Retro Rants: The One Thousand and One Nights
You’ve Never Had a Friend Like Me
I won’t lie to you dear reader, I can’t begin to try dissecting the history of how this body of work was composed. Entire books have been written on the subject and while claims of racist insertion of middle eastern stereotypes into the works by Europeans in the 1800s to make things more ‘exotic’ does have some merit I’ve also seen drawings of Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor dating from 10th century Baghdad so I dunno man.
This tale has been around long enough to have stories added and subtracted from different cultures and so what tales you’ll actually be told therein will likely depend on which transalation/version you picked up.
Ethics aside, what say we all just focus on how fantastic this story actually is? For you see, as its title implies, this tale contains many others.
No matter the translation or era in which it was written the One Thousand and One Nights (aka the Arabian Nights) always shares the same narrative driver: that of King “soy-boy” Shahryar and the bad bitch known as Scheherazade.
You see, Shahryar had the dubious honor of discovering his wife’s infidelity and decided marriage counseling was for pussies and, since ye olde divorce court took too long, decided to have her executed.
This literal literary cuck then proceeds to take the totally-not-an-overreaction stance that all women are the same and so begins marrying a virgin each night only to have her executed at dawn so she doesn’t have the chance to dishonor him.
Think about what I just told you.
This psychopath is marrying someone, popping their cherry, and then killing them on friggin’ repeat all because he has the emotional capacity of a stump.
What a perfect set up for a collection of children’s stories, amiright?
Anyway, so eventually Shahryar’s vizier is like “Uh, dude? We’re running out of virgins,” and the king threatens his life unless he can produce one to slake his fucked up little murder boner. As the vizier found himself in somewhat of a pickle, the vizier’s daughter volunteers herself. And you know what the vizier says? “No! Spare yourself my cherished daughter!” Hell no this little chickenshit says “sure honey go right ahead.”
So the king and the daughter get hitched but before they bang Scheherezade begins spinning a tale only…she doesn’t finish it. She speaks all night and when the sun comes up wouldn't you know it but they haven't had time to consumate the marriage. Shucksee doodles. Shahryar, apparently into being blue balled, forgoes her execution for a day and so the next night she finishes her tale only to begin another and leave that story half finished as well, starting a process that goes on for, you guessed it, One Thousand and One Nights.
Anyone else find it ironic this dude wants to execute women for being duplicitous and yet doesn’t have the wherewithal to realize he’s getting led on by one for over a grand? No? Just me? Huh.
Of course, this is merely the framework, the excuse really, to share a collection of tales. Sometimes only a dozen or so are recounted, sometimes even less. Hell, depending on your translation you may get lan honest to goodness one thousand and one.
The point is you get classics such as Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, and countless others in pleasant little vignettes that can carry over from “night to night” as it were.
They’re fun little jaunts, usually involving magic, danger, intrigue, or comedy. Most of the time the tales are told via prose but you may get a neat little poem here and there. Regardless each telling is perfect for killing a few pleasurable minutes or for reading to your little one to lull them off to bed.
Until, of course, that cutesy little story ends and you’re brought back to the homicidal maniac threatening to murder the narrator.
This is commonly referred to as a “downer.”
Now, here’s the kicker, dear reader: as the nights/stories progress our girl Scheherezade is supposed to fix Shahryar’s broken heart as the two fall in love, with the “main” story ending with his realizing that he might have, maybe, kind of sort of, possibly been overreacting a smidge with that whole “systematic eradication of an entire gender due to one bad experience” thing. The two get married, the kingdom prospers, true love conquers all. And they lived happily ever after.
Right?
Who the fuck are we kidding, dear reader? The fact that a long lasting, healthy romance could grow out of the pointless cruel slaughter of countless innocents some duded boned is the biggest tall tale of them all and could only exist in a fairy tale.
Why then, if its entire premise is so laughably absurd, is this book so popular? Why has it been preserved for so many centuries, been translated into so many different languages, been cherished by so many?
No doubt there are a multitude of reasons but I personally think it is because of that sheer absurdity. Each story has a quality all its own and the overarching connective tissue of Mad King and Silver Tongued Damsel certainly possesses a flair for the dramatic.
Does it all make sense? Hell no, but I would argue that it doesn’t need to.
If you’ve ever read this work I’m sure all you remember is your favorite story and that love conquers all in the end. In a land where tales of talking tigers and flying carpets exist, why not believe that last, final tale, eh? Why not take that happy ending and walk away content?
Well, for me personally it’s the wanton and forcible deflowering of countless women before gleefully overseeing their deaths but maybe I’m missing the point?
What do you think, dear reader. Is this the greatest romance ever made? Is it weird the murders get overlooked at the end? I feel like it’s weird the murders get overlooked at the end.
