Der Pascha

by Frederick Marryat

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: Adventure

386 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1835

About the author

Captain Frederick Marryat was a British Royal Navy officer and novelist, an early pioneer of the sea story.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic...

Reviews

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could be read as a fictional approach to How To Write a Novel. Full of great advice for authors, really. After all, if the Pacha didn't like the style of storyteller or the subject matter (stay away from the Romance if you value your head) or the speaker got into too much boring detail, it was The End. Finis. They had to get it right. And if they did, well! Gold. And more! One storyteller was such a magnificent liar (the stories were supposed to be true) that he lied himself into being Admiral of the Pacha's fleet, I think it was. (I'll interject here that he took the advice of the Vizier on what the Pacha liked in a story - all would-be authors take note - know your audience!) This guy was SUCH a good liar that he had me Googling whether it was possible to milk a whale. Yeah. I did that. I also looked up whether you could make cheese out of it, okay? If you read this book, which I recommend you do, you will be doing the same. And the thing is, because this has a kind of Arabian Nights, story-within-a-story style of writing, if you don't like one story so much, it isn't long before you're on to the next. I LOVED IT. Marryat is absolutely remarkable. I will be reading everything he wrote. I can't comprehend that he is so little known. He is certainly in the ranks with Dickens and Collins and the rest of the eminent Victorian writers.

[M. Kei · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pacha of the Many Tales is Marryat's contribution to the Arabian Nights' tradition. The Pacha of the title decides to imitate that great work by collecting tales, each of which is thoroughly inventive and preposterous, but highly entertaining. The Pacha's taste is definitely in favor of the fabulous and against romance (but there's plenty of romance in the tales, as beautiful women need rescuing from a variety of misfortunes), and each tale is quite amusing. They're told by a series of miscreants, rogues, liars, impostors, and rascals, and if you think Pirates of the Caribbean was getting hackneyed and worn out, you'll be delighted by the flights of imagination in this book. Anyone of the tales could provide an entire movie in its own right, whether it be the adventures of a sailor who allegedly swam to Africa from Australia, the strangers who live on a floating island and raise whales, or the many cases of true love and romance involving the rescuing of damsels from highway men, monks masquerading as cavaliers, and the occasional beheading.

The framing device of the Pacha and his Vizier interviewing potential storytellers is amusing in its own right and allows Marryat to parody readers and authors. For example, the man addicted to saying 'You know' so aggravates the Pacha that he lops the man's head off, by which point we are cheering for him. 'Valleyspeak' may not be noble, but its apparently ancient. The Pacha himself tends to fall asleep during more edifying passages, prompting the Vizier to advise the storyteller to skip over all that. (Come on, admit it, you've done the same. Did you actually read the chapters on cetology in Moby-Dick? No you didn't.)

Marryat was writing during the first half of the 19th century, so some of his characters embody outdated stereotypes, but at the same time, he is never mean. His characters, regardless of complexion, have their foibles treated with a good humored even-handedness. Sitting down with a novel by Marryat is always like being treated to a series of tales by a slightly inebriated storyteller, tales so engrossing you keep buying the man drinks.

M. Kei, author of

[Stifynsemons · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.096 stars, I liked it, but won't read all of it again.

The Pacha of Many Tales, a collection of fanciful tales told to the ruler of Cairo, and the more fanciful the more liked they were.

The Pacha and the Vizier hunted through the city to find people who might be able to tell an interesting tale, and some were quite interesting. But I found Huckabuck's tales to be quite tedious on the whole, and that was about half the book, so the bad is mixed with the good.

The commentary of the Pacha and Vizier interspersed through the tales was sometimes entertaining, especially when the Vizier was mistranslating the English sailor's words.`