| Title | : | The Arabian Nights |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1605896403 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781605896403 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 518 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1898 |
The Arabian Nights Reviews
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The Arabian Nights / 0-486-22289-6
I'm a bit of an "Thousand Nights" enthusiast -- I enjoy the stories immensely and I have four separate translations in my personal library. Several friends have asked me to discuss the differences between the editions, so I thought I'd present a four-way comparison and then talk about which version is best for which audience.
For the purposes of the four-way comparison, I will draw text from the opening tale of the two kingly brothers in order to highlight how each popular version handles "adult" content and racial content.
-- The Tale of King Shahryar and of his Brother, King Shahzaman --
Now there were in the King's palace certain windows that looked on to the garden, and, as King Shahzaman leaned there and looked out, the door of the palace opened and twenty women slaves with twenty men slaves came from it; and the wife of the King, his brother, was among them and walked there in all her bright beauty. When they came to the pool of a fountain they all undressed and mingled one with another. Suddenly, on the King's wife crying: 'O Masud! Ya Masud!', a gigantic negro ran towards her, embraced her, and, turning her upon her back, enjoyed her. At this signal, all the other men slaves did the same with the women and they continued thus a long while, not ceasing their kisses and embraces and goings in and the like until the approach of dawn.
-- Madrus & Mathers edition
-- The Tale of King Shahriar and of his Brother, King Shahzenan --
One day, Shahriar had started on a great hunting match, about two days' journey from his capital; but Shahzenan, pleading ill health, was left behind. He shut himself up in his apartment, and sat down at a window that looked into the garden. Suddenly a secret gate of the palace opened, and there came out of it twenty women, in the midst of whom walked the Sultaness. The persons who accompanied the Sultaness threw off their veils and long robes, and Shahzenan was greatly surprised when he saw that ten of them were black slaves, each of whom chose a female companion. The Sultaness clapped her hands, and called: "Masoud, Masoud!" and immediately a black came running to her; and they all remained conversing familiarly together.
-- Muhsin al-Musawi edition
-- The Tale of King Schahriar and of his Brother, King Schahzeman --
Now the Sultan Schahriar had a wife whom he loved more than all the world, and his greatest happiness was to surround her with splendour, and to give her the finest dresses and the most beautiful jewels. It was therefore with the deepest shame and sorrow that he accidentally discovered, after several years, that she had deceived him completely, and her whole conduct turned out to have been so bad, that he felt himself obliged to carry out the law of the land, and order the grand-vizir to put her to death.
-- Lang edition
-- The Tale of King Shahryar and of his Brother, King Shah Zaman --
Thereupon Shah Zaman drew back from the window, but he kept the bevy in sight espying them from a place whence he could not be espied. They walked under the very lattice and advanced a little way into the garden till they came to a jetting fountain amiddlemost a great basin of water; then they stripped off their clothes and behold, ten of them were women, concubines of the King, and the other ten were white slaves. Then they all paired off, each with each: but the Queen, who was left alone, presently cried out in a loud voice, "Here to me, O my lord Saeed!" and then sprang with a drop leap from one of the trees a big slobbering blackamoor with rolling eyes which showed the whites, a truly hideous sight. He walked boldly up to her and threw his arms round her neck while she embraced him as warmly; then he bussed her and winding his legs round hers, as a button loop clasps a button, he threw her and enjoyed her.
-- Burton edition
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For my money, the superior volume by far is the Madrus & Mathers edition. The editor and translator have deliberately worked the translation to be as readable to the English eye as possible, even making judicious choices about where to refrain from using diacritical points (single quote sound points, as in 'ain) in order to ease the reading experience. They've made a concerted effort to retain the adult content without being lewd, the racial content without descending into offensive caricature, the poetic content without overwhelming the reader, and the entire content without condensing the text and losing material. The Madrus & Mathers editions comprise four giant volumes, but the casual enthusiast will be more than satisfied with just volume one, and with over 600 pages of stories in the electronic edition, the reader will have plenty of reading material available.
