Dokey, Cameron - The Storyteller's Daughter
Fri, Sep. 15th, 2006 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThis is a retelling of Arabian Nights from the POV of Shahrazad. In this story, Shahrazad is the daughter of a famous storyteller and knows it's her destiny to change the course of the country via her stories.
I think the largest changes are that Shahrayar is actually under a curse, much like that in "Beauty and the Beast," in which he can't fall in love unless someone sees his heart and he sees theirs, or something of that sort. Shahrazar's stories are also not the ones in Arabian Nights; these stories are ones of Shahrazad and Shahrayar and their personal desires.
That ended up being my problem with the book -- the additional tales didn't feel like tales from Arabian Nights, they felt like Western fairy tales. And the plotline of the book, which revolves around a potential Big Misunderstanding, felt even more western to me, although I can't actually define what that means.
I think I was disappointed because it didn't feel like the Arabian Nights that I used to read as a kid, which had clever slave girls boiling thiefs in vats of oil, blue djinni, medicine balls filled with poison, marble horses with pins behind their ears, caliphs galore. It felt much more like a fairy tale rewrite, except Arabian Nights shouldn't end up feeling like a European fairy tale. I suppose the author did it to make Shahrayar more sympathetic, because in the end, the story is about Shahrazad and Shahrayar figuring out what they truly want. But in doing so, it took away the magic.
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coffeeandink's review
I think the largest changes are that Shahrayar is actually under a curse, much like that in "Beauty and the Beast," in which he can't fall in love unless someone sees his heart and he sees theirs, or something of that sort. Shahrazar's stories are also not the ones in Arabian Nights; these stories are ones of Shahrazad and Shahrayar and their personal desires.
That ended up being my problem with the book -- the additional tales didn't feel like tales from Arabian Nights, they felt like Western fairy tales. And the plotline of the book, which revolves around a potential Big Misunderstanding, felt even more western to me, although I can't actually define what that means.
I think I was disappointed because it didn't feel like the Arabian Nights that I used to read as a kid, which had clever slave girls boiling thiefs in vats of oil, blue djinni, medicine balls filled with poison, marble horses with pins behind their ears, caliphs galore. It felt much more like a fairy tale rewrite, except Arabian Nights shouldn't end up feeling like a European fairy tale. I suppose the author did it to make Shahrayar more sympathetic, because in the end, the story is about Shahrazad and Shahrayar figuring out what they truly want. But in doing so, it took away the magic.
Links:
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coffeeandink's review