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The Arabian Nightmare
by
Robert Irwin
The hero and guiding force of this epic fantasy is an insomniac young man who, unable to sleep, guides the reader through the narrow streets of Cairo-a mysterious city full of deceit and trickery. He narrates a complex tangle of dreams and imaginings that describe an atmosphere constantly shifting between sumptuously learned orientalism, erotic adventure, and dry humor. Th
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Paperback, 266 pages
Published
April 30th 2002
by The Overlook Press
(first published 1983)
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so i started reading this on the subway sitting next to a man who was (somehow) simultaneously reading and humming. who does that?? so by the time i got to work i realized i hadnt absorbed anything because i was so distracted by hummy. so i started over. and it made more sense this time, but it was tainted by having to be restarted. and then life intervened and i put it down for a few days and lost the plot(s) - not a great idea. this review is a mess. bottom line - its my own damn fault i didn
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A tall-tale in the telling that manages to be playful, inventive, and lingeringly creepy, in no small part due to a combination of the exotic setting—a Cairo drowsing under medieval Muslim rule as related by an insomniac and peripatetic Christian narrator, with the decanted desert dust and labyrinthine city warrens a mixing bowl for the esoteric, philosophic, erotic, and phantasmagoric—and the vivid occult and matryoshkal imagination of the author. With the simultaneously roguish and sinister Fa
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More interesting as a formal exercise than as, you know, a book. Book reads as if Irwin -- British academic with a focus on "Oriental Studies" if memory's serving -- has decided he's gonna take the tricky, narrative maze of 1,001 Arabian Nights and update it for folks who've read Naked Lunch and maybe like pills too much. Book begins with a kind of brilliant conceit about a fatal sleeping disease and an insomniac protagonist so unreliable as a narrator that you begin to wonder if this will prove
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For years I’d put off reading The Arabian Nightmare, waiting for the right time, as I’d been under the impression that it was a rather complex and laborious read. This wasn’t the case at all. In fact, it was quite the page-turner for me, despite the dream-like (or nightmare-like) nature of the novel, with simple-yet-elegant, engaging prose.
Yes, it deals with the dreams within dreams of the main character, Balian -- an English spy stuck in medieval Cairo’s endless labyrinthine streets, never sur ...more
Yes, it deals with the dreams within dreams of the main character, Balian -- an English spy stuck in medieval Cairo’s endless labyrinthine streets, never sur ...more
A specimen of narrative trickery like Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler; but mixing the obfuscation with ghoulish horror brings this more along the lines of Potocki’s. The Mauscript Found in Saragossa (which is referenced in the book, or Machen’s Three Imposters. Set in a 15th century Cairo that is turned into a oneiric labryinth, when a young Christian traveler (and spie) falls down the rabbit hole of the titular event (or not ). Endlessly switching narratives and states of reality ke
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Apr 26, 2013
Susan Rose
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
school-college-and-uni-reading
Plot: I can’t really summarise the plot because of how many stories run into each other and involve the same characters this makes any summary a little bit pointless. However a really short introduction to the narrative is that a traveler arrives in Cairo only to be taken in by this unknowable force which is a cross between lucid dreaming and drug fueled fantasies known as The Arabian Nightmare.
Structure: Dreamlike, story within a story.
What I liked: The structure the vivid language and the en ...more
Structure: Dreamlike, story within a story.
What I liked: The structure the vivid language and the en ...more
One of the few books that I was simply unable to finish. I really tried to read and hopefully enjoy it, but it became a nightmare for me. I just couldn't get to a point where I even cared about Balian. I read almost half of the book, hoping something would hook me and keep me interested in the story, but it was as if I were slogging through a literary sand storm, unable to make headway and possibly endangering my life. So I gave up and returned to the reading oasis.
“The world is all made of one substance; it will suffice to examine any portion of it thoroughly.”
Reality, dreams, stories: in what relations are they among themselves?
“…each dream carries within its womb another dream. It is the interior image of infinity.
The protagonist arrives in Cairo and he starts seeing phantasmagoric dreams and he turns into a character in the storyteller’s tale and illusions become more real than reality…
“Somewhere within the viscera of every man sits his fate, painful l ...more
Reality, dreams, stories: in what relations are they among themselves?
“…each dream carries within its womb another dream. It is the interior image of infinity.
