{"product_id":"stranger-magic-charmed-states-and-the-arabian-nights-9780674725850","title":"Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights","description":"\u003cp\u003eOur foremost theorist of myth, fairytales, and folktales explores the magical realm of the imagination where carpets fly, objects speak, dreams reveal hidden truths, and genies grant prophetic wishes. \u003ci\u003eStranger Magic\u003c\/i\u003e examines the wondrous tales of the \u003ci\u003eArabian Nights, \u003c\/i\u003e their profound impact on the West, and the progressive exoticization of magic since the eighteenth century, when the first European translations appeared. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eNights\u003c\/i\u003e seized European readers' imaginations during the si cle des Lumi res, inspiring imitations, spoofs, turqueries, extravaganzas, pantomimes, and mauresque tastes in dress and furniture. Writers from Voltaire to Goethe to Borges, filmmakers from Raoul Walsh on, and countless authors of children's books have adapted its stories. What gives these tales their enduring power to bring pleasure to readers and audiences? Their appeal, Marina Warner suggests, lies in how the stories' magic stimulates the creative activity of the imagination. Their popularity during the Enlightenment was no accident: dreams, projections, and fantasies are essential to making the leap beyond the frontiers of accepted knowledge into new scientific and literary spheres. The magical tradition, so long disavowed by Western rationality, underlies modernity's most characteristic developments, including the charmed states of brand-name luxury goods, paper money, and psychoanalytic dream interpretation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn Warner's hands, the \u003ci\u003eNights\u003c\/i\u003e reveal the underappreciated cultural exchanges between East and West, Islam and Christianity, and cast light on the magical underpinnings of contemporary experience, where mythical principles, as distinct from religious belief, enjoy growing acceptance. These tales meet the need for enchantment, in the safe guise of oriental costume.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Belknap Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/18\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780674725850\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 560\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.78lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.30h x 6.13w x 1.45d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/08\/2013 pg. 82\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/20\/2014 pg. 37\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Marina Warner","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42935500603573,"sku":"9780674725850","price":22.1,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_c7d720a0-eb30-4e1c-81a3-6fd9fe3e2e40.jpg?v=1688488459","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/stranger-magic-charmed-states-and-the-arabian-nights-9780674725850","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}