Review: 'One Aladdin, Two Lamps' by Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson has been on my radar for decades at this point and when I saw One Aladdin, Two Lamps I was super intrigued by its concept. It is a very personal book, bound to hold some opinions not everyone agrees with, but I find Winterson's insight into the art of storytelling fascinating. Thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 20/01/2025
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

I can change the story because I am the story.

A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights to explore new and ancient questions. Who should we trust? Is love the most important thing in the world? Does it matter whether you are honest? What makes us happy?

In her guise as Aladdin—the orphan who changes his world—Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know. To look again. Especially to look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realizes through the power of books that she can read herself as fiction as well as a fact: “I can change the story because I am the story.”

An alluring blend of the ancient and the contemporary, One Aladdin Two Lamps ingeniously explores stories and their vital role in our lives. Weaving together fiction, magic, and memoir, Winterson’s newest is a tribute to the age-old tradition of storytelling and a radical step into the future—an invitation to look closer at our stories, and thereby ourselves, to imagine the world anew.

One Aladdin, Two Lamps is a fascinating kind of memoir in which Jeanette Winterson takes One Thousand and One Nights, or Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, and uses its form of storytelling to dive deeper not just into her own life but also into what stories can do. In Alf Laylah, Shahrazad (not Scheherazade) saves her own life and that of countless other young women and girls by spinning story after story for a thousand and one nights to the cruel king Shahryar. Duped by his first wife, Sharyar is taking out his male rage on women across the land, killing a new virginal bride each morning. Shahrazad volunteers for the marriage and ends each morning on a cliffhanger, convincing her murderous husband to wait one more day. Within this framework, countless of stories, gathered from across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa are then told. In One Aladdin, Two Lamps, Winterson meets Shahrazad where she is, fearing for her life but with a story to tell, and from there spins out both her own life story and the power of how stories operate in Alf Laylah. It has been a while since I've had the pleasure of sitting in a lecture hall and have someone passionately introduce me to a work of literature. One Aladdin felt like being a student again, in all the best ways, as Winterson's love for Alf Laylah but also for storytelling in general comes through on every page. Winterson is effortless in how she reaches for references to other books, thoughts, and ideas and it was an absolute joy to be let in on.

I can't really provide the usual kind of summary of the book here, in part because it's a memoir, a retelling of Alf Laylah, and social commentary. Attempting to sort through it would be a nightmare for me, but would also strip the book of its complexity and process. One Aladdin, Two Lamps is about stories, about those we tell, about who gets to tell them, about which ones have been told and which we can maybe try to change. It is about women, both those in stories and those in real life, about their struggles and about their achievements. The book is about class, about feminism, and about our current hellscape. Winterson is, or at least was at the time of writing the book, a bit more optimistic about AI than I am. I can see what Winterson is aiming for, though, I just don't see it happening myself.  I found the insights Winterson gave into her own life and thoughts very interesting, as a woman and a lesbian in the mid to late twentieth century, the role feminism played in her life, her childhood, poverty and class, and, always, the power of a good story. Again, not everything about Winterson and her life will align with the experiences and ideas of all readers, but there is incredible value to getting such a deep insight into someone else's thoughts and process.

Jeanette Winterson is a brilliant author, something which has been solidly established for a while now, but this was my first time in ages properly sitting down with her. What I loved about One Aladdin, is that it felt like having a direct conversation with Winterson. The style is very direct, almost like verbal communication, and yet there is an immense control over every single word. I'm not sure how to best explain it, but I can tell from how accessible and smooth the writing is that it takes a high level of craft and skill. As I said above, reading One Aladdin is like attending a lecture, except that it is also much more personal than any real academic lecture would be. I highlighted so many phrases throughout the book, both to look up a reference later and to have a lasting snapshot of some of her writing. In how direct and open her writing is, Winterson somehow cuts through all of the noise to get across some genuine truths. The book ends on something of a rallying cry for the power of reading and literature, for sitting down with a book and letting it work on you, on seeing the patterns in the stories and seeing where they take you, on freeing up the imagination. Just for those two or so chapters, this book is worth it, but the whole of One Aladdin is a worthwhile read.

I give this book...

5 Universes!

One Aladdin, Two Lamps is a beautiful exploration of what storytelling is for and why it is so important to us. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who is in need of an inspiring cri de coeur for literature and reading, as well as a thought-provoking discussion of our current times.