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| Whatever Gets You through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments
ISBN: 9781400838011
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Princeton University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Arabian nights -- Adaptations; Storytelling -- Fiction;
Novelist, poet, and NPR commentator Codrescu (The Poetry Lesson) displays his usual unorthodox intellect in this interpretation of the tale of Sheherezade. He opens with a series of quotations from earlier recountings and interpretations, ending with this: "Sharyar (the sultan) is the spectator par excellence" whose violence is controlled by "Shezz the Telly." Codrescu posits Sheherezade as a "proto-feminist" who volunteered to marry the sultan to end his brutal habit of marrying virgins, deflowering them, and executing them the next morning. Codrescu takes issue with scholar Husain Haddawy's acclaimed 1990 translation of the tales because it underscores the Arabic national character of stories that, according to Codrescu, can belong to no one culture or religion. For Codrescu, stories, and the curiosity that propels them, belong to all humanity. Sex, mystery, curiosity, and imagination are linked in Codrescu's narrative, and he finds them lacking in a brief critique of today's media-driven world. Salacious, irreverent, and impious, Codrescu's modern version of the classic, accompanied by his commentary in more than 100 footnotes, may disquiet some readers, while others will enjoy his humor and insights into storytelling devices. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Romanian-born poet and essayist Andrei Codrescu, who also utilizes the pen names Betty Laredo and Maria Parfeni, emigrated to the United States in 1966. Codrescu earned a B.A. at the University of Bucharest, and has taught at numerous academic institutions including Johns Hopkins, the University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University. Codrescu worked for National Public Radio as a commentator and has been featured on ABC News' Nightline. Some of Codrescu's short stories and novels include his first poetry collection, License to Carry a Gun and a memoir entitled In America's Shoe. Throughout the years, Codrescu has been awarded many honors including the Big Table Poetry Award, General Electric Foundation Poetry Prize, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships for poetry, editing, and radio. His titles include The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess, The Poetry Lesson, and Whatever Gets You through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments. (Bowker Author Biography) |
