I have heard it many times before.Īnd this may be true, I must admit. I have no need to hear, to read, this story. You sit up a little straighter in your chair. Perhaps that is why I have the need to tell one now. Yet, in spite of all this, I have told no story for almost more years than I care to remember. I am a storyteller, like my mother before me and hers before her. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same.
It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. Until its images and deeds become so real you can see them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line.Ī story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. On the breath of the storyteller, it soars. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. Though the pseudo-oral style leads to occasional awkward or florid moments, it also begets some truly lovely passages.It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Shahrazad's nightly stories provide backdrop and depth to the love story.įittingly, Shahrazad's story is told in stylized language, as if it were a storyteller's spoken tale. A treasonous plot embroils the lovers, but their real enemy is the misunderstanding and fear that keeps them from admitting to true love. But in this retelling, Shahrazad finds herself heartbroken at having to deceive her beloved husband as to her true motives. As in the legend, Shahrazad stays alive night after night by telling an unending tale to her sister Dinarzad-and to her fascinated bridegroom. Shahrazad knows she is up to the challenge, and forces her father, the king's vizier, to provide her as the first bride. In this retelling, 17-year-old Shahrazad is the daughter of Maju the Storyteller, the greatest living storyteller, who has been prophesied to bear the greatest storyteller of all time.Īs Shahrazad's tale opens, it mostly follows the familiar legend, tidied up: of a scene which in one version of the legend is extremely raunchy, Dokey's narrator says, "it is not seemly for me to tell." Shahrayar the king, betrayed by his wife, declares that he will marry a maiden once a month, and kill each new bride the following morning. In fact, Dokey's Shahrazad is merely wise and loving, while the Shahrazad of legend is a studious, well read intellectual. JSīucking the trend of retelling fairy tales in order to empower formerly passive heroines, Dokey's retelling of The Thousand and One Nights enlivens a heroine who is active and clever in legend. The storyteller's daughter." Retrieved from
The storyteller's daughter." The Free Library.
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