The novel Chimera is divided into three seemingly independent stories, each having another name.
The first part is entitled Dunyazaidiad and it is the name given to Scheherazade’s presupposed sister. The first story recreates the story of Scheherazade from One Hundred and One Nights; the story begins with the two sisters talking. Scheherazade is praised for her talent of telling stories and stopping them at the right moment. While her sister praises her, Scheherazade tells her that she is forced to do so, fearing that if she one day will remain without stories to tell, the King will kill her.
The story then presents the efforts of an eminent girl, Scheherazade, to stop the King from killing a virgin every night. Scheherazade first analyzed the political context but soon realized that he the King had absolute power and there was no possibility of taking that power away from him. Next, she analyzed the problem from a psychological perspective but she found no answer. Then, she turned to magic and reached the conclusion that the only place where one could find some kind of magic is inside words and so Scheherazade became obsessed with letters.
Suddenly, a genie appears and the girls are astonished to see that the genie that appeared in front of them was the complete opposite of what they expected it to be. The man before them was a middle age man, tall and with unusual clothes and claiming to come from a distant land and time, unsure whether the girls were reality or a dream and whether he will be able to help them or not because according to him, he was stuck and was no longer able to create. The genie gave Scheherazade the idea of writing stories but the girl told the genie that the only stories she knows are the ones that everybody knows. The genie expresses his adoration for her and he confessed that he felt in love with her after reading 1001 Nights. After that, every work of fiction was always eclipsed by the stories told by Scheherazade.
Scheherazade tells the genie that she thought of telling the King stories each night and leaving them unfinished to stop the King from killing her but gave up on the idea believing that she won’t be able to do it. Scheherazade asks the genie whether he remembers the stories from the book but he tells her that he doesn’t. The genie began to slowly disappear but both he and Scheherazade said the magic words and they were able to see each other again. The genie then told her that he was able to see the title of the first story and agreed to meet every day to tell her the next story and help her. Scheherazade asked him what he wants in return but the genie refused to accept anything. Scheherazade even offered herself but the genie refused, saying that he now lives with one of his friends whom he loves and he has no desire for concubines or slaves. The girls then bid goodbye to the genie and wished that all his dreams may come true.
The next day, Scheherazade expressed her wish to go to the King and Dunyazaidiad offered to go as well. That night, the King takes her virginity and after that, Dunyazaidiad asks her sister to tell her a story. The King becomes intrigued hearing her story and lets her live another day. The next day, Scheherazade talks once more with the genie who urges Scheherazade to try and find some pleasure in her relationship with the King, as to make thing easier for her, but Scheherazade claims that she will never be able to do that. Years passed and Scheherazade became pregnant and bore the King three children. The genie also got married and he began to work on three novellas that will become his masterpiece.
One day, the genie tells the sisters that he has no more stories to tell and thus Scheherazade must become the one who will invent new ones. Scheherazade becomes desperate, telling the genie that she will ever be able to do that. The genie then tells Scheherazade that she will have to plead the King to spare her life for the sake of her children if she will not be able to tell him other stories. The genie then disappears, telling them that the novels written by him will have Scheherazade’s sister as the main character.
That night, Scheherazade did what the genie instructed her to do and the King proposed to her. What is more, it was decided that Dunyazaidiad will marry his brother. Dunyazaidiad became scared but Scheherazade assured her sister that she will help her. Scheherazade instructed her sister than on her wedding night, just before the King’s brother takes her, to plead him to let her spend some time with her sister. Then only, Scheherazade will tell Dunyazaidiad what they will do next.
The wedding night arrived and Dunyazaidiad did exactly what her sister told her to do. Then, when Scheherazade and Dunyazaidiad were left alone in their room, Scheherazade told her sister what they must do next. Scheherazade told Dunyazaidiad to let her husband fondle her and then, when he will want to have sex with her, to convince him to let her strap him to his bed. Then, she will take the knife out of her robe and kill him. Scheherazade told Dunyazaidiad that she will do the same and then they will have to kill themselves too.
Scheherazade left and Dunyazaidiad’s husband came in. Dunyazaidiad persuaded him to let himself be tied to a bed but when she reached for her knife, she lost her courage. Two men appeared from under a screen but the King told them to go away. Then, he persuaded Dunyazaidiad to listen to his story and after hearing it, she will be able to kill him should she want it.
The King then told her about his first wife and how he loved her more than anything. Then, one day when he wanted to pay a visit to his brother, he returned home unexpectedly to find her in bed with another man. The King killed her on the spot and then later found out that his brother’s wife was also cheating on him so they both went away for a while. While they were away, they meet the girl whose story appears in the beginning of the first part and he and his brother vowed to kill and rape every night a virgin as a way to avenge the fact that they were deceived by a women.
The King returned home and he told his Vizier to bring him a young virgin. The Vizier brought his own daughter who was in love with the King and who accepted her fate even after the King told her what he plans to do. But the King was unable to have sex with her so they continued to try for seven days, the King not wanting to kill her while she was still a virgin.
