download the djinn in the nightingale's eye

Troubled by visions of her mortality and her husband's desertion, fiftyish Gillian buys a dirty but striking old glass bottle and takes it back to her hotel. Gillian Perholt, in Turkey to attend a conference on stories, is granted the chance to make three wishes, which all come true. But Byatt is at her best in the novella, about what happens when Dr.

And ``Dragon's Breath'' is a wry morality tale about the unsuspected ``true relations between peace and beauty and terror'' revealed when dragons destroy a village. ``The Story of the Eldest Princess'' is a witty reworking of the quest tale as well as a low-key analysis of the role of fate, choice, and character as a princess steps out of her preordained role in life to rescue her people. In ``Gode's Story,'' a young woman is true, while her feckless sailor lover betrays her, only to find his happiness with a new bride short-lived when he sees her among the Dead riding the ocean waves. ``The Glass Coffin'' reworks a traditional quest tale as a tailor seeking employment helps a stranger and, as a reward, is given a glass key and certain mystifying instructions to follow that lead him to a beautiful sleeping princess.

Byatt (Babel Tower, 1996, etc.) uses that parallel world of fairy tales-which closely resembles our own in motive, character, and outcome-to explore the sources of hope and imagination. Four short fairy tales with a contemporary edge, and one novella-length tale that brilliantly transforms a story of middle- age angst into a celebration of serendipity and sex.

Download the djinn in the nightingale's eye