Week 5: Arabian Nights Reading Diary

For the Arabian Nights reading unit click here. 
Story source: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

For Reading A: I'm going to do this reading diary a little different than I have done my others. This reading unit is different than the others I've done so I thought I'd take this opportunity to try something new.

While there were many interesting stories in this unit, I particularly liked how they all fit together into the stories that Scheherazade is telling the Sultan. In the first section, they talk quite a bit about the education that Scheherazade has received and how clever she is. Her wit and education really show through her tellings of the stories, how she sets them up and ends them each while still leaving some questions opened is very clever.
I saw this throughout the stories, but in particular I liked how she transitioned from the stories which came out of the Story of the Fisherman. I loved how the story of the Physician was developed to mirror the Genie and the Fisherman's dilemma, but also how more stories were inter-laid throughout the secondary stories to show the different choices the characters had, like the Parrot and the Ogress stories.

I also thought it was clever how, at the end of the man with the black dog's story (the end of the Merchant and Genie story line), how Scheherazade said she didn't know the third story told, but knew it was better than the other two. That was a great transition between the two overarching stories which she told to the Sultan. Because of this, he would be left wondering and not quite satisfied with the story Scheherazade had told. This probably made him more willing to hear another story which led to the Fisherman's section.

For Reading B: This part of the reading diary will also be different, because all of the second half was one continuous story. The second half was the readings were of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.

The only Aladdin story I had ever seen or heard before this, was Disney's Aladdin. Overall I really enjoyed this story, and liked it more than the movie. The only thing I wish that was a little different was that I hoped it would still have some references or connections in the story of Scheherazade telling the story to her husband.

I was very creeped out when the princess married the Grand Vizir's son, that Aladdin kidnapped them each night until the boy was scared away. That was weird. I also didn't like the ending very much, just because of the second magician. I kind of feel like adding a brother was unnecessary. To me, the added ending after they returned home and everything went back to normal, didn't add anything to the plot. Therefore, I wish they had ended it with them returning home after killing the first evil magician.

That being said, I liked the inclusion of the magician in the story. I thought that was great, instead of just making the vizir the antagonist, although we are still not meant to like him in the story. I was also unaware that the original story was mostly set in China, but I thought that was an interesting choice. Although I can understand, in the context of Scheherazade telling the Sultan the story, she would want it to seem as exotic and mysterious as possible.

I really enjoyed reading the story of Aladdin and all of the other stories in this reading Unit.