The protagonist arrives in Cairo and he starts seeing phantasmagoric dreams and he turns into a character in the storyteller’s tale and illusions become more real than reality…
“Somewhere within the viscera of every man sits his fate, painful l ...more
I’ve read a lot of books which have tried a similarly ‘postmodern’ approach – a historical backdrop, dreams versus reality, narrators inside & out – but none half as good as this.
It’s all in the House of Sleep: wet dreams, talking apes, phantom, serial-killing daughter-whores, & yes, a fervid & terrifying Orientalism based in & around the Arabian Nights.
It also makes good use of one of my favourite literary effects: the fusion of terror & humour. Read it and weep… while half ...more
It’s all in the House of Sleep: wet dreams, talking apes, phantom, serial-killing daughter-whores, & yes, a fervid & terrifying Orientalism based in & around the Arabian Nights.
It also makes good use of one of my favourite literary effects: the fusion of terror & humour. Read it and weep… while half ...more
I enjoyed this book a lot, although it took two attempts to finish it. It's an insightful book about a sleep disorder called The Arabian Nightmare. It uses The Arabian Nights convention of story-telling, except that rather have a story-within-a-story, it has stories-within-dreams which are contained in other dreams. I think that the premise was better than what the book actually delivered, but it's entertaining and very exotic.
I'd been meaning to read this for a long time. When I first began to read some stranger fiction - the first time I discovered the Dedalus imprint, I think - I saw The Arabian Nightmare recommended highly. It's one of those books which has attained cult status - and pretty reasonably, too, given that it's part sex manual, part spy story, part meditation on dreams and part talking-animal tale, all wrapped in the patterned carpets of Orientalism and stuffed inside a shaggy dog.
I suspect it's one o ...more
I suspect it's one o ...more
A European visitor to Mamluke Cairo finds himself ensorcelled, plunging through a series of dreams and waking nightmares (the boundary is seldom clear) in which certain motifs - an ape and a woman, two imprisoned princesses, a child raised by beasts - recur like symptoms of a fever. Is he suffering from the notorious Arabian Nightmare, or only dreaming that he is, and what's the difference anyway? Meanwhile, the narrator holds our hand, even as the characters criticise him for his digressions an
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I have a weird relationship with this book. On the one hand, it is well-written, a very effective dream book. On the other hand, it is the most frustrating book I have ever read, because it is such an effective dream book. I sort of threw it down the stairs at the end.
The reason I say it is so effective is that in this case, you literally never know what was dream and what was reality after the first chapter or so, because the main character is apparently dying of a mysterious illness called the ...more
The reason I say it is so effective is that in this case, you literally never know what was dream and what was reality after the first chapter or so, because the main character is apparently dying of a mysterious illness called the ...more
wow just wow. I'm rendered speechless after finishing this book.
"Every visitor will find it hard to leave Cairo. It unfolds itself like a story that will never end."
In June 1486, the Englishman Balian, a pilgrim on his way to the monastery of Saint-Catherine in Sinai, arrives in Cairo hoping to obtain a transit visa from the Ma...meluke authorities and with a secret mission from the French court to spy on their decaying forces. However, on his very first night, Balian is afflicted by a strange sleep condition which he is told is the Arabian Nightmare. Despe ...more
In June 1486, the Englishman Balian, a pilgrim on his way to the monastery of Saint-Catherine in Sinai, arrives in Cairo hoping to obtain a transit visa from the Ma...meluke authorities and with a secret mission from the French court to spy on their decaying forces. However, on his very first night, Balian is afflicted by a strange sleep condition which he is told is the Arabian Nightmare. Despe ...more
May 01, 2012
Jim Leckband
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of: Nabokov, Calvino, 1001 Arabian Nights, Dreams
For a long time when I awoke I didn't remember my dreams. And then my shins started furiously itching, and then I got a muscle twitch in my hamstring that went on for 36 hours straight, and then I couldn't sleep at all, drowning in my itching, twitching nightmare.
For those of you who are physicians, you might notice these symptoms. I had a severe electrolyte deficiency. I took several electrolyte replacement pills and all was well in a few hours. Okay, fine story, but what's this got to do with ...more
For those of you who are physicians, you might notice these symptoms. I had a severe electrolyte deficiency. I took several electrolyte replacement pills and all was well in a few hours. Okay, fine story, but what's this got to do with ...more
This is utterly, utterly brilliant - I read it for the first time in 1993, and have read it many times since: once a year, or whenever I feel in need of a lift.
