1001 Nights

“Wow” would best describe my reaction to the four stories I read from 1001 Nights. It was interesting to know that the main story revolves around King Shahryar and Scheherazade, the vizier’s daughter. She is the primary narrator of a story but at points a character in a tale will begin telling characters a new story and so on which ends up being a mixture of tales. I’m not sure if I liked each tale starting before the previous one ended. Nonetheless, I became more and more interested in each new tale and although they left the reader hanging at times, they were enjoyable.

The first story I read was that of King Shahryar and His Brother. This one was more novel-like but it introduced and set the mood for the other tales to be told. I think most people could agree that this story involved a good deal of fornication and other sexual material. If there were one thing that could catch a reader’s eye it would be writing about how a woman demanded fornication or else she would have that man put to death. (She seems to be wearing the daddy pants in that relationship).

The second tale was that of the Bull and the Ass. This seemed more of a humorous/revenge tale with the Bull and the Ass going back and forth trying to see who could outdo the other. The third tale was that of the Trader and the Jinni. When I first read this tale I thought that the Jinni’s son was struck down by a piece of date. Then I thought how could a kid get stuck down by a piece of fruit? The final tale that I read was the First Shaykh’s Story. This was the quickest read of them all but left me confused towards the end of the tale. Scheherazade is obviously still alive and hasn’t been taken off to be executed, still, is this the end of part one of 1001 Nights?