Tales-within-tales

For a 'travel' book, Tahir Shah's latest offering begins rather dramatically, with the author locked up in the torture room of a Pakistani prison. Spending a week facing second-degree interrogation and solitary confinement, he begins to reminisce about the "life that has been separated" from him.

Thus begins the narrative, which seems at first to be a mere continuation of the basic theme of his last book, i.e., Shah's love (fixation) for his house in Morocco, with much fond description of its interiors and exteriors, peppered as usual with local colour and homilies. But In Arabian Nights is really about stories. It's about stories in particular, like the formative ones told by Idries Shah, the author's illustrious father, or The Thousand and One Arabian Nights, whose framing device is in fact used here by Shah, though not with total success. More importantly, however, Shah's book is about stories in general &mdash what they are, how they work, and why we must have them. To answer these questions, he looks at his adopted home, Morocco, through the lens of its strong and ancient story-telling tradition and ends up discovering a whole new civilisation, otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Shah also embarks upon the traditional Berber life-quest to find "the story in his heart", which takes him to the maze-like bazaars of Marrakech and Fez, via the riotous streets of Tangiers, and comes to a close in the Southern Sahara.

The writing itself is par for the course, never edgy or exceptional. The supporting cast, including sundry servants, an exorcist, a sorceress, a blind story-teller and a Tuareg tribesman, are not etched sharply enough for a connect with the reader. Those of you who've read Shah's immensely interesting Sorcerer's Apprentice will find yourself missing Hakim Feroze very sorely at times. The tales-within-tales and the assorted anecdotes in themselves are fine, but Shah's own philosophising about stories gets a bit hackneyed on occasion, such as when he compares them to peaches.

All in all, In Arabian Nights is standard travel writing with all the tropes, a lot of quaint exotica and even though one wouldn't go so far as to call it a caravan of Moroccan ramblings, it definitely does ramble.