![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The stories of Sinbad, with mention of the many “islands,” leads me to consider input from Indochina and the Indonesian Islands among others. But rumor has it that the collection has its roots in ancient Persian, Indian, Chinese, Greek and Jewish lore, for starters. It’s all geared to keep listeners focused on being distracted until goals have been achieved.ĭoes this mean The Arabian Nights is solely didactic? Not hardly, and that is why the first question that really comes to mind when considering a review remains: Where do we even begin? Each story that is told may boil down to a storyteller attempting to entertain, all the while providing a moral to consider. The goal for one is to save lives while the other is to lay a moral groundwork - but then, Scheherazade’s story is a work of fiction, which means the wool has been pulled there as well. The story-writer of The Merchant and the Genie has a mission to accomplish as well, both of whom seek to occupy the faculties of the mind with the power of elevated implausibility. Are we to believe that the ancients believed genies existed? Did people back then really keep their word like that? It’s a clue that ties into Scheherazade’s tactics: she’s trying to exact an outcome by activating the imagination. We have to consider the intended audience when we realize how ludicrous this all sounds. The Merchant and the Genie, illustrator unknown. The merchant is horrified by the thought of being executed and pleads - that he may return in one year to receive his sentence. He threatens to execute the merchant because he’s killed his son, a situation made stranger for the way the son died: the merchant had been throwing stones while eating, and had accidentally hit the genie’s son in the eye, causing instant death. In the first story there is the merchant, which gives us our someone to identify with and then there’s the genie that accosts him, who transforms reality into spectacle. What we find within the stories is the reason why The Arabian Nights is so captivating: the feature of elevated implausibility. I mean, who defeats the enemy by telling stories? Her method of operation, the telling of stories, is as spell-binding as the tales which are told. And she’s intelligent for the way she calculates her solutions - for the treatment of women - and equally so for the preservation of her own life. She is courageous for her self-sacrifice, which means that her courage is imbued with second-sight: no matter the cost, she’s possessed of the urge to implement change, according to the injustice that she perceives. She’s archetypal, a woman of courage and intelligence (she’s strong and she’s smart). Scheherazade is the star of The Arabian Nights. Scheherazade by Sophie Anderson, circa 19th Century. ![]()
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