‘Moroccan Nights’ tales

Press, 10 May 1980, Page 17

‘Moroccan Nights’ tales

In the Lap of Atlas. By Richard Hughes. Chatto and Windus, 1979. 124 pp. $15.95. (Reviewed by William Shepard) In this book the author of “A High Wind in /Jamaica” and other novels retells stories he heard, most probably from a servant named Hamed, in Morocco about 1930. The 14 stories have an “Arabian Nights” quality to them and will amply repay in enjoyment the few hours it takes to read them. Having received this book for review because of my interest in things Arab and Islamic, and not because of any expertise in English literature, I must confess that I had never before read anything by Hughes. He now has a place on my reading agenda, however, for if these stbries are typical of his work, be is surely a master story teller. It is for the sheer pleasure of a tale well told that they should be read, although there are also lessons to be learned both about life in Morocco and life in general. Each reader will undoubtedly have his favourites among

them: mine is “The Fool and the Fifteen Thieves,” in the classic model of the “fool” who outwits everyone else. The story of “Judah ben Hassan” has a nice twist at the end that the women’s liberationists may enjoy. Perhaps the most haunting and thought-provoking is the story of the harsh mountain ruler told in “A Woman to Talk To.” the one story that is almost certainly Hughes’s own creation. The introduction by the editor, Richard Poole, helps to set the stories in the context of Hughes’s life but, I believe, should be read after the stories rather than before, for the stories should first speak to the reader on their own. The discerning reader will also learn something of Moroccan folkways provided he remembers two things: first, that there may be almost as much of Hughes as of Moroccan tradition in the stories, and second, that the Morocco they record has changed immensely in the 50 years since Hughes heard them. At $15.95 this slim volume would seem quite expensive, but perhaps it has an answer even for that, in the form of “The Vizier’s Razor,” the story of a Sultan who paid a hundred pieces of gold for a single wise saying, and by it eventually saved his life. I doubt if this book will save your life, but it certainly will give some enjoyable reading.