THE KING'S CONTEST: And Other North African Tales
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Similar tales may wag in Arabia, but they droop in North America. The ingredients are all there-- princesses, sultan, camels, caravans, etc. -- but the desert sands have lost their salt in translation. Most of the stories are parables in keeping with the universal moralities: in ""The Boy Without a Name"" it is found that ""A man can fight better for justice than for anything else""; in the somewhat more intriguing account of ""The Disappearing Mule"" is the warning question, ""Beware how you insult your parents! Do you want to turn into a mule?""; and the highlight of the collection is The False Friend in which the hero, Ali, saves in order, ""Boy"", ""Rat"" and ""Scorpion"" from desert death only to be slandered by you-know-who and saved by you-know-what: ""The King's Contest"" is a total loss; ""The Girl Who Lived With The Lion"" chickens out, and the rest are indiscriminate.