Reading Notes: Arabian Nights Part A
The Merchant and the Genie
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| The Merchant and the Genie (Illustrated by H.J. Ford, 1898) |
Wow! Turns out Christopher Nolan is an amateur. I really liked reading the story within the story within th story. I kept anticipating the Inception "drop" in each tale that would kick back to the one before it. It definitely helped hold my interest. My only wish is that there was a bit more information about Scheherazade and the sultan as the stories were being told. The reality of her stalling with the stories gets a bit lost. That may just be because of the way I'm reading them as separate stories.
My favorite one of Scheherazade's tales was the very first, the genie and the four men. I'm choosing to tie all of the men's stories and Scheherazade's into one story for my writing assignment. This is for the sake of simplicity, although I'm sure that's not the right word, when rewriting.
Plot
The basic plot of Scheherazade's first story goes as follows. A merchant is traveling through the desert. He stops at a fountain to eat and rest. While eating and resting he throws some nearby stones. One of these stones hits and kills a genie's son. The genie tells the man that he will kill him. They debate this for a bit. Eventually, the genie and the man agree to let the man have one more year of life to get everything sorted out. The man stays honest and returns to the spot one year later. While waiting for the genie three men arrive. One has a deer, one has two dogs and the third man does not have anything of note. The men appear one by one and hear the merchant's tale. They decide to wait with him.
When the genie arrives, the first man begs the genie to listen to his story. If it is impressive enough, the genie must give the man a third of the merchants death sentence. He agrees and tells the story of his magic wife who turns his slave and her son, who he adopted, into cows and tries to have them slaughtered. He finds out and has the wife turned into a deer. The genie says its good enough and grants a third of the merchant's death sentence. The second man makes the same bargain and tells the story of how his two brothers were turned into dogs. The brothers were not very good with money. They would travel, fail and be bailed out by this brother. One day, all three brothers travel together. The main brother meets a woman who begs him to take her as his wife. He agrees and turns out she's a great wife. The brothers get jealous and toss them both into the sea. Surprise! The wife's a fairy and teleports her and her husband to safety. She then vows to kill the brothers but the husband begs her not to kill them. She teleports him home and she arrives shortly after with two black dogs, the brothers. They will remain dogs for ten years as punishment. The third guy makes the same bargain. His tale is good enough and the merchant is pardoned.
Characters
This story immediately conjures up images of the genie as a big, tough guy who runs this part of town and the merchant as a scrawny, frightened man who ended up on the wrong side of the tracks. The three elderly men feel very much like smaller, yet experienced, men who step in to protect the wayward young merchant. I think rewriting this story in a more modern setting with these characters could be pretty interesting. It removes the mystique of magic and shows the essence of these characters.
Thoughts
I think it could be pretty entertaining to write this story with the genie being less lenient with his time and the helpful men being a bit more clever in their distraction to deal with that. I like the thought of the genie being the tough guy guarding his territory. He just wants to finally beat the pulp out of this kid and he can't because these guys keep interrupting. In order to make the story a bit more sensible in this modern time frame and narrative, I'd probably change the men's stories to something about what crazy circumstance landed them this animal in their possession. Maybe the deer jumped through his apartment window. I'd also think this story would do well in a big city New York type setting. Because of that, I think I may do my rewrite with the voice of an impatient new yorker telling a story. What was that last guys story? Fuhgeddaboutit!
Bibliography. The Story of the Merchant and the Genius from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang
The Story of the First Old Man and of the Hind from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang
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