the never-ending stories told by the young Shahrazad under sentence of death to King Shahrayar. Maddened by the discovery of his wife's orgies, King Shahrayar believes all women are unfaithful and vows to marry a virgin every night and kill her in the morning. To survive, his newest wife Shahrazad spins a web of tales night after night, leaving the King in suspense when morning comes, thus prolonging her life for another day.Written in Arabic from tales gathered in India, Persia and across the great Arab empire, these mesmerising stories tell of the real and the supernatural, love and marriage, power and punishment, wealth and poverty, and the endless trials and uncertainties of fate.Now adapted by Hanan al-Shaykh the One Thousand and One Nights are revealed in an intoxicating new voice.
Review
4 or 4.5 not sure. One thousand and one nights by Hanan Al-Shaykh is a mischievous, smutty yet brutal to the bone retelling of the Arabian Nights. "Loyalty is good; treachery is evil."King Shahrayar's wife's betrayal evokes a horrendous bloodshed. The king takes a girl every night, only to have her killed at the break of dawn. From the palace, a lifeless body is delivered to a heartbroken family everyday. To put an end to the bloodbath, the vizier's eldest daughter, Shahrazad, a woman of great intelligence offers herself to Shahrayar. She spins a tale for him every night that leaves the king in suspense every morning. Burning with curiosity and utterly enamored by Shahrazad's art of storytelling, the king lets her live for just another day. Awh Man. After this, every retelling of the arabian nights is going to feel fluffy. This book was nasty. The characters disgusted me, yet I found myself attracted to them in the most inexplicable way. Their actions made me want to pluck my own hair out, still I found myself flipping the pages at a very surprising speed. This was bloody and fantastic. One thing that astounds me : The brutal scenes were not in graphic details. The author let us know that a man has slain his wife, that's all. Simple. But gosh, it just had such a powerful, spine chilling effect on me. Authors sometimes too get lost in their interwoven worlds, Hanan knew what she was doing and she did it right, Habibi. Thus proving herself to be a magnificent storyteller. I love how the stories link, connect, intertwine, and my favourite part is: they heap up very neatly. When there are too many stories, you expect everything to become a tangled mess. Here it was like climbing stairs. Step by step. So it's like we're not lost, we're with the characters. Not ahead of them, not behind them. Just with them on the same page, same pace. Moving on to a very shallow topic, this book is pretty. I have to give it to the publishers, they have done a great job at making this an eye candy. From the front cover to the tale header illustrations and not to miss the cute story related symbols that cocoon the page numbers.Under the veil of brutality, OTAON is a box full of sparkling gems. I would highly recommend this book to people who, like me, are obsessed with the arabian nights.Ps: In the end, you'll have a sword hanging above your head, oops ;)
