Books 43-44 In these chapters, Kongming wins over the most important minds among Sun Quan’s group in the South. I’m not sure what it is, but Kongming’s incredible powers of debate and strategy strike me as too unrealistic. He’s always right, he can’t lose,
Nights 320-342 The first story ends with some graphic violence and sex. The woman who pretended to be a king dispatched her enemies: the first was “flayed and his skin stuffed with straw and hung up over the gate to the arena. A pit was . . . dug outside the city
Chapters 41-42 There isn’t a strong theme in these chapters, so I picked a loose one: weapons. We get a brief view of “Lord Guan, sitting astride Red Hare and gripping his Green Dragon.” (p. 747). But more importantly for these chapters, we learn “Cao Cao had two
Intro to Vol 2; Nights 296-319 Book 2 of 3 begins with a short introduction on the history of the text. In short, “there is no such thing as a canonical text of the Nights with a fixed number of stories in a fixed order.” (p. xi). There’s
Chapters 38-40 At first, Zhang Fei and Lord Guan doubt whether Kongming will be effective. But he soon proves his value. First against Xiahou Dun (pp. 704-706) and then against Cao Ren (pp. 721-722), Kongming unleashes fire against his foes. He wins two massive victories over larger
Nights 282-295 & Bonus Story: Ali Baba The Ka’ba is the unifying theme this week, reminding us we are in Arabia. It appears in both this week’s big stories (night 282, p. 208 and night 294, p. 927). I liked the stories. The first one had a
Nights 264-281 The story of Ala al’Din may be the most archetypal Arabian Nights story so far. This week, it added some more color: a thief, whose craftsmanship is described in detail (Night 264, p. 866); Yasmin and another woman shouting at each other “whore” and “bitch” (Night
Chapters 36-37 Kongming gets the best introduction in the book. It starts with a whole chapter of fake-outs: Liu Bei keeps seeing people he thinks is Kongming, but they turn out to be one of Kongming’s friends or family instead. Of all the things to remind me
Nights 247-263 Lots to say about this week! First, we end the story of Qamar and begin the story of ‘Ala’ al-Din. As I expected, the story of Qamar, which started out so well, ended badly. There were happy endings for everyone except Qamar’s two wives, who
Chapters 34-35 In these chapters, Liu Bei meets a recluse called Still Water. This recluse, who functions as somewhat of a mirror (of “still water”) tells Liu Bei that he will meet two important men who will help achieve his goals. Still Water calls them Young Phoenix and Sleeping
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
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.