The Oceans of Cruelty: Twenty-Five Tales of a Corpse-Spirit: A Retelling

One of the oldest books in the world, The Oceans of Cruelty is a sequence of twenty-five tales from India whose central theme is the dark power of storytelling. At the start, a young king falls into the hands of a wicked sorcerer, who orders him to find a vetala, or corpse spirit, to serve him; the young king must do as he is told, and soon enough he is also under the sway of the no less malevolent spirit. Like a bat, the spirit hangs from the branches of a tree, and the king is condemned to bear it on his back through a dark forest as it whispers a riddling story in his ear. These are tales of suicidal passion, clever deceit, patriarchal oppression, and narrow escapes from death, and as long as the king can resolve the problems they pose, his bondage continues; the vampiric creature goes on commanding his attention in the dark. Only when the king is out of answers will he at last be free, though when that comes to pass--well, that's when the whole story takes a new turn.

Douglas Penick's re-creation of this ancient work brings out all its humor and horror and vitality, as well its unmistakable relevance in a world of stories gone viral.

Author: Douglas J. Penick
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 10/01/2024
Pages: 184
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.90h x 4.90w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9781681377667
ISBN10: 1681377667
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
- Fiction | Adaptations & Pastiche
- Fiction | Literary

About the Author
Douglas J. Penick is the author of a wide range of verse and prose: libretti for opera (performed at the Munich and Santa Fe operas), text for documentaries (including The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life, narrated by Leonard Cohen), renditions of three episodes from the Gesar of Ling epic, and short pieces that have appeared in Tricycle, Berfrois, Parabola, Chicago Quarterly Review, Agni Review, Kyoto Journal, Cahiers de l'Herne, and other outlets. Among his books are the novel Journey of the North Star, about the Yongle emperor; a translation (with Charles Ré) of Pascal Quignard's A Terrace in Rome; and The Age of Waiting, an exploration of aging amid ecological collapse. In the spring of 2025 he will publish Winter Light, essays on old age, loss, and discovery.