Word: dunyazadiad
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Dates: during 1972-1972
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CHIMERA, a collection of three novellas pursues this latter trail. The first story Dunyazadiad is Barth's version of the thousand and one Arabian nights. Traditionally, you may remember the tale goes as follows. Shahryar, king of Samarkand, has been deceived in love. Resolving that woman is a weak and sinful creature, he decides on an elaborate punishment which includes his personal deflowering of a virgin every night and her execution the following morning. After a time, Scheherezade's turn arrives. To foil the king's designs, she begins a story that first evening but stops before its conclusion, promising...
...concerned, they are at the wrong end of the stick. The trick is not to find the mythic elements in everyday reality but to go straight to the myths themselves to find the real people inside the heroic shells. This is Barth's method in Dunyazadiad and the other two novellas, as well Perseid and Bellerophoniad...
...Dunyazadiad" is a different story (within a story within a story) and a winged horse of a brighter color. In it Barth succeeds with clarity, succinctness and natural ease in creating a modern tale out of the oldest forms of storytelling. It is about Scheherazade's famous plight as told by her younger sister Dunyazade, who sat at the foot of the bed for 1,001 nights while the Shah made love to Scheherazade and was held spellbound by her stories. It may be recalled that before the Shah met "Sherry," as she is known in the bedchamber...
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