Royals Behaving Badly, and the Unsolved Mystery of the Super-Secret, Super-Special Red Jewel

Now that I've gotten over my prejudices (to this story at least), I finished Qamar & his Two Sons and was satisfied with the happy ending.  The scene of blood-oaths among birds was just the beginning.  As the story caterwauls along in its merrily manic and cockamamie way, it demands ever more that the reader leave "reality" at the threshold of the page.

Princess Burdur may be a more fascinating character than any of the men portrayed in this story, but her star shines but briefly, and she fizzles out after she reveals her true identity.  Yes, what she does is nearly unforgivable, but I do forgive her because I have little empathy for Qamar, and because it was funny, ironic, and brilliant.  In the second installment of the story, where we (finally) meet the two sons, she goes even further off the deep end, but so too does the rest of the cast.  Qamar not only has been reunited with his lost love, Budur, but also takes to wife her wife, Princess Hayat al-Nufus.  The two sons are one of each born to the two women.  Once they grow to manhood, the mothers fall in love with the boy that is not their biological child.  They fall into the usual fits of love-sickness and send perfumed letters stuffed with hair ribbons to their objects of desire.  The boys, upon discovering the treachery of their father's wives, are angered and promptly kill the messengers by smiting off their heads.  Then Qamar discovers the treachery, and the women lie about their own sons in order to deflect blame, and Qamar, ever the dolt, believes his wives over his sons (even though we are constantly told women are treacherous and men are good), and decides the best course of resolution to this problem is to kill his sons.  As he is on his way to do so, he runs into his father-in-law who also deems Qamar's intentions as the most viable solution, and lauds his son-in-law for his most pious and honorable decision.  However, the king has a brilliant flash of insight and says to Qamar, "They are your sons in any event, and it is not proper for you to kill them with your own hand, lest you be tormented and regret killing them when regret will be to no avail.  But send them with one of the Mamluks to kill them in the desert, out of your sight" (275).  Profound and wise:  I guess that's why he's the king.  Let's take a moment here to reflect.  Forget the Jungian concept of twins, doubles, and mirrors; here we have a double whammy of a semi-incestuous mother-son love rectangle coupled with a father/grandfather murderous revenge twist.  Wow...talk about a Freudian heyday. 

Of course the boys escape death, but are banished to never return to their homeland, then ( of course) they are separated from one another.  Then (of course) they each find love through a labyrinth of plot twists.  One is kidnapped by a cult of abusive homosexuals who worship "the Fire," is taken out to sea, catches the eye of a powerful queen who stalks him to the ends of the earth and finally rescues him from his tormenters only to lose him yet again (though they are reunited and married in the end).  The other wanders the streets until he finds some random woman, who can only be described as a prostitute/dominatrix with a taste for the truly sadistic.  Not wanting her to know that he has no holdings in this city, they enter a random rich guy's house whereupon the owner comes home to them, and for no known reason other than cultural obligations of hospitality from one man to another, takes pity on whichever son it is in this adventure, and plays along with the lie.  The random woman beats the owner of the house severely, then commences to kill the man with a sword.  The prince, feeling pangs of obligation to his most hospitable host, takes the only recourse left him, and cuts off the woman's head.  As they're attempting to dispose of the body they are caught and brought before the king in a yet another scene in which the absurdity again causes me to laugh out loud:  "Damn you," the king shouts at the banished prince, "Do you always kill people and throw them in the sea and take all their possessions?  How many have you killed already?"  But the random rich guy goes to bat for the prince, and the prince is now made the king's vizier.  Hmm.

I think I have rambled on quite enough now, and I have barely scratched the surface.  In the end everybody is reunited with everybody else.  Even Qamar's father shows up on the scene.  But the one niggling loose end that I wanted tied up is the mystery of the weird red jewel in Budur's pants which started this whole ridiculous drama in the first place.  Why was it so special and secret with its mysterious color and engraving?  The world may never know.

"I will not hesitate to bitch-slap any wretched slave who dares to tell me anything other than what I want to hear!"

I would also like to add another element to our long list of periphery motifs for romance:  royals behaving badly.  There is always some kind of deceit employed to keep to plot moving which is oftentimes committed by someone in a position of power.  Of course, the deceit is just as likely to be carried out through lowly characters, but stories with royals behaving badly are a tad more interesting.

I've been struggling to write in this class.  I don't know what all to say about some of the stories because I feel that I'm merely parroting what others see and think.  For instance, in Qamar al-Zaman and His Two Sons, I immediately recognized what our modern society and culture would deem Biblical threads.  I instantly thought of Abraham and Isaac upon reading the first page.  As the story continues I see echoes of Jacob, with missing persons, torn clothes, and animal blood all pointing to apparent death and foreshadowing a future parable of recognition, where a game will be played and a lesson taught.  And let's not forget that these two are obviously foils representing the two sides of one entity, hence the prevalent theme of twins found in so many of these stories.  And so I must say to myself:  "Big deal--everybody else can see that as well." 

But that wasn't enough to incur the hostility I first felt in reading this story, and I was at a loss to explain what exactly I found so overwhelmingly vexing about this particular tale.  Then in Monday's class it dawned on me.  The epiphany came while listening to the reaction of the random blogger that Dr. Sexson read in class.  I couldn't stand the character of Qamar al-Zaman.  I mean what a perfectly terrific moron, and I respected his father even less.  It was no wonder that Qamar turned out to be so dumb considering that the fig generally doesn't fall too far from the tree.  I also hate the descriptions of his hips.  In what universe are wide, curvy hips considered a desirable male attribute?  That blogger was right:  Princess Budur is way more interesting than her mentally addled prince.  But this shouldn't prevent me from enjoying the story and coming up with great insights like my fellow class mates had done.  So what if Qamar is a first-class moron?  That fact should serve to enhance the story, not take away from it.  After all, there would be no story if the dumb-ass hadn't chased after the bird that snatched the mysterious red jewel he'd been holding after snooping through his wife's pants while she slept.  If not for this event, there would have been no separation, and no reason to incorporate a cross-dressing Princess Budur into the adventure. And without this separation there would be no scene of recognition between the idiot prince and his wife the king.  And without all this, there would be no reason to insert the wretchedly hilarious verses of hardcore gay pornography that made Qamar cry like the spoiled little bitch he is.

I decided that I must change my lens, open my mind, and just let myself enjoy the whimsy of this ridiculous tale.  It worked.  For instance, the scene where one bird murders the bird who initially stole the red jewel, and then this death is avenged by two other birds after they have dug a grave for their fallen comrade.  It's just too much, but if I were telling stories to save my own life I guess that I would also (to borrow James' words) "go bat-shit crazy with it."  It was so over the top that I found myself laughing out loud, and... it was wonderful.  I think the generalization that people who read highbrow literature also read lowbrow literature (but not the other way around) is true.  I absolutely do read lowbrow literature and watch lowbrow TV; and if the ancient Muslim royals knew raunchy gay porn well enough to cite it while mentally torturing the people they love, this must mean that they too loved lowbrow stuff.  I can take a cue from them and change my shoes every once in a while.