After a week, the King and the girl had sexual intercourse and they both knew that the King will have to kill her to keep his promise. But the King was unable to do so, as he felt in love with her so he kept her hidden for a while. But the King became restless, fearing that his brother may one day find out that he did not killed the girl so the woman came up with a plan; the King will take a virgin every night and sleep with her, but instead of killing her, he will send her to a secret place where she will be able to continue living. She will go there too and will live in exile with the rest of the women.
The King continued to do this for a many years and he suspected that maybe the women returned but he didn’t want to know for sure. The King ends his story by telling Dunyazaidiad that what he wants is to be loved and they could try and live in harmony for the rest of their lives. He King also assures Dunyazaidiad that her sister may be still alive and they could all continue living.
The story of Dunyazaidiad ends with the genie thinking about the two sisters. In his mind, the two sisters gave up their plan to kill their husbands and lived happily ever after together. However, it is hard to determine if this really happened as Dunyazaidiad ends her story before revealing the end of it.
The next story is that of Perseus, the man who killed Medusa in the Greek mythology.
Perseus wakes one day in heavens, with a nymph with him, worshiping him and calling him a God. Perseus begins then to talk about his life and heritage. Perseus is the child of the God Zeus and a human woman, Danae, the daughter of a human King. Danae was imprisoned by her father because it was said that Danae’s son will one day overthrown him. Zeus however managed to impregnate Danae by coming to her in the form of a golden shower. Not wanting to enrage the Gods, the King put his daughter and her son in a wooden chest and threw them into the sea. Danae and Perseus were saved by Dictys, a fisherman who also raised Perseus.
Dictys’ brother, Polydectes was the King of the island and he felt in love with Danae but Perseus was against the marriage. Polydesctes send Perseus to kill Medusa, hoping that he will get rid of him. Athena helps Perseus by telling him where he can find the weapons which he can use to kill Medusa. Perseus gathers the weapons and the story stops here for a while and the action returns to the present where the nymph Calyxa tries to make Perseus have sexual relationships with her but is unable to do so.
Perseus killed Medusa and then he returned the things he borrowed to kill her. Time passed and Perseus aged and he felt death approaching. Knowing this, he began to look for a way to become immortal. Athena helped him once more and gave him the instructions he needed, telling him that he needs to seek the Graeaes once more and ask for their help.
Perseus searched for them but instead of asking for help, he demanded it and the Graeae threw him into the lake. Perseus was saved by a nymph who told him that he should listen to what his sister told him and helped him return to shore where he gave the Graeae what they asked for. But the Graeae could not help him so Perseus got into the lake again with the intention of drowning himself only to be saved by the same nymph once more. The nymph was Medusa herself, brought back to life by Athena.
Medusa had over her head a bag, so no one could see her face. She now had the power to make someone young again, but the moment that person would see her face, she would became a Gorgon again and lose all her beauty. She would remain beautiful only if the man was her true love and then they would spend the rest of their life together. But there was also the possibility that she was still a Gorgon and that the man who looked at her would be petrified.
The pair remained together for a while and one day Perseus woke up to find that Medusa disappeared.
Perseus continued to spend time with Calyxa who told him that he wasn’t dead and that Medusa brought him to the temple. She also told him that Andromeda left him so Perseus left to look for her.
He arrived at Cepheus’s court who told him that Andromeda is in the hall so Perseus goes to find her. Andromeda puts her new lover and other men to kill him but Perseus kills them quickly. Cepheus kills himself when he realizes that he lost and his wife was also killed and Andromeda begs Perseus to kill her too since everyone she knew and loved was dead but Perseus refused to kill her.
Medusa appeared in the hall and Perseus went and killed her. Because he saw her, he was transformed into a constellation and put into the sky. All the other characters were put in the sky too as constellations or part of other constellations.
The last story is entitled Bellerophoniad and just like the previous story, it reimagines the classic story of a Greek hero named Bellerophon.
Just like in Perseus’s case, the story begins when Bellerophon is already a grown man. Bellerophon remember his heroic actions and how he slayed the Chimera with the help of the winged horse Pegasus. After he finished his task, he began to live a quiet life, getting married and having children which he raised and to whom he told his great story.
But just like Perseus, Bellerophon became unsatisfied with the quiet life he had and began to wish for more excitement. He decides to fly to mount Olympus, believing that he proved himself worthy to be a God. But Bellerophon soon realizes that Pegasus does not fly as high as he used to and thus his dreams of reaching Olympus are shattered when he crashes on the ground while Pegasus continues to fly towards the mountain of the Gods.
The last part of the story is unique because it combines multiple narrative voices and the author himself gets involved. Just as the novel is a Chimera in the sense that it is a combination of more stories, the last part is a separate Chimera because of the different narrative voices.