Irwin evokes medieval Cairo beautifully, and the use of stories within stories within stories not only mirrors medieval Arabic literature perfectly, but also is heavily reminiscent of the oral tradition in Arabic story-telling: this is much more akin, for example, to an English translation of a serialised tale told by a storyteller in Mar ...more
Irwin evokes medieval Cairo beautifully, and the use of stories within stories within stories not only mirrors medieval Arabic literature perfectly, but also is heavily reminiscent of the oral tradition in Arabic story-telling: this is much more akin, for example, to an English translation of a serialised tale told by a storyteller in Mar ...more
The perfect novel.
Seriously, there is nothing wrong with this book. It's flawless, like a diamond. This sort of perfection shouldn't be allowed.
Seriously, there is nothing wrong with this book. It's flawless, like a diamond. This sort of perfection shouldn't be allowed.
The concept of mental infection, a real spooky book!
Oh wow, an incredible story.
A story of a young man from England on a pilgrimage to St. Catherine's in Egypt. Se in the fourteenth century, the pilgrims base themselves in Cairo for six months, while undertaking religious vows. The young man, named Balian, gets lost in Cairo – but not in the physical sense. This book is about dreams within dreams, and tales within tales.
I won't go on, as not to reveal too much of it. Read it however, you will not regret it. Even more so if you are an avid dreamer ...more
A story of a young man from England on a pilgrimage to St. Catherine's in Egypt. Se in the fourteenth century, the pilgrims base themselves in Cairo for six months, while undertaking religious vows. The young man, named Balian, gets lost in Cairo – but not in the physical sense. This book is about dreams within dreams, and tales within tales.
I won't go on, as not to reveal too much of it. Read it however, you will not regret it. Even more so if you are an avid dreamer ...more
An intelligent and thought-provoking read that really needs another go to be fully comprehended by my puny brain. Thus, a must re-read.
This reading took longer than I like. The story was not as gripping as I had hoped, not as glitteringly philosophic as others claimed. It was not, I found, an Escher maze of words. I could not grasp the book until Chapter 14, when Irwin stopped monkeying around and began to push toward some conclusion. I know an Egyptian woman who always shares my complaints of lifelong insomnia and i'll see if she can quarter this dream.
Picked this up randomly from a used-book bin, and am so glad I did. Some may be frustrated by the levels and layers of story, reality, and dreams in this novel, but even if that bugs you, it is worth wading through for the many philosophical explorations of the nature of dreams, of belief, and most of all, of narrative and storytelling. I will almost certainly re-read this, and take notes the second time through.
Стилът е арабски, сюжетът - кошмарен.
Череда мистификаций и психоделических событий, которые больше похожи на инсталляцию, призванную проникнуться восточной атмосферой. Инсталляцию красивую,многозначную, но на мой вкус чересчур помпезную и высокопарную. Уверен, что на многих эта книга может по праву произвести благостное впечатление, но мне было откровенно скучно.
A dreamy look at Cairo many hundreds of years ago. Doesn't have a plot or get deep into characters. It's more about the feel of the city and the people, which it conveys very well, with many different stories wrapped within stories. Enjoyable for what it is.
Strange book. Sometimes good story telling with excellent descriptions of old Cairo. But often times a wandering story that appears to go nowhere and even does in the end. And what is it with the 40 page story telling?
I very much enjoyed this. It was essentially a dark set of stories. Not a lot happens as such, but the atmosphere is so well sculpted that that is not really an issue.
"His life was being eaten away by monstrous boredom. He came for me in search of help. With the right kind of medidicines, I think I can save him with nightmares".
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Robert Irwin was born in 1946. He read Modern History at Oxford and taught Medieval History at the University of St Andrews. He also lectured on Arabic and Middle Eastern History at the universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford. He is the commissioning editor for the TLS for The Middle East and writes for a number of newspapers and journals in the UK and the USA.
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“The Christian, when he had calmed down sufficiently, admitted that the riddle was good. “I have created something cleverer than myself," he cried.'
Here Yoll interrupted himself. 'I do not understand his astonishment, for who has not heard of a storyteller who is stupider than the story he invents?”
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Here Yoll interrupted himself. 'I do not understand his astonishment, for who has not heard of a storyteller who is stupider than the story he invents?”
“Flying is only a figure for something else. If you cannot succeed here at this, then you will fail elsewhere at other things. You must strengthen your will, for you do not need a master. In truth, you have too many masters. It is being said that everyone is your master.”
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