



The Oceans of Cruelty: Twenty-Five Tales of a Corpse-Spirit
A Retelling
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Penick (Journey of the North Star) offers an elegant retelling of the Vetala Panchavimshati, or 25 tales of betrayal, an eerie 11th-century Sanskrit collection. The stories feature brutal King Vikramaditya and a demon spirit known as a vetala, whom Penick calls Corpse-Spirit. Like Scheherazade, the corpse-spirit ensnares the king with his stories, which he relates in a whisper and which have the flavor of fairy tales seasoned with horror. Most involve kings, who come across as thinly veiled cautionary examples for Vikramaditya to follow. In "Wise Birds," kindly King Rupasena walls in his city only to find that doing so doesn't protect him from thieves. In "Transposed Heads," King Dharmasila's plan for securing an heir takes a tragic turn. In "Beauty," the lovely Unmadini fulfills her spousal duty by walking into a burning pyre after her husband betrays her king. An extra layer of creepiness is provided by the story's setting, a dark forest haunted by unsettling sounds and fierce winds. Penick's introduction illuminates the collection's history and his creative process for the project, which he likens to "painting a mural, moving from large underpainted volumes to ever smaller details." The highlight is the memorable corpse-spirit, which materializes at will like a nightmare to bedevil the king. This is worth seeking out.