Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (Paperback)

Something must be said, however, for those who are NOT aware of the extent of this work. This is not the simple batch of a dozen or so stories -- Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and the like -- that most people think it is. This is over 2400 pages of narrative, comprising close on 100 stories -- some of which are themselves as long as novels, and many of which contain smaller stories within themselves. The stories range from the profoundly epic to the delightfully whimsical, and there is variation in mood and length throughout the series that it not only serves as a collection of discrete stories but functions as a unified whole.

As such, the attempt to read the Thousand Nights and One Night in its entirety can not be a halfhearted one. The reader must be prepared to invest considerable time in the reading. The rewards, however, are incalculable. The complete experience has few parallels in fiction, because few works of such volume possess such unity. Reading moves from the hasty and immediate to the comfortable and regular. The difference is akin to that between listening to a 3-minute pop song and listening to a 30-minute symphony. The individual stories fade into memory, retaining their own identities but also falling into place within the whole.

I will not attempt to address the individual stories themselves in any detail. Suffice it to say that they narrate love, lust, sex, war, peace, contemplation, action, commerce, politics, art, science, and many other things, in the spheres of the supernatural and the mundane. The Thousand Nights and One Night is a virtually complete panorama of human existence, with each story a component scene.

I will, though, address the issue of translation. I have perused other editions of the tales in varying degrees (although this is the only one I have read completely). In the first place, any translation which omits some stories is not worth consideration. Although there is some controversy over whether Richard Burton (the first to translate the tales into English) corrupted the original text and inserted spurious parts, there is nothing to be gained by being persnickety in this regard. This edition contains more tales than most others I have seen, and therefore is more likely to contain the "right" tales somewhere inside. On a less abstract level, this text is simply more fun to read than most others, and, as mentioned, there is more of that fun text to be read.

Also, it can be plausibly speculated that this translation is particularly likely to have fewer Burton-induced inaccuracies, since it is not in fact a direct translation from Arabic to English. This 4-volume edition is a translation into English, by Powys Mathers, of a French translation, by J. C. Mardrus, of the original Arabic. It is somewhat surprising that an indirect translation such as this should be of such high quality, but I have found it to be so. In particular, this Mardrus & Mathers version includes substantial verse passages (which in other translations are often rendered as prose) and is refreshingly frank in its translation of the more ribald passages (which are numerous).

The Thousand Nights and One Night is not merely a book that can be read; it is a world which can be experienced, and the memories of that experience can mingle almost indistinguishably with memories of reality. Only a work of this size can work on large and small levels, with many intricate details but also many large thematic components. As an added benefit, by the time you have finished reading the fourth volume, your memories of the first will be fading, so you can begin a new reading immediately, and experience the joys of the Thousand Nights and One Night all over again.

The setting is medieval Islamic world. The tales offer an interesting window into the psyche of the tellers and the listerners.

Two features stand out in these stories. One is the continuing theme of 'betrayal' by women and unbridled lust by men. ... The ... prowess of 'negroes' (who go around servicing their masters' wives) appears to be a major concern for the story-tellers. The language is quite explicit (and certainly not suitable for ages 4-8 as www.Amazon.com has marked it mistakenly).

The second feature is how the story-tellers appear to be obsessed with wealth and riches. There is very little mention of how these riches are to be produced -- mostly they appear as if by magic or are endowed by kings. No one has to work for them. There are few, if any, moral principles, except for a continuing emphasis on faith in Allah and his prophet. It is interesting to speculate what effect these stories would have had on the region's culture over a thousand years of telling. If popular stories affect a culture's world-view. then you have here a very dangerous set of tales.

There are some poignant moments. At times, some of the characters display rare courage and honesty. You also learn how curiosity can kill the cat in a thousand and one ways. The Khalifa and the kings try to be just most of the time. Some of the wazirs are heroic, though others are very crooked. The description of beauty (male or female) is generally quite exquisite. The narrative also spends a lot of time and effort on describing places, chambers and palaces in detail -- so you can almost see them with your eyes. This is perhaps the key to the magic of these tales.

Certainly an invaluable piece of world's cultural heritage -- though you may differ on their contribution to building a better world.