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Whatever Gets You Through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments
An irreverent and deeply funny retelling of the Arabian Nights
"I fear each passing night that I will not receive my maintenance dose of suspense, and then I will cease to exist."--Whatever Gets You through the Night Whatever Gets You through the Night is an irreverent and deeply funny retelling of the Arabian Nights and a wildly inspired exploration of the timeless art of storytelling. Award-winning writer Andrei Codrescu reimagines how Sheherezade saved Baghdad's virgins and her own life through a heroic feat of storytelling--one that kept the Persian king Sharyar hanging in agonizing narrative and erotic suspense for 1001 nights. For Sheherezade, the end of either suspense or curiosity means death, but Codrescu keeps both alive in this entertaining tale of how she learned to hold a king in thrall, setting with her endless invention an unsurpassable example for all storytellers across the ages. Liberated and mischievous, Codrescu's Sheherezade is as charming as she is shrewd--and so is the story Codrescu tells.Book Details
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publish Date: May 15th, 2011
- Pages: 200
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.02in - 7.88in - 0.80in - 1.15lb
- EAN: 9780691143378
- Categories: • Literary• Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
About the Author
Andrei Codrescu is an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, and NPR commentator. His recent books include The Posthuman Dada Guide and The Poetry Lesson (both Princeton).
Praise for this book
"Codrescu's book rescues The Arabian Nights from the nursery, where the magic and wonder surely belong but where the reality of adult life has been sacrificed for the comfort of children."---Michel Basilières, Toronto Star
"Although much of the book is dedicated to, and may be read as, a serious investigation of storytelling and its place in our future (our own iSheherezade), Codrescu never loses sight of the fact that these stories are meant to be 'entertainments' above all."---Jenny Hendrix, San Francisco Chronicle
"Codrescu's fans will love this book, and Arabists will be charmed by this new take on the classic."---David Azzolina, Library Journal
"Codrescu mashes up fiction and criticism, giving us Borgesian fabulation complete with the trappings of scholarship playfully deployed--his Sheherezade is a linguist and narratologist as well as a deft spinner of yarns. . . . Mediaeval Arabia, the present and even a science-fiction future, all swirl around on the page. Anything goes: storytelling is life and freedom for Codrescu as well as for Sheherezade."---Owen Richardson, The Age
"Andrei Codrescu, with his trademark mixture of wit and wonder, explores the story of the Arabian Nights, how Sheherazade came to spin her nightly tales, and what they might mean to today's population, infiltrated as we are with access and explanation. . . . Under his scrutiny, Arabian Nights becomes larger than its sum of stories and stretches to encompass the future of humanity, the future of storytelling. Codrescu isn't retelling the Arabian Nights as much as he is reveling in their existence and sharing them with the contagious glee of a boy and his can of worms. . . . An homage to the power of stories, Codrescu's book of Arabian tales will well serve those who have studied the text before and those readers new to it. He is a funny and commanding guide, and his obvious love for the written and spoken word tints every line with a vital hue."---Andi Diehn, ForeWord Reviews
"You may have read the Arabian Nights before, but I promise you have never read it quite like this."-- "World Book Industry"