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A review by vasha
The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
A puzzler of a novel this, intentionally, since it was written in 1983 in the postmodernism wave. It's Irwin's first novel and he was a medievalist before writing it, which sure shows, from the profusion of historical details to the profusion of erudite arguments about the nature of Christ and whatnot.
It's set in Cairo in 1485, the majority of the characters being Christian foreigners. If the physical nature of the city is very concretely depicted, its social reality is not: the city is consistently a relentlessly sexual, repellently alien, and dangerously unknowable fantasyland. This exoticization of a real place rather grated on me, as did the way that women never appear in the story in any context except sexual, or the way that people with disabilities are used as oddities and symbols of distorted reality.
As a philosophical riddle, and as a dark-fantasy horror story, though, did I enjoy it? I suppose so. I wasn't really in the mood for its cleverness but I could recognize it. "Arabian Nightmare" is the name of a horror trope analyzed in a useful short article in the "Encyclopedia of Fantasy": the unease created by stories-within-stories that simply will not reach a conclusion. The Arabian Nights may be a prototype but there, readers have tended to see the collection's open-endedness (constantly having more stories added) as a good thing, a source of infinite possibility. And story cycles within it do conclude, however complexly nested they may be. But Irwin's novel, postmodern as I said, parodies and refuses narrative structure.
Irwin said he'd never read the Arabian Nights before writing "The Arabian Nightmare;" that would explain why there are almost as many references to Poe as to Nights stories in the novel. He clearly had heard of some stories secondhand though. Interestingly, he didn't choose to allude to the ones that are most prominent in pop culture: no flying carpets and no djinn in bottles. Instead, he includes a talking severed head, the Old Man of the Sea who climbs on a passerby's back and won't get off, and an ape which speaks learnedly and plays chess, being actually a transformed prince. All these are quite cleverly employed.
It's set in Cairo in 1485, the majority of the characters being Christian foreigners. If the physical nature of the city is very concretely depicted, its social reality is not: the city is consistently a relentlessly sexual, repellently alien, and dangerously unknowable fantasyland. This exoticization of a real place rather grated on me, as did the way that women never appear in the story in any context except sexual, or the way that people with disabilities are used as oddities and symbols of distorted reality.
As a philosophical riddle, and as a dark-fantasy horror story, though, did I enjoy it? I suppose so. I wasn't really in the mood for its cleverness but I could recognize it. "Arabian Nightmare" is the name of a horror trope analyzed in a useful short article in the "Encyclopedia of Fantasy": the unease created by stories-within-stories that simply will not reach a conclusion. The Arabian Nights may be a prototype but there, readers have tended to see the collection's open-endedness (constantly having more stories added) as a good thing, a source of infinite possibility. And story cycles within it do conclude, however complexly nested they may be. But Irwin's novel, postmodern as I said, parodies and refuses narrative structure.
Irwin said he'd never read the Arabian Nights before writing "The Arabian Nightmare;" that would explain why there are almost as many references to Poe as to Nights stories in the novel. He clearly had heard of some stories secondhand though. Interestingly, he didn't choose to allude to the ones that are most prominent in pop culture: no flying carpets and no djinn in bottles. Instead, he includes a talking severed head, the Old Man of the Sea who climbs on a passerby's back and won't get off, and an ape which speaks learnedly and plays chess, being actually a transformed prince. All these are quite cleverly employed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Drug abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Vomit
Moderate: Rape, Sexual content, and Xenophobia
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Incest