“Many of the enchanted things in the book are lamps, carpets, sofas, gems, brass rings. It is a rather different landscape than the fairy tale landscape of the West. Though we have interiors and palaces, we don't have bustling cities, and there isn't the emphasis on the artisan making things. The ambiance from which they were written was an entirely different one. The Arabian Nights comes out of a huge world of markets and trade. Cairo, Basra, Damascus: trades and skills.” WorldBookDifferentNightCitiesWrittenHugeSkillsTradeWestRingsTalesLandscapeFairyFairy TaleInteriorsEmphasisLampsCarpetPalacesGemsEnchantedBrassSofasArtisansArabianCairoArabian NightsAmbiance Author:Marina Warner
“For example, John Law's Mississippi Company venture printed shares, and the money had gone up in smoke when it had been inscribed objects. The inscription made it magic and changed its meaning. That's how objects become charmed in The Arabian Nights, and they are often originally ordinary objects. The carpet is an ordinary, paltry object. The lamp is a rusty old lamp, and the bottles jinns are imprisoned within are old bottles. They are changed by the magic and the jinn's presence, and the jinn's presence is often embodied in the seal or inscription.” MadeLawNightCompanyGoneMagicShareExampleObjectsChangedOrdinaryMade ItSmokeBottlesVentureLampsCarpetPrintedSealsMississippiCharmedInscriptionsArabianJinnArabian Nights Author:Marina Warner
“One of the metaphors of the book is the carpet. Not just the flying carpet, but the carpet as a woven surface in which many repetitions and motifs recur and mirror one another. This is very much reflected within the stories: they have borders within borders, repeated motifs which change. They have their feet in oral conventions, and for the mnemonics, the storyteller needs to have a structure in order to remember the stories.” NeedsBookStoriesRememberOrderFeetMirrorsStructureMetaphorSurfaceFlyingBordersConventionsRepetitionStorytellerCarpetWovenMotifs Author:Marina Warner
“I see the carpet reflecting that narratological structure of the storytelling, with Scheherazade as the outside frame story on the outside, with the stories woven on the inside. It's also demonstrative of the infinity of it, with no beginning and no end. The carpet is also a kind of metonym for cinema, this idea that the flat surface carries a terrific depth of imaginative field while remaining totally flat.” KindIdeasEndsStoriesFieldsStructureDepthSurfaceStorytellingCinemaCarrieFlatsInfinityImaginativeCarpetTerrificReflectingWoven Author:Marina Warner
“One of the things I try to do is try to make repetitions, rhymes, and mirrorings across the subject matter of my own books so that the chapter titles and the epigraphs and pictures all kind of form a tapestry. In this book, I retell fifteen of the stories. You have the critical frame, and then you have these rosettes like the motif in a carpet.” TryingKindBookMatterStoriesFormMy OwnSubjectsCriticalAll KindsTitlesChaptersFifteenRhymeRepetitionCarpetSubject MatterTapestryMirroringMotifsEpigraphs Author:Marina Warner
