Another nice little quickie, this is from my June booklist. Hasan, a retelling of a Thousand-And-One-Nights story, by Piers Anthony. [TOR Fantasy edition, 1986, 242 pages] According to the afterword, the author had a hell of a time selling this novel back in 1969. Fourteen rejections and five sales, and by 1979 it was out of print. In the 80s, TOR reprinted most of his novels, probably due to the success of his Xanth series. Xanth looks kind of cheesy to me and I doubt I'll read it. But I'm interested in his Geoddysey series, which looks serious.
On to the novel, Hasan. What an odyssey. The protagonist Hasan makes many journeys and many adventures throughout the novel. The setting is not stagnant, he is constantly traveling to different kingdoms and realms, sometimes even staying years at one of his by-way destinations (much like Odysseus himself). He is sort of a trickster figure or culture hero; he makes plots his plots often fail, or he is too trusting, forgiving, or naïve and is duped himself by another character, or he gives in to his passions and temptations very easily.
To begin, Hasan meets an alchemist named Bahram, and watches him turn a copper bowl into gold. Hasan sells this for riches, bringing them home to his mother. She is wary and distrusting of the alchemist. Nonetheless Hasan departs with Bahram, to learn the secret of his alchemy. Bahram binds Hasan to the mast of his small boat, and beats him for not cooperating. They soon reach land and travel to a mountain that is the roost of a Roc. Bahram guts a camel, and stuffs Hasan's body inside the husk. Soon the Roc picks him up and leaves him on the summit, where he obtains the wood (to be made into transformative powder), and throws it to Bahram at the foot of the mountain. Bahram abandons him to his fate, of death, Hasan soon learns after finding skeletons of many young men. He wanders around scarce mountain paths, to avoid the Roc's appetite. He finds a series of chains leading downward, and starts to climb them. A storm soon wells up as he is climbing. He falls, into a flash flood, saving him from a deathly impact. This example, an isolated tale in itself is only the first adventure among many that make up the overall narrative. Hasan has his vengeance on Bahram later in the book, but these events actually have little to bear much later in the story.
Hasan wanders to a grandiose, mystical castle, where seven sisters live, sequestered by their father. Rose, the youngest of these sisters, adopts Hasan as their brother and gives him a place in their luxurious palace. He spends years here living with the sisters. Once, as they are away visiting their father, Hasan wanders into a door which Rose had deemed forbidden to him. Inside is more of the rich, magical palace to wander through, leading up to a roof where there is a large pool. He sees seven birds fly and take roost on the roof. Soon they transform into beautiful women, revealing that their feathered cloaks allow them to take the form of birds. As these women bathe, and laugh, and frolic, Hasan watches, unseen. He falls in deep infatuation for the most beautiful of these women. Here begins the true core of Hasan's story.
Our hero plots to win the woman for himself. He hides behind the bench, and steals her feather suit, so that she cannot fly away, and Rose locks it away in a chest. Under Hasan's power, his love is taken into the palace and tended by Rose and the other princesses. She is known as Sana, and is taken for the most beautiful woman in the world.
After seeing a vision of his mother, weeping before his tomb, (for he had been away for some years now, without so much as a letter) Hasan wishes to return home to Baghdad. Using a metal drum taken from Bahram, he summons many beasts of burden to carry them there. Sana goes with him. Rose and her sisters help load many riches to take home; he and his mother would never be poor again.
Hasan and Sana are married under Allah, and she bears him two sons. She learns that her feather suit still exists, locked in the chest, buried behind their small house. While Hasan is out she steals it, and takes their children with her back home to the isle of Wak. (Her lineage is revealed as the daughter of the sovereign of the Jinn. She is a significant and valued princess.) This breaks Hasan's heart and it isn't long before he wishes to go rescue her. This final journey is the longest, and ultimately the one that leads to the fiery climax of the novel.
