Whatever Gets You Through the Night

The publisher's blurbs call this a "retelling" of The Arabian Nights, but Codrescu's subtitle is more accurate. In other words, Codrescu (The Poetry Lesson), a wildly popular and prolific author and also a commentator on NPR's All Things Considered, isn't offering a retelling of the original Arabic tales, but is presenting an independent story featuring Scheherazade and referencing the title used in the earliest English translations, The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. In short, this book is a sort of riff on the original themes. The stories share some characteristics and plotlines with Arabian Nights but always with a twist or new metaphysical take. They also have a different sense of the fantastic. Genies become Genuises, for example, and the original frame itself isn't really there. Interesting and witty footnotes about translations of the Arabian Nights and the culture of the story are added as a kind of bonus, contributing to the narrative.