Book #60

Sindbad the Sailor

A selection of fantastic and perilous adventures at sea from the Thousand and One Nights. 

I enjoyed this little glimpse into the Thousand and One Nights. 

Sindbad the Sailor recounts his travels and adventures to Sindbad the Porter, and although I found them somewhat far-fetched, brutal, and wondered how such a level of misfortune could befall one man, they felt almost like gorgeous little fables.

I’m interested in the origin of these tales; there is very little to go on in terms of where they’ve come from, and even less on who wrote them. That they’ve travelled over to the West slowly, is more than apparent, and that in this edition Allah has been amended to God is a curious fact to consider.

Although short and jarring in their seemingly random selection, Little Black Classics have achieved what I was looking for in this series: to open my eyes to new texts and spur me into buying the originals, which I’m sure for this addition in particular will display far more colour and vividness than three short stories can evoke here.