Chapters 31-33 The plot takes us farther north than we’ve been before, into the desert. We meet a “khan.” And we finally get the “Desert Sandstorm” Magic card (p. 607). The desert is dangerous; Cao Cao only survives his visit through luck. When he returns from it, he rewards
Nights 228-246 (Although I had originally scheduled only through night 245 this week, night 246 was only 2 pages and resolved the story from nights 237-245). The two stories this week aren’t the best stories of lovers, but they are fast-paced. The first story is better. In it, al-Amjad,
Chapters 29-30 Sun Ce has a memorable death. A poison arrow ultimately killed him. He could have recovered, but he insisted on burning a holy man to death. The holy man haunted him, greatly distressing Sun Ce and exacerbating the poison until he finally died. His legacy passes to Sun
Nights 210-227 Wow, this story really fell apart. It had been one of my favorites, but it took a very bad turn in this week’s reading. We left Princess Budur, dressed as a man, betrothed to Princess Hayat. Through some twists and turns (and some homophobia), the problem is
Chapters 27-28 Lord Guan returns to his brothers. As a bonus, Zhao Zilong joins them as well. These chapters demonstrate the advantages of the episodic structure of Romance. Lord Guan leaves Cao Cao to return to Liu Bei. But along the way, Lord Guan is stopped at waypoints by Cao
Nights 192-209 Another short section, it is tied for the shortest for this project overall, except for the previous week’s. We get some good drama before the lovers are united: Prince Qamar is depressed, but at least the kingdom believes his story. Princess Budur is considered insane. When one
Chapters 24-26 In this section, the three Peach Garden Oath brothers are separated and we mostly follow Lord Guan. We see him conditionally decide to work with Cao Cao while looking for Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. Cao Cao tries to win over Lord Guan with all sorts of gifts.
Nights 175-191 At 25 pages, this is the shortest week I’ll have for Arabian Nights. But there’s still a lot to say! It introduced me to a favorite character so far: Qashqash the ifrit. He is one-eyed, hunchbacked, scabby, with eyes set lengthways in his face (it’s
Chapters 22-23 This week, in two different episodes, both Liu Bei and Cao Cao restrain themselves from killing their enemies. But they have different reasons, which helps contrast their characters. For Liu Bei, he needs to determine what to do with the enemy generals that he has captured. He sends
Nights 157-174 There’s not much to recommend about the story that ended in the middle of this week. It was a tedious story about two lovers who seemed like they would never get together. They were both prone to fainting, and their friends kept using rosewater to revive them
Chapters 20-21 This week, I saw a lot of parallels to Western ideas of power and authority. On p. 332, the Emperor meets Liu Bei. To establish Liu Bei’s pedigree, one of the imperial aides reads off the lineage of Liu Bei: Zhen begat Ang, Ang begat Lu, etc.
Nights 139-156 This is the longest section of Arabian Nights in my schedule. It starts by wrapping up the big story that we’ve been reading for just over 300 pages now. The wrap-up is very disjointed, even briefly introducing some new characters (including a “Fatia,” again making me think