For children, however, the superior volume is probably the Muhsin al-Musawi edition. This edition is condensed, but the editing was done with great care to maintain story structure and content. The adult content has been toned down considerably, the racial content has been handled tactfully, the extra songs and poems have been almost entirely removed, and there are interesting and attractive pictures in the electronic edition. My biggest complain here is that the adult content has been excised to a degree that almost brings unfortunate implications: when adultery is characterized as "conversing", the angry and jilted husband seems to be seriously over-reacting. Still, if you want a sanitized version of the tales, the al-Musawi edition is almost certainly the way to go.
I do not recommend the Lang edition. Lang's fairy tale collections, such as the color fairy tale books, are usually a delight, but his Arabian Nights edition is thin on content and heavily paraphrased. The stories are gutted to remove the adult content and shorten the tale length for children, but in many cases the changes are not carefully glossed over, and huge plot holes and unresolved threads are left dangling. I've never met a Lang reader who didn't ask me what was going on in one tale or other because the translation is so poorly rendered.
Neither do I recommend the Burton version. If anything, the Burton version has the exact opposite problems as the Lang version: Burton's edition lengthens the stories with extensively lewd descriptions and offensive racial imagery. The edition was also rendered in the 1800s, and the language within has not aged well -- there are all lot of "forsooth"s and "verily"s that bog down the reading. If you're interested in a historical analysis of how these tales have been rendered over the years, by all means become familiar with the Burton version, but if you're just looking for light bedtime reading, give the Burton edition a pass.
I hope that this comparison will be helpful. This particular listing here is for the Lang edition which I really cannot recommend.
~ Ana Mardoll -
The fairy tales from the Arabian world go from Aladdin to Sinbad. It's unique to dive into such a world - where flying carpets and magic lamps make the present better.
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now why’d this white boy take it upon himself to write this? there’s something… inherently racist about this scottish dude paraphrasing the fuck out of middle eastern tales.
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I really enjoyed this the second time around, and maybe even more so as I've matured. I have my favourite ones, but not enough to begin listing them as they all kept my interest much like they withheld the King's.
They were short and full of adventure. I felt like I was able to inject myself in them as if I were one of the characters, or at least watching at a close distance as the stories unfolded.
My plan was to read one per night before bed, but again, I enjoyed the stories so much I wanted to finish, and I also want to start another book.
I love reading books, and listening to them as well!
P.S.
What about those of you who have read it ... do you have your favourite stories? What are they? -
The Arabian Nights Entertainments contains 33 short stories related to the famous 1001 nights, selected and edited by
Andrew Lang. I quite enjoyed his breezy editing which left no room for boredom. The stories are mostly folklore of the medieval Islamic era, with hints to ancient pre-Islamic history, mostly in Arab lands, Persia, and all the way reaching to China.
I won't elaborate and review the stories, but I must pay my respects to the badass Scheherazade aka شهرزاد in Arabic/Persian. She's the ultimate mistress of all female procrastinators with her wicked scheme, outsmarting the scumbag Schahriar aka شهريار in Arabic/Persian.
Out of the blue, Schahriar's wife had cheated on him which drove him crayzaay. Driven by his broken heart and lost mind, and thanks to his authoritative rank as the Sultan, he decided to erase the female human kind from his society, not only by a single genocide, he's a man after all and a man has needs to satisfy. So, he had the habit of marrying a new virgin every night then having her beheaded the next morning.
A girl must step out to end this bullshit. Here comes the grand-vizir's daughter; witty bibliophile Scheherazade. She volunteered to be wedded to the merciless Sultan. Instead of lying on his bed waiting for her inevitable fate, she charms him with a trail of fascinating stories. She kept procrastinating her storytelling, tale followed by another. He couldn't get enough of her enchanting stories every night and eventually resolved to keep her head attached to her body.
Morals of the story:
- Procrastination is the answer.
- You can escape the inevitable fate of death if you read books.
- Even the cruelest men can be manipulated if you knew your true girl-power.
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Recommended to everyone. Many bewildering stories of genii, wizards and witches, princes and princesses, magical powers, monstrous animals, Sindbad the Sailor and his adventures with one-eyed-giants and red-hairy-imps, Aladdin and his famous Lamp, and more... -
I enoyed these ancient tales of princes, princesses, genies, merchants, fantastic adventures, treasures, grand palaces. Common themes are cleverness or foolishness, love, revenge, jealousy, but above all, generosity and helping those in need is valued most in these stories.
