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4.0 out of 5 stars
You'll never think of a harem the same way again, June 1, 2009
This review is from: Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh (Hardcover)
This slim pinprick of a novel is more of a glorified short story than anything, but that hasn't stopped publisher Overlook Press from charging you the price of a full novel. Regardless, it's an enjoyable read, but that's to be expected from Irwin, who has mastered the art of novellas that pack the wallop of doorstops. "Arabian Nightmare" is still his masterpiece, but Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh operates on the same level, a fable-like, psycho-sexual-charged head-trip into an Arabian Nights-style "Orient."
Prince Orkhan of the Ottoman Empire has spent his life sequestered in the Cage, a prison complex built within the harem walls in which princes-in-waiting are kept from the age of five until they become Sultan (or until they are murdered by the reigning Sultan in a fit of paranoia; or, if neither of these things happen, until they die). Never having seen a woman, Orkhan and the other young princes spend their days fantasizing about the "weaker sex" (a concept this novel demolishes), studying, wrestling, and getting a bit friendly with one another (the novel opens with a gay sex scene which only served to displease me in that it seemed irrelevant to the story at hand - as if it had been placed there so Irwin could chalk "gay sex" off his list of "sex scenes to feature in the book").
Orkhan's moment arrives: his father, the reigning Sultan, has died, and Orkhan is announced the new Sultan, at only twenty years old. He's escorted out of the Cage and into the Harem proper, a world of scantily-clad women who do nothing but lounge about in a languor of hookahs and gossip and intrigue. (Much like Orkhan and his fellow princes had in the Cage.) Rather than the hardcore romp the reader might be expecting - fueled no doubt from such harem-pulp as "Savage Sands" or "The Khadin" - the novel instead becomes a twisted tale of psycho-sex, with Orkhan cast into a horrific world of controlling and cruel women.
For the harem has concocted its own gnostic-like religion, "The Prayer-Cushion of the Flesh," a religion in which the harem women act as embodiments of the Divine and are here to meld Orkhan into the perfect bridegroom. Orkhan is thrust from woman to woman, and in between sex he is whipped, beaten, ridiculed, nagged, raped (!), and generally mistreated. Indeed, the reader comes to loathe these harem women, and it's to Irwin's credit that he has twisted such a fantasized-about element of the "old Orient" into a nightmarish tableaux. I mean, if I wrote this novel, it would've just come off as another harem-pulp, with lots of dopesmoking odalisques and wanton sex. Irwin instead gives us a Borges-like fable with mindgames, executions, and even a bit of bestiality.
There are however several problems with the novel. For one, Orkhan, who is a most ineffectual lead character. This isn't so much his fault, though; he's only 20, and he's lived in the Cage for the past 15 years. Doubtless this world is frightening and alien to him, but one wishes for a stronger lead. Also, the harem women are so annoying - they bait and toy with Orkhan so much that it begins to grate the readers' nerve, and you wish Orkhan would just fight his way for the door and get out of there. And finally there's the issue of the implausibility of the whole affair; imagine if the Ottoman Empire had really run like this, with the harem women in such control that they could boss around and decide upon the fate of even the new Sultan...how exactly would the Empire survive? One wonders how the previous Sultan, Orkhan's father, survived; and, according to the text, he died an old man. But no matter - this is a fable, and it operates as such.
The tale is quick and the ending is great; it's just the ending the reader desires, and all credit to Irwin for delivering it, and not some "artsy" cop-out. Indeed, I almost let out a cheer. Outside of the plot Irwin's writing is strong as ever. I don't know how he does it; his prose is so sinewy and compact that a lesser writer would've given us twice as many pages for the same amount of story. Staying true to his "Arabian Nightmare" past, Irwin also threads stories-within-stories; in one enjoyable section eunuch guard Emerald tells a long story about a jinn-like infestation of the harem. Irwin also chuckles away any criticisms of his book; twice in the novel a character states that there doesn't have to be a "meaning" to a tale, that the pleasure derived from the telling (and the reading or hearing) of it is "meaning" enough. True, but tell that to the fundamentalists of the world.
Special note: UK publisher Dedalus Books reissued the novel in 2005 with a jawdropping cover of a beautiful, full-frontal-nude and raven-haired model; she beckons to the camera with a come-hither look, Arabic script painted across her body. (The type of cover that would never make it to these Puritan shores.) This is actually a still from a film version of Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh, an art mini-film made a few years ago on a shoestring budget. This reissue of the novel also features several pages about the making of the film. Good luck finding a copy; most second-hand sellers who have the UK printing of the book refuse to tell you if they are selling the "old" Dedalus printing (which had a different cover and lacked the material on the making of the film) or this new one.
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