The Arabian Nightmare [Hardcover]

Robert Irwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 1987

The year is 1486 and English pilgrim and spy, Balian of Norwich steps into the city of Cairo and out of time. He becomes a victim of the curse of the Arabian nightmare, and finds himself in the company of strange companions, and can no longer distinguish between dreaming and reality.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This higly original first novel is deliberately designed to madden: virtually plotless, it's nonetheless loaded with a cat's cradle tangle of mythic tales, with sibylline commentary from a host of wraithlike creatures, who are never what they seem, and with dream sequences that provide ample room for the author's playful dilations on the nature of illusion and reality. The narrator, who may or may not be Dirty Yoll, a Cairene storyteller of the 15th century, reaches forward through time to take Proust's opening line"For a long time I used to go to bed early"for his own. This, then, is to be a bedtime story that introduces Balian, an English pilgrim on his way to Mount Sinai. The English king has recruited him to spy on the Mameluke court in Cairo, but when he arrives there in 1486, he immediately contracts a mysterious disease that causes hallucinations powerful enough to threaten his sanity. The Father of Cats, seductive Zuleyka, Fatima the Deathly, the leper Knights of St. Lazarus and Yoll himself are just a few of the characters sent forth to mend or maim him. Augmented by some 19th century lithographs by David Roberts, which couple nicely with Irwin's sinuous prose, The Arabian Nightmare thrusts us into a landscape as convoluted as Cairo itself, yet by some magical slight-of-hand we at length come to recognize Balian's malady as one of our own.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This fascinating, rather complex first novel by a former medieval historian can be read on several levels. On the surface it is the picaresque tale of a young English pilgrim's trials and tribulations in late-15th-century Cairo. Recruited as a spy by the French king, he finds himself, or believes himself to be, pursued both during his waking and sleeping hours by an odd assortment of characters, from an old Egyptian magician to a leperous Christian knight. But the story is also a philosophic fantasyan exploration into the nature of dreams and storytelling and the ways in which they interface. Or is it really a journey into the schizophrenic mind where phantoms replace reality? While earthy and often quite humorous, the novel's intricacy is likely to put off the general reader. Those who like a challenge, however, will find their perseverance amply rewarded. David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st US Ed edition (October 6, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670816612
• ISBN-13: 978-0670816613
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,282,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Curiouser and curiouser, January 21, 1999

By 

flying-monkey (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arabian Nightmare (Paperback)

Quite probably one of the best books I have ever read and a doomed to be forgotten masterpiece of the twentieth century. The Arabian Nightmare is a dark narrative of a hallucinagenic fouteenth century Cairo. Talking apes, magicians, Caliphs and mysterious underworld figures drift in and out of the interlocking tales within tales. This is, as its title suggests, the Arabian Nights gone wrong; it is imposssible to know what is happening or even who is who at any moment. Comparable only to perhaps Gustav Meyrink or The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, this book is impossible to put down and will give you dangerous dreams for many a night. Absolutely superb.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incantatory, alluring, August 9, 2001

By 

Alan DeNiro "alan_deniro" (Oakdale, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arabian Nightmare (Paperback)

This book, in such a relatively compact space, unfolds and unfolds itself, into stories within stories within stories. The cast of characters is continually shuffled around in a landscape that is equal parts real and unreal. (Cairo itself IS a major character in the story.) The results are very entertaining, albeit very dark. The Father of Cats, in particular, is a particularly chilling villian. I read this book for a week, and each night I would read it in bed, before I fell asleep. Although I never had any nightmares from reading the book--the experience of my own drowsiness when reading the book reminded me of the central issues in the book. It teeters between the waking world and the dream world, and the book succeeds brilliantly when the two are indistinguishable.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A journey into lands of nightmare. . ., January 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Arabian Nightmare (Contemporary English Language) (Paperback)

Set in the fifteenth century, this novel ostensibly tells the story of an English spy (or is it pilgrim?) who may possibly have contracted an unknown and unknowable illness while on sojourn in Egypt. The lines between waking and dream increasingly blur, and as with all dreams, the more that is revealed the less clear things become. A marvelous horror-fantasy, at once whimsical and terrifying, as well as a clever pastiche of "The Arabian Nights." Also, the best attempt at conveying the disjointed yet strangely patterned twists of dream logic on paper I have ever read. Highly recommended.