The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye
Five Fairy Stories
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3.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A stunning collection of fairy tales for grown-ups from the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession, a "storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights" (The New York Times Book Review).
Includes the story “The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye”—the basis for the George Miller film Three Thousand Years of Longing starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton
A.S. Byatt portrays the strange relationship between an intelligent heroine—a world-renowned scholar of the art of storytelling—and the marvelous being that lives in a bottle, found in a dusty shop in an Istanbul bazaar. As Byatt renders the relationship between the woman and the being with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable.
The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
All of the five "fairy stories" in Byatt's new collection adopt the conventions of folk or fairy tales: magic enchantments; the granting of three wishes; adventures that involve danger. And as might be expected from a writer of Byatt's talent and interests, several of them deal with the magic of storytelling itself. The title piece, a novella, is the most surprising and appealing. Middle-aged British narratologist Gillian Perholt acquires a beautiful bottle when she attends a convention in Turkey. The djinn she later releases not only grants her three wishes but also teaches her how to avoid the classic folk-tale irony by which the wisher lives to regret the fulfillment of his or her desires. This complex, sometimes prolix, oddly upbeat tale also demonstrates other Byatt preoccupations: protagonists who are academics; stories within stories; philosophic digressions; the theme of the inevitability of destiny. As with all of Byatt's work, there is a fierce intelligence at play, and beautifully nuanced prose. The other standout here is the gently ironic "The Story of the Eldest Princess,'' in which the clever woman, who realizes that the first person to be sent on a quest is always unsuccessful, subverts the conventions and outwits her fate. (In her acknowledgments, Byatt confesses: "I have always worried about being the eldest of three sisters."). "Dragon's Breath" has a brilliantly imaginative description of a volcanic eruption. The other two titles are charming but less memorable. Woodcut illustrations and a format similar to that of The Matisse Stories make for an attractive book. Author tour.
