Week 18: The Arabian Nights
The readings in Ted’s Immersive Humanities Course are leaving a mark. Yesterday I found myself sitting in church, underlining something in 1 Corinthians in my Bible, adding a comment about Confucius based on a reference my pastor made. The other day I compared a situation my husband was dealing with to Odysseus’ journey homeward—a little dramatic but he appreciated it, and it was apt. I’ve simply observed that this reading is helping me to see the world in a slightly different light, and the texts have left a mark on my heart…until this week!
This week’s reading was A Thousand and One Nights, also known as The Arabian Nights. The backstory (very, very briefly) was that a king, upon finding his queen to be unfaithful, executed her, and declared himself done with women, sort of. Every night, a new woman was brought to be his queen. Every morning he had his vizier execute the poor unfortunate girl. One day the vizier’s own daughter Scheherazade asked to be married to the king. After many days of begging, the vizier finally gave in to the girl’s request.
Once in the king’s bedchamber, her sister (it’s kind of complicated) asked for a story. Scheherazade spun a tale but ended it at a cliffhanger. The king, wanting to hear the end of the story, decided to let her live and bring her back for a second night. With stories that included Sinbad, Ali Baba and Aladdin, Scheherazade lived a thousand and one (and more) nights.
The actual stories are collected from around the 8th century until the 13th, from Persia and India predominantly. They were translated into English around the 17th century. I’d imagine that the exotic stories captivated European audiences!
For me, the experience of reading the stories was similar to reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The stories are fun, and very interesting—I loved some of them, especially the seven voyages of Sinbad. But when I say they didn’t leave a mark, I just don’t think I’ll take a lot from this week’s reading. I didn’t find any of them to demonstrate particular lessons, to teach virtues or make some kind of grand statement about the human condition. They were really fun, and I will definitely keep this book around because it is terrific bedtime reading. That’s not a terrible thing to say about a book.
A year ago I read the wonderful Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, about a little Iranian boy who emigrates to Oklahoma with his mom and brother. There are vignettes in which the author directly references these stories, related as a way for him to hold onto his Persian heritage. I do think I’ll go back and reread that one, just because I really loved it and would like to be able to know it a little better. Now that I’ve read Arabian Nights, that should be easy.
I might also watch Aladdin, at least one of the Disney versions. Can you believe I’ve never seen either of them? But I really struggle to think of anywhere else this book will lead me.
The music this week, though, was wonderful. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, along with Tchaikovsky’s ballets. I listened to Swan Lake and it was so beautiful! My daughter happened to be nearby when I was listening to Scheherazade and came into the kitchen to ask what it was. Do yourself a favor and listen to it!
No art this week…I got a little bogged down with travel. I’m sitting in the beautiful Port Louis marina in Grenada right now, as I type this, and looking forward to some great reading time this week. On the agenda for this week is a crazy variety of books: the Bhagavad Gita, the Rule of St. Benedict, and Books 1-2 of St. Augustine’s Confessions. In the spirit of full disclosure, I couldn’t find the Rule of St. Benedict at my Barnes and Noble, and I ran out of time for Amazon to deliver it. I own a book ABOUT the Rule, The Way of Benedict, that I’ll be reading instead. It has excerpts so that will have to do! Music is definitely less lush this week: Gregorian chants. For art, hopefully I’ll take a look at Giotta and Fra Angelico.
As always, my Amazon list has all of the books I’m reading, and Ted’s reading list is here. So have you read Arabian Nights? What did you think? Did it “leave a mark?”