Besides entertainment, we also get a picture of a rich, vibrant and educated culture way more sophisticated and world-wise than contemporary Europe, which was stuck in its darkest of the Middle Ages at the same time. Baghdad, Persia, India, China, Egypt feature in the stories, with rich merchants, kings, cities and craftsmen, revealing a flourishing trade and wealthy kingdoms.
A fun and educational insight into the minds and times of medieval Arabic culture. -
This is basically the Grimm Fairy Tales equivalent for East Asia, India, and the Middle East. You can imagine these tales told orally by skillful speakers.
There are stories within stories within stories, an interesting device. (It's like "Inception," where you go down the dream layers and then have to return upwards, and then you have to try and remember the upper layers after time away from them.)
There are lots of kings and rulers and beautiful princesses and handsome princes. Very few good-looking people turn out to be jerks. There is magic and magical creatures, but not in every story. It's a great look at human imagination over the generations.
These are the main lessons from these tales: Traits such as industry, wisdom, graciousness, and generosity are admired. Greed, dishonesty, and laziness are scorned. Wealth is admired so long as you are generous with it. A good story may save your life. A good sob story will make people feel sorry for you and give you money. Everyone eventually gets what they deserve. Punishments are harsh, so beware! -
I didn't set out to do a feminist reading of these tales, but it became impossible not to, seeing as how Aladdin rapes Jasmine.
Except her name is Badroulbadour. I can't imagine why Disney thought it needed tweaking.
I know what you're thinking. Surely I'm applying some kind of modern expansive definition of rape unfairly to an ancient text. And I try not to judge historical figures too harshly for all the -isms that were normal within their own time and culture. Marital rape, for example, didn't exist in the ninth century because the cultural understanding of marriage encompassed the woman's implicit sexual consent for perpetuity. Whatever, times change.
But as far as this generous inclination takes me, it still leaves me with one very raped Jasmine. She is assaulted in a style that would surely appease even the stringent criteria of Senator Aiken: unambiguously forcibly raped by a total stranger who has forcibly entered her private bathroom while she is as naked as a jay bird.
But wait, it gets better! Because Aladdin, being an upstanding and heroic young man, has the good sense to apologize to her afterwards. "Baby baby baby" he begins (I'm paraphrasing), "I'm sorry I raped you but it's really your fault! You were so pretty that I just couldn't help myself." Because women can totally control the relative symmetry of their facial features, lol.
I hear ya, buddy! Temptresses, amirite!?
...I'm being cute about it, but I'm not even really exaggerating. He really does give a non-apology apology scolding her for her own rape. Here's the whole passage:"Adorable princess," cried Aladdin, accosting her in the most respectful manner, "if I should have the misfortune to have displeased you by the temerity with which I have aspired to possess so amiable a person, and the daughter of my sultan, I must confess, that it was to your beautiful eyes, and to your charms alone, that you must attribute it, and not to myself." "Prince, for it is thus that I must now call you," replied the princess, "I obey the will of the sultan my father ; and it is enough to have seen you to own that I obey him without reluctance." Aladdin was delighted at so satisfactory and charming an answer...
So... Yeah, that happened!
I don't know. The stories in Arabian Nights were as charming and as vivid as any other folklore and fairy tales, but Aladdin's story was like a cymbal crash against my ick-receptor, which made it very hard to talk about the warm and lovely string section humming away elsewhere. There are many women in Arabian Nights who are clever and brave and loyal, women who outperform men and save the day, but their reward at the end is always...a brand new husband!
You lucky dog!
I'm not saying this is unique to Arabian Nights or even eastern culture, by any means. It's par for the course in Germanic and Greek and Japanese fables. It just goes to show that rape culture can survive and flourish even in societies where women are seen as capable and important and independently valuable. Respect for individual women on a personal level doesn't mean there isn't an expectation that women in general still owe their bodies to someone at the end of the day. At least the good parts, anyway...
Pshh. Please.
