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The Oceans of Cruelty

The Oceans of Cruelty

Twenty-Five Tales of a Corpse-Spirit

A Retelling by Douglas J. Penick

$17.95
$17.95
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The October 2024 selection of the NYRB Classics Book Club

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.

Additional Book Information

Series: NYRB Classics
ISBN: 9781681377667
Pages: 184
Publication Date:

Praise

It's believed to be one of the oldest story collections in existence, recorded in Hindi a thousand years ago, but with haunting origins that are even more ancient. […The book] reminds us of 'human propensities whose lasting power we may prefer to ignore.' Imagine One Thousand and One Nights, as told not by a young woman but by a vetala, a demon whose 'whisper is like the crackling sound of a burning house.'
—Alida Becker, The New York Times Book Review

The Oceans of Cruelty is a recursive spiral weaving tales from tales, combining ancient strands of horror and beauty, brutality and mercy, duty and desire. Penick's fleet and lyrical retelling draws us back irresistibly into the shimmering abyss of our collective pre-history.
—Daniil Leiderman, Faculty of Game Design and Art History, Texas A&M

Penick offers an elegant retelling of the Vetala Panchavimshati, or 25 tales of betrayal, an eerie 11th-century Sanskrit collection … The highlight is the memorable corpse-spirit, which materializes at will like a nightmare to bedevil the king. This is worth seeking out.
—Publishers Weekly

In these twenty-five magnificent tales from an almost unremembered time, our normal human passions appear magnified before us in splendid horror. Each is a tangly vine ensnaring and twisting the lives of ordinary people, warriors, yogis, princesses, and kings into shapes appalling and unforeseen. You might love it!
—Kidder Smith, Director of Asian Studies, Bowdoin College

With his mesmerizing recreation of these stories of the Vetāla, Douglas Penick takes part in one of South Asian literature’s most enduring practices: to tell stories again and again, in different languages, from differing cultural and religious perspectives. With its lyrical prose, his haunting rendition of the stories offers contemporary readers a version both personal and universal in its appeal.
—Phyllis Granoff, Professor Emerita, Indian Studies, Yale University

Douglas Penick's retelling of this ancient story cycle is brilliant, and irresistible. We are given the mythic backstory of the whole, and it breathes new depth into the tale of King and Corpse. The book's end provides fresh insight into the meaning of the whole. The writing is breathtaking. Words leap off the page rendering the written world as alive as a story told. Profound meanings surface with wild humor and emotion. Beware! You will find yourself in direct confrontation with your own mind as your heart breaks open.
—Laura Simms, author of Our Secret Territory: The Secret of Storytelling

In Penick’s rendering, the vetala is at once without substance and substantial… So, too, are the stories the corpse spirit tells the king. These ancient fables skim the surface of characters and places, blurring into one another as they accumulate, a repetition of lustful monarchs, forlorn princesses, handsome Brahmins, ambitious merchants and all-powerful deities who appear when summoned by the ultimate sacrifices.
— Kanishk Tharoor The Washington Post

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