Tag Archives: Pre-1700

Sinbad’s Seven Voyages and Other Stories From the Arabian Nights, retold by Gladys Davidson (1974)

Comment

Things I learned from reading/rereading these four stories:

  1. In the original tale, Aladdin, far from being a purehearted street rat, is an “idle, careless” boy who through the adventure of the lamp becomes a responsible, skilled adult man.
  2. The forty thieves dismember Ali Baba’s greedy brother into four separate pieces so that the local cobbler has to sew him back together, which is badass.
  3. The Sinbad stories are kind of repetitive, and made me want to watch the Ray Harryhausen films.
  4. Like in all good stories, servant girls are always more clever than their masters.
Rating

The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC), translated by N.K. Sanders (1972)

1 Comment

I like reading myths from other cultures because they capture the familiar spirit of the Greek myths with new sets of heroes.  Ancient Sumer’s Gilgamesh is no exception: our hero befriends a sidekick from the wilderness, journeys through forests to slay a deadly monster, grapples with a jealous goddess, and seeks the prize of eternal life.  There’s even an ancient flood that shares more than a few similarities with the Biblical one.  Editor N.K. Sanders also provides a lot of textual background in her introduction, padding out the Penguin edition since the myth itself is so short (60 pages).

Rating:

3-kafkas

Where I Got It

Bought used at a local book sale, October 2012, making it one of the longest-running books in the stack.

More

Background to the Epic of Gilgamesh on Wikipedia

The entire Epic of Gilgamesh in PDF form