Monday, July 2, 2007
Arabian Nights
Posted by Zach in News

I like Greek myths. I like the Arthurian legends. I love Fairy Tales. I expected to enjoy 1001 Arabian Nights in much the same way that I enjoyed other the other tales, but I was surprised to find that I don’t enjoy them. The particulars that charmed Robert Louis Stevenson and Jorge Luis Borges, escape me completely. Not only has my reading of Arabian Nights left me nonplussed, but now I’ve wasted a large part of the day trying to identify my peculiar displeasure.

Before I proceed to itemize a list of dislikes, let me confess that my opinions are ill informed. I only have a limited exposure to the stories. Still, I’m not going to let a pervasive ignorance of my subject matter stop me from making huge sweeping statements and extremely harsh judgments. Also, in my defense, the reason I haven’t read more tales from the Arabian Nights is because they bore me (and did I mention I don’t like them?).

During the reign of King George, Bishop Atterbury complained that the Arabian Nights stories lacked a moral. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I think the ones I read lack a good moral. Whereas Fairy Tales have a lot to do with Grace and Justice, Arabian Nights tales seem overly preoccupied with Power. Stories about Grace and Justice and Power tend to possess cruelty, but for me, the cruelty is more manageable in a story about Grace and Justice, than in a story about Power.

For example, I just read a story where a Genie kidnapped and imprisoned a mistress. He visited her ever 9th day so that his wife wouldn’t get jealous (I guess Genies have wives). In his absence, she entertained another gentleman. When he found out he beat her up and cut off her hand and she bled to death. The End. Awesome.

Perhaps nowhere is there cruelty more clearly displayed than in the narrative framework of 1001 Arabian Nights. I’m referring to the story of Scheherazade and Shahryar. The king, Shhryar, has an unfaithful wife. He kills her and declares all women to be unfaithful. Instead of remaining a bachelor, he begins to marry up all the virgins of the kingdom. He kills them the morning following the wedding night. Great guy, right? Well, apparently they run short on virgins and Scheherazade, the last available girl, steps up to the plate. She at least has a plan. Basically, she’s going to sustain a 1001 nights of soap-opera-cliff-hanger-story-telling. The king lets her live because he’s eager for the next installment. Three babies and many stories later, Scheherazade asks her husband if he would mind letting her live “just because.” The king says yes. And our hearts glow with the knowledge that she will live the rest of her days with a selfish, murdering, psychopath, who literally killed every virgin in the kingdom save one. I know this is going to seem like I’m being a cultural elitist, but I think that the Middle East could stand to learn a thing or two about the Western phrase “Happily Ever After.”

Compare that type of harshness to the harshness of a Grimm’s fairy tale. There’s a particularly shocking one called Fitcher’s Bird. Basically, a loony wizard kidnaps girls. He takes them to his castle and forbids them to enter a particular room. Their curiosity always gets the best of them, and they unlock the door when he’s away. Inside the room are the butchered bodies of formerly pretty girls. When the wizard returns he finds that they’ve disobeyed him and he uncharitably chops them up. Then he’s back at square one kidnapping another girl. Eventually a resourceful gal manages to find out his secret without exposing herself. She escapes. At the end her family locks the wizard inside his castle and burns it. Moral: don’t chop up pretty girls unless you want to get burned alive by her irate family. I think that’s a sentiment we can all get behind.

Both stories are “harsh-ish,” but the latter one operates with a disposition toward justice. The former operates with a disposition toward power. Instead of saying, “be sure your sins will find you out,” it says “If you’re in charge you can do what you want.” To loosely paraphrase bishop Atterbury: “not cool.”

If you’re part of the long and established tradition of people who enjoy 1001 Arabian Nights, perhaps you can explain the appeal and if you can’t…off with your hand/head!

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