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Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance, The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Shahrazad, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Shahrazad always withheld the ending- A thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever. This volume reproduces the 1932 Modern Library edition, for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton's multivolume translation, and includes Burton's extensive and acclaimed explanatory notes. These tales, including Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, have entered into the popular imagination, demonstrating that Shahrazad's spell remains unbroken.… (more)
User reviews
I do have one major complaint with Burton's work, though: he hasn't paragraphed at all. As a result, this book is a very slow read. It doesn't flow nearly as well as it should, and it's difficult to stop in the middle of what are sometimes very long stories. Still, the mass market paperback edition is very reasonably priced, and it's a rewarding collection if you can manage to wade through it.
There are a number of other translations of these stories, with varying amounts of liberties taken with the content (western-isms introduced, raunchier parts bowdlerized,
Richard Burton (not the actor) includes extensive footnotes comprising nearly a quarter the length of the stories themselves, some running on for several pages apiece. These footnotes explain metaphors, context, the translators own experiences in the East, etc. The best of these footnotes were illuminating and informative and really added to the experience; the worst are catty criticisms of previous translators. At first I read them thoroughly, but halfway through I took to skimming those that were going on at length about precise derivations of the original Arabic words.
Note: A couple vague spoilers follow.
The stories ranged from the fantastic to the meandering. The book starts off strong, with a racy story about how the King and his brother got into the whole marry-for-a-night, kill-her-in-the-morning thing, and how Shahrazade and her sister decided to risk their lives to stop the King through quality storytelling.
She then launches into stories, many of which contain other stories (which occasionally contain OTHER stories) in a web of narration with each tale leaping into the next. Sometimes the flow is natural, such as "which reminds me of the tale of..." (a story related in theme) but other times it's a blatant non-sequitur, such as "They also tell of..." (completely non-related tale).
Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves is here, complete with the "Open Sesame" treasure cave. It's a longer, more violent story than the way it's typically depicted in cartoons, but held my interest. Similarly, Alaeddin and his wonderful lamp is a longer, more complex story but had a satisfying conclusion.
However, Sindbad was nothing like the adventure movies I grew up with. In fact, the seven voyages all boil down to the following formula: "Sindbad decides to sail somewhere, gathers a crew (who somehow don't know that he gets shipwrecked by the second paragraph each trip), is the sole survivor of a shipwreck (told you so), encounters something amazing and through unlikely coincidences rebuilds his fortune, then returns home vowing never to sail again". Curiously, the better stories are the first voyages so, rather than building to a climax, the stories seem to go on way too long. And really, after the second or third trip, he was just being an ass.
A couple tales I had heard of before but only as vague references were the City of Brass and the Ebony Horse. They were enjoyable fantasy stories.
One bizarre story was about a man named Abu Hasan who once publicly broke wind and how it changed his life. Really.
Note: A pretty specific spoiler about one tale follows:
The Three Apples is about a man who, when his wife became ill and craved apples (not native to the area) took great pains to obtain three for her. Later that day, he observes a slave eating an apple and when asked, the slave says that his lover's cuckold husband had bought the apple and a couple others. The man goes home and finds his wife with two apples so he stabs her to death, dismembers her body, stows it in a trunk and throws it in the river. He then learns that the slave was just kidding. Oops. Too bad, really, that's probably the kind of jape his wife would have appreciated if he hadn't just horribly murdered her.
One of the longest and most pointless stories with the riveting title "Tale of Nur Al-Din and His Son Badr Al-Din Hasan" begins when two close brothers get to talking one night about how great it would be if they both met great women, got married and had children of the opposite sexes at about the same time so that one day their children could marry (relationships between first cousins are acceptable there). They then argued so severely about how much the hypothetical dowry would be that they vowed never again to speak to each other and one brother went into exile. Coincidentally, although no longer in contact, they both get married and have children of the opposite sexes at exactly the same time. Even more coincidentally, both children grow up to be the most attractive in the land. Ridiculously coincidental events have two djinn arguing about who is fairest and get the young couple together briefly, where they fall instantly in love and spend many pages barely missing each other in a series of misunderstandings that would have Jack Tripper saying "Oh, that's just stupid!", before their fates again become intertwined and the story goes on and on. If there's a moral or a point, I missed it entirely. If it's intended as comedy, then "Three's Company" would be an epic masterpiece.
To sum up, this is a fascinating work. Some stories are epic adventures, some are the basis for famous stories we all know, and some go on and on and on for no reason whatsoever. I would recommend "Arabian Nights", but suggest anyone who doesn't have a particular interest in Arabic culture go for a more accessible abridged edition instead.
The frame of the work consists of a whimsical plot arrangement that depends upon the jealousy of Shahriyar, King of India, for his wife and her wanton ways; after executing her he vows to take his revenge on wall woman-ways. Night after night he marries some beautiful girl, only to order her beheaded the next morning. That is until he meets Scheherazade whose wile and intelligence is more than a match for the King. She manages to spin a bewildering number of yarns and, by suspending the ending of each, eludes the executioner. The tales she tells include such stories as "Aladdin's Lamp" and "Sinbad the Sailor" and many more that, while less famous, are equally entertaining.
"the most marvelous article in this Enchanted Treasure was a wonderful Lamp with its might of magical means." (p 712, "Alaeddin; or, The Wonderful Lamp")
The resulting compendium of stories has been popular ever since inspiring many translations and different forms. This translation by Richard F. Burton may be the most entertaining of all.