{"id":3721,"date":"2017-10-24T23:16:29","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T17:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fableandi.com\/?p=3721"},"modified":"2020-05-20T10:01:08","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T04:31:08","slug":"one-hundred-nights-hero-isabel-greenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/one-hundred-nights-hero-isabel-greenberg\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons to Read \u2018The One Hundred Nights of Hero’ by Isabel Greenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Isabel Greenberg takes the familiar theme of Arabian Nights and spins it into a story of her own. A major portion of One Hundred Nights of Hero<\/em> is set in the Empire of Migdal Bavel. Cherry is love with her maid, Hero, but is married to Jerome. Jerome is an insensitive man who strikes a bet with his friend Manfred on how pure and innocent Cherry is. According to the terms of the wager, if Manfred can seduce Cherry in one hundred nights, he can claim Jerome\u2019s castle and wife for himself.\u00a0 Hero, a member of the League of Secret Story Tellers, consoles Cherry and they make a plan to distract Manfred by narrating stories each night for 100 nights.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I love the word play that Isabel Greenberg uses here \u2013 the woman who tells stories as a silent rebellion is named \u2018Hero\u2019! Hero\u2019s stories are fanciful, imaginative and tinged with love, betrayal, femininity and oppression. More reasons? Here you go:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yes!! I want to shout this out from rooftops that all the main characters are women and they all touch your heart, be it as minor characters or main characters. God is a woman. Moon is a woman. The story tellers are women. And female friendships are valued throughout the book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The art is simply splendid. Greenberg alternates between a minimal palette of black and white to strips with a single dominant colour. This really sets the mood of each portion of the book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Though there aren\u2019t one hundred stories in the book, there are a lot of them. We start with the story of creation which was fantastic and instantly won my heart. After that we move on to stories told by Hero, some of which are just stories and some are true stories of her ancestors; some are familiar (like the story of the dancing princesses) and some are new.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Women were not allowed to read or write. There is a story of five sisters whose mother passed on a \u2018sinful and wicked skill to them<\/em>\u2026 which was absolutely verboten for women in the Empire of Migdal Bavel to practice\u2026But the sisters read and wrote in ink, charcoal, mud paint and pencil and they were not sorry<\/em>.\u2019 Needless to say, their story does not have a happy ending. Women were forced to be docile and answerable to men but some of them indulged in the luxuries of reading and writing that slowly led to the formation of \u2018a secret society of story tellers.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Beneath the sturdy exterior of a nice story, this book makes us think about how women were (are?) not given the same rights as men, how they struggled and fought, how they formed secret groups as an act of rebellion. Remember the protests for the right to vote, wage gap, rise of women writers in literature and many other milestones? You can find glimpses of all of them in Hero\u2019s stories. There are stories that allude to the faint lines that overlap beliefs and the regimental structure of religion. By the end of the book, Hero and her ancestors\u00a0 are synonymous for the women who have laid down their lives so that we (by we, I mean women specifically) can stand as equals to men. The book also touches on themes of how women and men perceive the world differently and makes the reader grieve for the martyrs in the book.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\nA MUST READ book spilling with stories that need to be heard <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n <\/p>\n One Hundred Nights of Hero<\/em> is surely an investment for your bookshelves. Feminist themes, beautiful art work and captivating stories are capsuled within these nights. The characters are guaranteed to make you laugh, giggle and weep. We still have a long way to go. But there are many Heros in different names fighting battles, silent and otherwise, for the rest of us. And there are \u2018Hero(s)\u2019 in all of us. Never forget your stories. Remember them; tell them. Isabel Greenberg seems to whisper that we are all members of the League of Secret Story Tellers through her novel.<\/p>\n Read this book as soon as possible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Title : The One Hundred Nights of Hero Pin for Later<\/strong><\/p>\n1. A Woman-Centric Feminist Graphic Novel<\/h3>\n
2. Gorgeous art by Isabel Greenberg<\/h3>\n
3. Fantastic Stories of Women and by Women<\/h3>\n
4. Sisters and Words in One Hundred Nights of Hero<\/em><\/h3>\n
5. This feminist graphic novel Smashes Patriarchy<\/h3>\n
Final Verdict<\/h3>\n
\nAuthor : Isabel Greenberg
\nPublisher : Jonathan Cape
\nPublication: 2016
\nLanguage : English
\nPages : 224
\nRating : 5\/5<\/p>\n