Overall these tales are extremely similar to your classic western tales: plucky paupers rising above their station, marrying princesses, battling giants, dodging unlucky prophesies, building castles in the air. They're certainly interesting from the perspective of a fairy tale enthusiast such as myself, but the roots are identical to your classic Brothers Grimm, so the resultant foliage is strikingly similar--there aren't many surprises in store for a western audience. If you want to get into really foreign-feeling stories, you have to go to Australia, the Americas, Japan, Russia, or even Africa.
Women's roles in fairy tales are often...so...twisted.
So that's it! If you're already interested, they're lovely if occasionally cringe-worthy stories, but rather much like anything you've heard or read before: sneaky viziers, clever street urchins, magic flying horses, evil black people, rape-worthy damsels... All the best and worst that Eurasian folklore has to offer. -
Not quite 1001 stories, but this translation/version of The Arabian Nights has quite a few of the folk tales from the Middle East. The stories are framed in the story of Scheherazade, who told the Sultan tales each night for 1001 nights to prevent him killing her. The tales are sometimes tales within tales within tales within a tale (which can get a little confusing if you aren't careful). I understand some of the stories here were not in the original manuscript (like Ali Baba, Sinbad and Aladdin) but all stories are fun to read, fantastical in some sense, and they even contain lessons for life. I can't speak to whether this was a better translation/version than others, but it was a good read and nice to have something more worldly in my reading list for the year.
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Classic Indeed
I've read, and still read alif Laila in Urdu whenever I get hold of now-torn book. It is such a classic book. We joke about how most of the stories have similar theme. But life in general has a pattern, doesn't it?
Ah, look at me all philosophical! -
The edition I ended up with has been unapologetically bowdlerized, I'm afraid. At some point, I'll need to hunt down an edition that did not have things removed to be considered appropriate for children and Westerners. That said, what was left was mostly delightful...for a while. The extreme nestedness of some of the stories is entertaining and then a little irritating. More of a problem is the fact that towards the end, they start getting rather repetitive. Most unforgivably, this edition doesn't actually contain the end to Scheherazade's story.
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The Arabian Nights, kisah-kisah fantastis 1001 malam. Dengan tebal 270 halaman, buku ini terdiri dari 35 cerita berbingkai.
Cerita pertama berjudul "Sultan Shahryar dan Putri Sheherazad". Cerita ini berkisah tentang Sultan Shahryar yang memiliki seorang istri yang sangat ia cintai melebihi apapun di dunia ini. Kebahagiaan terbesar baginya adalah melimpahi sang istri dengan kemuliaan, memberinya pakaian dan perhiasan yang indah. Namun, betapa murka nya ia ketika mengetahui bahwa selama ini istrinya telah berkhianat. Sultan menganggap tingkah laku istrinya itu sungguh tercela dan kemudian memerintahkan seorang wazir (pejabat/petinggi kesultanan) untuk menjatuhinya hukuman mati.
Kemurkaan sultan membuatnya kehilangan akal. Hingga ia yakin bahwa semua wanita sama jahat dan liciknya seperti istrinya. Dalam pikirannya, semakin sedikit wanita di dunia maka semakin baiklah dunia ini. Oleh karena itu setiap malam ia menikahi seorang gadis dan di pagi harinya ia menyuruh sang wazir untuk membunuhnya.
Perbuatan sultan membuat seluruh negeri dicekam ketakutan, setiap harinya orangtua/keluarga yang bersedih karena kehilangan anak gadis mereka pun semakin bertambah.
Hingga suatu hari, anak gadis wazir yang bertugas untuk mencarikan gadis-gadis yang akan menjadi istri sultan mengajukan diri untuk dinikahi sultan. Gadis itu bernama Sheherazad, seorang gadis yang dikenal cantik dan cerdas.
Untuk pernikahannya dengan Sultan, ia meminta satu syarat yaitu agar ia diijinkan untuk bisa bersama-sama dengan adiknya di malam terakhir hidupnya. Sebelum matahari terbit dan waktu hukuman mati tiba, sebagaimana yang telah ia dan adiknya rencanakan, sang adik yang sudah terbangun meminta kakaknya untuk menceritakan salah satu cerita terbaiknya.
Setelah meminta izin terlebih dahulu kepada sultan, Sheherazad mulai menceritakan sebuah kisah untuk adiknya. Sang sultan yang ikut mendengarkan, begitu tertarik dengan kisah yang diceritakan oleh Sheherazad.
