Reading Notes: Arabian Nights Part A

This week, I chose to read Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang. The first thing about this book that drew me in was that it had the story about Aladdin and the Lamp! Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney movies so that drew me in.

One of the first things I noticed I like about the story was the strong female lead, Scheherazade. She was clever in the way she tricked the king into keeping her alive so that she could continue to tell her stories. She was also extremely courageous and brave to ask her father to have the king marry her so that she could save the rest of the women in the kingdom. I definitely respect her and the strong will she has. In my story writing, I would like to incorporate a strong female lead instead of the usual damsel in distress. 

I found it interesting how the writer was able to keep the multiple levels of stories straight. The deeper the levels went the more sure I was that I was going to get lost or confuse the plot lines. However, the author did a great job of keeping each level of story individual yet incorporated with the overall plot. On the other hand thought, I do not plan on using this style of writing whenever I write my story. While it was interesting and very unique, I felt like some of the time I was more focused on keeping the stories straight in my head then I was on absorbing the story. 

Each story had a similar lesson thought about trust and trickery. Trust is a hard thing to gain back once you lose it and in a lot of these stories, the sultan/king or higher power usually was to suspicious of the other people. In the case of the Genius (AKA the genie) he was too arrogant with his power over the fisherman and it ended up biting him in the butt. I love stories that have life lessons or morals to them because you not only feel entertained but you also feel like you grew a little bit by the end of it. 

Sultan

Bibliography: Arabian Nights by by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).