One Aladdin Two Lamps

(by Jeanette Winterson)

This book is partly a memoir, partly a work of literary criticism, partly a reflection on the world and its problems, and partly a retelling of some of the stories from One Thousand and One Nights. I think the retellings were my favorite aspect of the book, though there were other things I liked as well. A lot of this book is about how stories work and how they can change us; if you read Winterson’s memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, the parts about how books expanded her world and changed her life will be familiar (not in a bad way!). I like Winterson’s descriptions of the character of Shahrazad and the structure of the Nights, with “every story opening into another story.” I like how Winterson talks about the stories in the Nights as “tales of chance, mischance, second chances, good luck and bad,” where “chance encounters with others” are always key to what happens next. And I really like what Winterson writes about noticing/seeing, how encounters with art can make us stop and really see something in ways we may not always, and how love does the same thing, and how those acts of noticing/seeing can get us out of mental ruts and open us up to possibility, and how stories, too, open us up, because through them “we can imagine other outcomes.”