Andrei Codrescu in Rome, shown back row, center, with a group of refuees from his native Romania.
Author of: Whatever Gets You Through the Night
Whatever Gets You Through the Night: A Story of Sheherezade and the Arabian Entertainments, Andrei Codrescu’s new book, actually is four books in one, according to Andrei, “nested inside one another like Russian egg-dolls.” Sheherezade, the Storyteller, saves the young women of Baghdad from King Sharyar who marries them for one night only and has them murdered in the morning. Sheherezade survives 1001 nights by telling stories that end at sunrise just before the denouement. During the day she talks to her Sufi teachers and to her horse, and studies to be an assassin. “Which is where I saunter in, walking backwards on a tightrope.”
The first of the four books is her biography. Next comes the book of the tyrant Sharyar and his tyrant brother Shazaman who, pursuant to betrayal by their wives, take to the god-haunted desert. They choose different destinies: Shazaman, the younger, becomes a mystic vagabond searching for the wizards who know the secret formula for making people in pots, Sharyar, the older, takes back his kingly power and avenges himself by marrying a new girl every night and having her killed in the morning. That is until he runs into the suspense-making Sheherezade, who neutralises this royal psycho, with the aid of her luscious younger sister Dinarzad. As Sheherezade weaves her stories so she won’t lose her head, she also weaves the world, hers and ours. And as Sheherezade keeps weaving our stories together, the human world is in danger of extinction. “Shazaman returns from the desert in the 21st century with the wizards’ secret of making people in pots, a formula best explained in Carl Djerassi’s book, Sex in the Age of Technological Reproduction.
“The third book is a story that Sheherezade tells Sharyar,” says Codrescu, “a story from the 1001 Nights and one that as far as I know, has not yet been ripped off by the likes of Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose), or Balzac (La Peau de Chagrin).
The fourth book is called “the war of the translators,” and it’s a scholarly detective story. “You will find in this matrioshka tomette,” says the author, “the chill of the otherworldly, the salacious delight of reviving romantic orientalism for post-Said purposes, an essay on talking to live, aka Storytelling, carnal sensations, and tips for surviving the post-Gutenberg chatter age. I can never re-read my book without a giggle. Six giggles I got at one re-reading, and that’s a record for an author. Usually, by the last copyedit most authors have already tied the knot on the rope and thrown it over the beam from which they will hang themselves.”
PRAISE FOR CODRESCU’S WORK
[Codrescu] isn’t offering a retelling of the original Arabic tales, but is presenting an independent story featuring Scheherazade. . . . The stories share some characteristics and plotlines with Arabian Nights but always with a twist or new metaphysical take. . . . 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. . . . Codrescu’s fans will love this book, and Arabists will be charmed by this new take on the classic.
—David Azzolina, Library Journal
One of our most prodigiously talented and magical writers.
—Bruce Shlain, New York Times Book Review
With humor and grace, wisdom and tenderness, Codrescu transforms the commonplace into the miraculous. His work is cause for celebration.
— Kay Boyle
This transplanted Transylvanian with the bateau-mouche moustache always manages (in his consideration of All Things) to create a craving for the subversive– something that is much needed in these days of ‘friendly fascism.’
— Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and founder of City Lights
Codrescu’s voice is assured, funny as a jazz funeral, and sharp as ammonia, nailing more virtuoso turns than a Formula One driver. His prose is so deadpan it goes through irony and comes out in some undiscovered place on the other side.
— Diane Roberts, St. Petersburg Times
… hypnotic and lyrical, with both the concentrated poetic power of the great fairy tales and the playful expansiveness of postmodern fiction.
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
Mr. Codrescu is the sort of writer who feels obliged to satirize and interplay with reality and not just catalogue impressions…it’s a measure of talent…
—Francis X. Clines, The New York Times Book Review
Codrescu is a wordsmith par excellence…a modern day DeTocqueville… a wry and whimsical, pungently idiosyncratic documentary.
—Joe Leydon, The Los Angeles Times
Codrescu’s distinctive perspective makes the trip worth taking.
—Variety