Dari sumber lain yang pernah aku baca, bagian ini tidak ada dalam buku ini ya, konon katanya Sheherazad menceritakan kisah tersebut hingga waktu pagi tiba, lalu ia berhenti dan menyesal bahwa ia tidak dapat melanjutkan cerita tersebut.
Sultan yang begitu tertarik dengan kelanjutan dari kisah tersebut memutuskan untuk menangguhkan hukuman mati kepada Sheherazade supaya ia bisa mendengar kisah selanjutnya. Maka, setiap malam Sheherazad menceritakan kisah baru, dan setiap menjelang pagi Sheherazad selalu mengakhiri kisahnya dengan akhir yang menegangkan sehingga sang Sultan pun selalu menangguhkan perintah hukuman mati kepada dirinya. Penangguhan tersebut berulang hingga 1001 malam.
Pada malam ke-1001 itu pula, Sheherazade mengakui bahwa hal tersebut sebenarnya memang sebuah strategi yang diatur olehnya untuk menyadarkan sang sultan dari tindakannya yang sebelumnya semena-mena kepada rakyatnya. Sang sultan tidak marah, ia menyadari kesalahannya. Ia memaafkan dan membebaskan Sherazade dari hukuman mati yang selama ini ditangguhkan, terlebih mereka juga sudah memiliki 3 orang anak.
Ke-34 kisah lainnya yang ada pada buku ini di dalamnya terdiri atas legenda, fabel, roman dan dongeng dengan latar yang berbeda seperti Baghdad, Basrah, Kairo, dan Damaskus juga Cina, Yunani, India, Afrika Utara dan Turki. Selain kisah Aladdin dan kisah Sinbad yang sudah sangat kita kenal, kisah-kisah lainnya sangat menarik dan sarat akan pesan moral.
Seperti yang saya tulis diatas, kalau cerita yang ditulis pada buku ini berbentuk cerita berbingkai. Bagi yang agak bingung dengan istilah tersebut, cerita berbingkai ini sering di artikan juga sebagai 'cerita dalam cerita', dimana pada setiap bagian akhir kisah nya, tokoh utama atau tokoh pembantu dalam kisah itu akan bercerita tentang kisah lainnya. Menurut aku, pada bagian inilah keunikan dari cerita berbingkai dibanding kumcer atau kumpulan cerita pada umumnya. Selanjutnya kisah-kisah tersebut saling menyambung walaupun antara kisah yang satu dengan kisah lainnya baik itu tokoh, latar, genre dan alur ceritanya tidak saling berkaitan
Dengan adanya beragam cerita pada satu buku seperti ini, tentu ini bisa menjadi pilihan bacaan yang menarik. Meskipun bagi sebagian orang bentuk cerita seperti ini mungkin akan terasa sedikit membosankan, karena kadang suatu cerita pada cerita berbingkai berakhir menggantung alias tidak memiliki bagian penyelesaian tapi sudah berlanjut pada cerita berikutnya
Recommended bagi yang menyukai atau ingin mencoba membaca cerita berbingkai, juga bagi yang ingin membaca kisah-kisah 1001 malam lainnya selain kisah Aladdin, Ali Baba, Abu Nawas dan Sinbad yang sudah kita kenal selama ini -
Dongeng2 1001 malam tentu saja sudah akrab di benak, namun aku blm pernah beruntung bisa membaca versi lengkapnya yg memuaskan. Banyak harapan saat membaca buku ini, tapi hmmphh....
Awalnya cukup oke, saat menampilkan Scheherezade sebagai narator yg (harusnya) membawakan kisahnya malam demi malam, dengan cliff hanger yg membuat Baginda Sultan menunda hukuman matinya sehari lagi. Tapi ini cuma bertahan 2 malam. Selanjutnya bingkai cerita ini diabaikan, dan cerita-cerita tertumpah berantakan tanpa ada kaidahnya. Bahkan sampai akhir, tidak disinggung sedikit pun lagi bagaimana nasib Scheherezade. Rasanya seperti menikmati lukisan yang cuma setengah.
