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A review by sjgochenour
Night & Horses & the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature by Robert Irwin
5.0
Robert Irwin’s sense of humor and eclecticism is hard to beat. He often focuses on the interesting rather than the beautiful; the first qasida of Imru al-Qays is very moving, but he has a great love for stories of the underworld, swindles and scandals.
(a content warning specifically about the stories of Tanukhi in chapter 3; they include some fairly gruesome murders of women and young men in a pederastic context. It’s hard for a person who hasn’t studied the subject at all to know if this is representative, or if Irwin went out of his way to find examples that would shock.)
Other highlights: an ode to asparagus; an argument by animals against the cruelty of humanity; a discussion of the true nature of love; an afterlife encounter with a woman who worked in the Baghdad library; the poetry of the pre-Islamic tribeswoman al-Khansa and Andalusian princess Wallada; a 12th-century precursor to Robinson Crusoe; a long and peculiar story from the Arabian Nights about three foolish brothers; finishing with a short story of incredible and weird hilarity about the battle between “King Mutton” (personification of rich people food) and “King Honey” (personification of poor people food).
It took me four weeks to read and I will doubtless need to read it again.
(a content warning specifically about the stories of Tanukhi in chapter 3; they include some fairly gruesome murders of women and young men in a pederastic context. It’s hard for a person who hasn’t studied the subject at all to know if this is representative, or if Irwin went out of his way to find examples that would shock.)
Other highlights: an ode to asparagus; an argument by animals against the cruelty of humanity; a discussion of the true nature of love; an afterlife encounter with a woman who worked in the Baghdad library; the poetry of the pre-Islamic tribeswoman al-Khansa and Andalusian princess Wallada; a 12th-century precursor to Robinson Crusoe; a long and peculiar story from the Arabian Nights about three foolish brothers; finishing with a short story of incredible and weird hilarity about the battle between “King Mutton” (personification of rich people food) and “King Honey” (personification of poor people food).
It took me four weeks to read and I will doubtless need to read it again.