Ali and Gulhyndi

by Adam Oehlenschlager

Genre: Romance
Setting:
Format of Original Source: Novella
Recommended Adaptation Length:

Candidate for Adaptation? Promising

EXCERPT:

Here the spirits live in all their natural grandeur, as in the first days of creation before Allah had formed man. They choose their abode according to their several dispositions; the evil spirits, whose nature is malicious, and whose deeds are destructive, haunt, for the most part, the wildest and most barren spots, living in dark damp caverns deep below the earth, and bestride at night the pestilential winds to visit the men on the fertile southern coasts of Asia. The good spirits live in cool grottoes in the beautiful and fertile parts near springs, and often with the morning dawn soar through the air to Arabia, Persia, and India, to refresh and accompany those men who render themselves worthy of their assistance. The Eastern nations call this unknown wonderful land Ginistan; and though knowing it to be on the earth, they yet think it inaccessible, and separate it from all the inhabited countries of the globe.

COMMENTS:

This story, set in Bagdad of old, is told in two halves; the second half follows some of the characters into the afterlife. We find the translation to be fairly dense and a little hard to follow; but it appears to have some high stakes drama in the middle (a father killing a daughter?), and some interesting philosophical consequences in the Afterlife.

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