Hal lain, setiap kisah di sini dituturkan dengan sangat lempeeeeeeng, datar tanpa emosi. 7 petualangan Sinbad yang bisa dijadikan berfilm-film (klasik, dengan sfx yg sangat wagu, tapi tetap saja, klasik) diceritakan dalam beberapa halaman saja. Cerita Aladin.... eeng... ok, nonton versi Disney aja d, memang mainstream sih, tapi jauh lebih bisa dinikmati dari versi buku ini. Dongeng2 lainnya tumpang tindih dengan alur moralitas yang mirip, tapi tanpa benang merah yang jelas, yg (katanya) seharusnya sedikit demi sedikit menyadarkan Baginda Sultan akan kesalahannya. Noo... seperti kataku di atas, tokoh Scheherezade dan Sultan Syahrar tidak pernah muncul lagi, tidak juga untuk menutup bingkai akhir buku ini.
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When I read the book "Children of the Lamp, The Curse of Akhenaten", I was curious with the story of Arabian Nights as it was mentioned in the book and encouraged to read. I now understood why. Part of the story of the Children of the Lamp was taken from the Arabian Nights tale. I soon immersed myself in the curious magical world of Arabian Nights and indeed, it was cleverly done. I liked the premise these stories were weaved as a collection of short tales. And I wonder why it got a poor review. Tsk..tsk...tsk.
Moreover, it reminded me the story of Joseph the Dreamer in the bible, The story of the Ass, and Jonas' story too. It resembles some instance and how it was told~ the unfortunate events turned out to be a fortunate ones. They call it blessing-in-disguise. Some call it fate or destiny.
This book truly is a delight to read! Once you started it, you can't stop as the short stories were somehow entwined to each other. Brilliant! Brilliant!
It left a great impact, instilling honesty and integrity in me. A must read. I reckon, if I have children this will be their bedtime stories that I will gladly read to them. -
This is a collection of Arabic folklore, which contains various short stories. Each story is related through another story and is woven together into one whole story.
Overall all the stories are really interesting with magical elements as well as suspenseful events occurring in them. However, some stories were left without an ending, which was the case even for the main story.
Apart from the confusion caused by some stories being cut off and another starting, it was an enjoyable book. -
DNF 35%
This book is this: tales within tales within tales within tales... I cannot seem to see the end. Everything is linked and turns out to make zero sense. A big mess it is... I know they are tales but, man, every character has a story to tell. Every damn one. Even the bird shitting on their heads. Even when their story is boring as hell. It's a wonder Sheherazade's head didn't find itself on a spike. -
All I can say is I am one die hard Hatim Tai fan so loved this book. Reminded me of alladin and alif laila. A bit nostalgic, nevertheless the stories are also enlightning and interesting. The language is easy and good. Over all Loved it.
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Reread because why not?
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Este libro de alguna u otra forma hace volar nuestra imaginación. Me gustaría saber el origen de estos relatos, dado a la fuerza que han tenido a lo largo de la historia, qué habrá detrás de ese 'anónimo'. Muy recomendado para distraerse, es muy lindo y tiene personajes interesantes que llevan a lugares fantásticos, y además te lleva de una historia a otra, sin darte cuenta, así como encontrarte hechizado, te transporta y te transmite emociones maravillosas. Es una obra que considero debe ser leída por todos.
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Short review, because these stories were wonderful. ONE THING.
UGH. YOU PEOPLE, this was written, what? Centuries ago? All I know that it is containing OLD stories, and back then, no body knew a thing about racism, which is really, really wrong, but it was used in all parts of the world. So, please, keep that in mind. Now, goodbye. It just annoyed me, you know? Here are like one hundred people saying that, but yeah, here is the truth. Now, goodbye.
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It was good. At first I was very involved and really liked taking in the stories. After a while though they became very repetitive and monotonous. The stories seemed to drag on in the end. I so see how all of the stories started but there doesn't seem to be a resolution to that particular story. If there was and I missed it someone please fill me in.
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An interesting read. Short stories, well fairy tales really from the Middle East and Asia. I enjoyed them and they flow into one another. Some are quite short so it's easy to pick up and put down. One of the few classics I've enjoyed.