Hasan rides magical steeds, including an Infrit named Danaash. The Ifrits are some of my favorite characters. They speak of things Hasan cannot understand, and indeed many in the story would be oblivious to. They speak of scientific things, which the reader will recognize but mostly just confuse the other characters. Then they have to water down their statement so the human can comprehend it. This is how they communicate with those who either don't know or don't want to know the truth, and is the ultimate irony to the reader. As generations would go on, these truths would become well known, but for the purposes of the story, they matter very little; the mythology aspect is rarely played down, as from Hasan's point of view there is little other explanation.
Hasan meets Shawahi, an old Amazon woman. He tells her of his quest, to reclaim his lost wife and sons, who were kept at the isle of Wak- she sympathizes and vows her aid in taking him to Wak. She helps him avoid discovery by the other Amazons, who are all dressed for battle. These women will make a strong appearance later in the novel.
At last Shawahi and Hasan reach the city of the Queen of Wak. The Queen, whom Shawahi helped raise, educate and train her family, vows to assist Hasan finding his wife. This is before Shawahi reveals Hasan's identity. Every woman in the city is brought before Hasan, and he may choose any of them for his wife; but he does not find Sana. When he lays eyes on the Queen, he recognizes her as Sana, the most beautiful woman on earth. She strongly denies this, and Hasan receives torture at her hand. Turns out, the Queen is Sana's older sister, and virtually identical, except for age. When the Queen finds out Sana had married a mere merchant, Shawahi and Sana are beaten as well. It is revealed that the Queen had burned Sana's feather suit so that she could not return to Hasan; she had wished to return to him but was effectively hostage of her sister.
A short encounter, seemingly unrelated at the time, has a huge bearing on the last part of the novel. Hasan finds two twin boys fighting. They are sons of a great enchanter, who died and left them two relics. One was a cap, which bestowed invisibility to those who wear it. The other is a rod that when struck upon the ground, summons forth the seven Kings of the Jinn to command. Both boys want the rod over the cap. Hasan throws a stone over the hill, and suggests that whoever retrieves it first shall have the rod, the other the cap. After the boys run off, he puts on the cap, from pure curiosity and temptation. When the boys return he learns that its power is real, and steals it for himself. He makes off with the rod as well, leaving the twins empty-handed.
Using the cap, he rescues Sana, their sons, and Shawahi. The Queen pursues the escapees in force. Hasan uses the rod to summon the Kings of the Jinn; after learning about their many restrictions, the limits of their power, he commands them to muster a force of Ifrits and Jinn to fight off the coming hordes. This takes place at the foot of a volcano in Wak, which seems to Hasan an ordinary mountain. After a day of battle, it seems they are victorious. Though many Ifrits are slain, the enemy forces are weak. The Amazon army then strikes, having been kept in the Queen's reserve.
Hasan, curious about the mountain, inquires Dasaan about it. At first the Ifrit tries to explain how a volcano works, but Hasan having no knowledge of such geology does not understand. As Dasaan puts it in his second explanation, a Marid sleeps within the mountain, his name Magma. Through the chaos of the Amazon assault, Sana and Hasan send their children back home only having one horse. Hasan commands Dasaan to wake the Marid by throwing a rock into the volcano. This he does, and soon the valley is in a cacophony of destruction, wiping out most of the Amazons, Ifrits, and Jinn still on the battlefield. The Queen survives and is remorseful toward those she tortured afterward; she is spared by Hasan.
Hasan breaks the rod over his knee, releasing the three remaining Kings of the Jinn, who were once seven. The forces of the Jinn were severely weakened by this battle- perhaps events like this are responsible for the weakening of magic in the human world?
All in all, a great sweeping journey. True to the Thousand-and-One-Nights, there are many nested stories within this novel, short episodes within the story that consist of a story of their own. Well-told and well informed, Piers Anthony has imparted the tale well, injecting a little more detail to the stories without getting too realistic. Great quick read for those who love Thousand and One Nights, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and that sort of thing.
Tales within tales...
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