"Tales from the Arabian Nights"

 Nathania Carissa Vida Octaviani (392020032)

January 15th, 2021

 Reading Diary - Entry 1 (book 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

“Tales from the Arabian Nights”  is a fiction novel by Antoine Galland and independently published in 2017. This book is collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.

It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English language edition (1706), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, and South Asia and North Africa.

In fact, this book has 47 pages. However, because I don't have the original book, I only read it through the e-book. I read it in English e-Reader.net and the e-book is only available for 35 pages. So, I have completed the 35 pages. I choose to read this e-book, because I was interested in reading a fairytale genre of novel.

The Setting

The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish and Egyptian folklore and literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hazār Afsān which in turn relied partly on Indian elements.

The Characters

Actually, the characters in this story are so many. But, I just can tell you about the main characters of this story. The main characters is Sultan Shahriar, the vizir of the sultan, Scheherazade and Dunyazade.

Sultan Shahriar

 

 

(Source: http://classe.bilingue.free.fr/fr/TDM-lecture/txt/1001/6-1001-shahriar.html)

Scheherazade                                                        

              

(Source: levekunst.com/for-scheherazade/)

Sultan Shahriar is a man who has a beautiful wife, and he loved her more than anything in the world. The vizir of the sultan is the father of Sheherezade and Dunyazade. In my opinion, Sheherezade is the memorable person in this story, because she is very optimistic person and she can soften the heart of Sultan Shahriar. 

Plot

Sultan Shahriar had a beautiful wife, and he was very much in love with her. One day, the sultan found her with another man. He was very angry and cut off the man's head. Then he cut off his wife's head too and from that time the sultan began to hate all women.

He said to his vizir, he'll marry a new wife every day. The woman has to stay with the sultan for one night. Then the next morning, he’ll cut off her head. So no woman will hurt him again. The vizir had to find a new wife for the sultan every day. But this was a very difficult job. Every family was afraid. No girl wanted to be the sultan's wife for one night and then die. Fathers began to send their daughters away.

The vizir was too afraid. He can’t find any more girls. The vizir had two daugthers. One of them, Scheherazade, was beautiful and very clever. One day she said, 'Dear Father, please do something for me. It will make me, the sultan and the people very happy.' And the vizir said, 'What is it, my daughter? Ask, and I will do it for you.' Scheherazade said, she want to be the Sultan’s wife. And her father was very shocked. He don’t want his daughter to die.

The next day, Scheherazade went with her father to see the sultan. The sultan was very surprised. Why did the vizir want his daughter to be the sultan's wife? But Scheherazade was beautiful and the sultan was very happy with her. So he married her. She also took his sister to sleep with her and the sultan. And she said to her sister, one hour before morning, her sister must say, 'Dear sister, please tell me a story.' So Scheherazade began to tell the story.

Scheherazade tell many stories about a thousand and one nights in the Arabian Nights. And that makes the sultan thinks of new ones. The sultan never want to cut off Scheherazade head, because he loves her. So, Scheherazade won the Sultan’s love with her stories. She loved him too, and they were very happy.

Conclusion

In my opinion, this novel is very interesting to read, because this novel has many fairy tales that can captivate the hearts of its readers, and besides that we can take a lesson in this story, that love can change a person's heart, from hard to soft. I like this novel.