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كتاب قصصي رائع جدًا رغم أنه طويل
مناسب لمحبي القصص الخيالية أو ما يعرف بالفانتازيا
يحتوي على العديد من القصص المنقولة عن زمن هارون الرشيد .. وعدة فترات أخرى من التاريخ العربي
يجب أن تتحلى بالصبر لإكمال هذا الكتاب نظرًا لطوله
( 4000 صفحة تقريبًا) -
Pleasant read
I liked the short stories. Well translated and the choice of stories were interesting. But it would have been more interesting, if the set of interwined stories were all mentioned rather than just a part of the whole. -
The girls (12 and 15) and I read this. I’ve heard if you’re going to read The Arabian Nights you should definitely read a children’s version or it’s really…sketchy. Lol. We enjoyed this Andrew Lang version of the stories.
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I am glad I read this book since it’s always referenced in other books. Obviously everyone knows Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor. It was fun to read the originals. The other short stories were hit or miss. I really enjoyed some stories and was bored with some of them. Overall I enjoyed the book.
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snooze fest
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Nobody talked of anything but dervishes and vizirs, rocs and peris.
Probably everyone knows the basic story of the Arabian Nights: a king executes his wife every morning, and takes a new wife every evening. Scheherazade comes up with an ingenious plan to end this massacre: she becomes his evening wife, and tells her younger sister a story every morning… and leaves the ending off for later. The king, desiring to hear the end, lets Scheherazade live one more day. She continues this for “a thousand and one nights” until the king repents (and, of course, she gets to be Queen forever).
It’s so well-known that Lang doesn’t even feel the need to provide the frame with an ending. Scheherazade opens the tales, but is nowhere to be found at the ending. He’s providing a subset of the stories, among them the most famous such as “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” and “The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor”.
Lang especially gravitates toward stories within stories, which is of course a theme of the work as a whole: Scheherazade is a story, and she is telling stories. But within her stories, others tell stories as well. A man is found dead, and another accused of the murder; and each of the witnesses has their own story to tell.
These are all faerie tales of the type that Tolkien wrote about in
On Fairy Stories. Not surprising, as that essay “was originally intended to be one of the Andrew Lang lectures”.
The value of fairy-stories is thus not, in my opinion, to be found by considering children in particular. Collections of fairy-stories are, in fact, by nature attics and lumber-rooms, only by temporary and local custom play-rooms. Their contents are disordered, and often battered, a jumble of different dates, purposes, and tastes; but among them may occasionally be found a thing of permanent virtue: an old work of art, not too much damaged, that only stupidity would ever have stuffed away.
These do jump all over the place. They are very much an attic of tales ranging from fantasies about genii and rocs and one-eyed monsters; to near-science fiction stories about, say, a wondrous metal horse whose buttons and dials allow the traveler to fly at high speed anywhere in the world, once they figure out how the controls work. Like the more modern Ralph Hinkley/Hanley who lost the manual for his wonderful suit, the prince who rode the horse neglected to wait for instruction. The punishments of neglectfulness are an old, old story.
The Sindbad stories especially, to my eye, come across as odd and slightly alien. Sindbad often makes decisions that save himself while allowing his comrades to die; they may be the “prudent” decision, but it is odd to hear them mentioned in passing by Sindbad himself as nothing special:
On the fifth day we had the misfortune to fall in with pirates, who seized our vessel, killing all who resisted, and making prisoners of those who were prudent enough to submit at once, of whom I was one.
And, of course, even the phenomenon of foodies is as old as these stories. Three sisters fantasize about who they would most want for their future husband, and two of the three choose a chef and a baker.
“I ask nothing better,” cried the eldest, “than to have the Sultan’s baker for a husband. Think of being able to eat as much as one wanted, of that delicious bread that is baked for his Highness alone!”
But Man does not live by bread alone, and they come to regret setting their sights on the pleasures of the flesh. Like many who cannot live with their own poor decisions, they become jealous of those who made better decisions, and rather than working to uplift themselves, they work to bring the third sister down.
As an introduction to the stories of the Thousand and One Nights, this is a great start. The stories are universal, and all the more universal because they can sometimes seem superficially odd. They definitely make me want to read a more complete collection.
