Scan barcode
A review by penguin_emperor_of_the_north
Tales From The Arabian Nights by Anonymous
3.0
You probably know the story. The king's wife cheats on him so he kills her then decides to marry a new girl every night, kill her in the morning so she can't cheat on him, marry a new girl that night and so on and so forth. Until Scheherazade volunteers to marry him (for his personality, I imagine) and entrances him every night with her story telling so that he'll spare her to hear more stories the next night until he decides to give up the whole murdering girls thing and settles down with Scheherazade (I don't know why this isn't in the romance section of the bookstore).
The table of contents lists 19 stories but there's more than that, there are stories nested inside of stories. Sometimes so deep that I forgot what was going on in the framing story.
And the book was certainly not written by anyone too concerned with intercultural sensitivity. Generally speaking, if a black person shows up they're a slave, cannibal or other unsavory character. One story involves a Jew being murdered by his daughter for not converting to Islam and it's not even the focus of the story, just a random aside. The one time Christians are mentioned it's to say that the king of the Christians spends his days asking random people to assassinate the Sultan.
And some of the protagonists are psychos. The last two stories in particular are about the main characters committing a series of crimes for personal gain or just for the hell of it.
None of the above is really a criticism just remarking. Considering the age of these stories, I'd not feel comfortable criticizing them for not measuring up to 21st century standards.
The table of contents lists 19 stories but there's more than that, there are stories nested inside of stories. Sometimes so deep that I forgot what was going on in the framing story.
And the book was certainly not written by anyone too concerned with intercultural sensitivity. Generally speaking, if a black person shows up they're a slave, cannibal or other unsavory character. One story involves a Jew being murdered by his daughter for not converting to Islam and it's not even the focus of the story, just a random aside. The one time Christians are mentioned it's to say that the king of the Christians spends his days asking random people to assassinate the Sultan.
And some of the protagonists are psychos. The last two stories in particular are about the main characters committing a series of crimes for personal gain or just for the hell of it.
None of the above is really a criticism just remarking. Considering the age of these stories, I'd not feel comfortable criticizing them for not measuring up to 21st century standards.