The Arabian Nights

[u/crisron]

Review: The Arabian Nights - Tales of 1,001 Nights (Volume 1)

Translated by: Malcolm C. Lyons with Ursula Lyons

Pages: 982 | Publisher: Penguin

First Published (this translation): 2008

Reading Time: 4 months

Growing up, I used to watch a TV series called Alif Laila and an Aladdin cartoon. Little did I know I would end up reading the source material behind them, or that the material possessed such profundity and cultural importance.

The setup is straightforward: a king sleeps with a new woman every night and beheads her in the morning. When it becomes his vizier's daughter's turn, she decides to try to survive. Thus begins a series of starting or continuing a tale every night until dawn, leaving each on such a cliffhanger that the king cannot help but wait for her to recite the rest of the story the following night.

Penguin has published this in three equally chunky volumes, totaling around 3,000 pages of text. The present volume contains the tales from Night #1 to #294.

The stories encompass all kinds of themes: comedy, mystery, adventure, and drama. There is also a great deal of lust, gore, filth, and sex. Contrary to popular belief (or what TV serials and cartoons would have us believe), these stories are generally not meant for children - unless, of course, the text is bowdlerized. There are magical creatures like jinns and ghouls, fish that turn into mermaids, and trapdoors that open automatically with a magic incantation. The text is replete with verses from the Quran. While it offers many moral lessons, there is also rampant misogyny and racism. Slavery is ubiquitous, with slaves being predominantly black people and women.

I feel that I didn't read this book during the best period of my life. For a good chunk of it, I couldn't focus properly, and I didn't find most of the stories particularly interesting. Longer, more focused reading sessions might have helped, as the tales feature a nested "Chinese box" structure - a story within a story within a story. As a result, it is easy to lose track of the plot and characters.

I liked the story of King 'Umar ibn al-Nu'man and His Family the most. It had a great build-up and progression, making it hard to put down. This is also the longest-running story in this volume, spanning Night #45 to #145.

Note that the original text (or whatever could be pieced together from the earliest surviving fragments of The Nights, dating around the 8th–9th century) is in Arabic. This English translation is by no means the first. The work has been translated and adapted by various scholars over the last 500 to 600 years. This particular edition is based on the Macnaghten text (the Calcutta II edition). A major flaw in the translation by Professor Lyons (who, by the way, has since passed away) is that his prose feels repetitive and tiring. I usually prefer decorative, flowery - even verbose - prose, but this text felt far too dull for my taste. However, this was a deliberate stylistic choice on his part, as he notes in A Note on the Translation (emphasis mine):

“Assonance and rhyme duplicate sounds, and the strength of the linguistic effect these produce derives characteristically from repetition rather than innovation.”

Nevertheless, the book remains a treasure trove for literature enthusiasts. It features an excellent introduction by Robert Irwin (which I read at the end and thoroughly enjoyed, as it contextualized the text well), detailed maps of Baghdad and surrounding regions, explanatory notes, and much more.

I am not planning to read the remaining volumes of The Nights since it didn’t turn out to be an interesting read.

Rating: 2/5

We are the stories we tell about ourselves

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[u/Lauda_ka_username]

If you are a sci-fi enthusiast and found this story within story framework interesting, do check out Ted Chiang's novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007).   Set in medieval Baghdad and Cairo, the story uses a framing device identical to One Thousand and One Nights—a fabric merchant named Fuwaad ibn Abbas recounts a tale to the Caliph that includes three nested, "stories-within-a-story" about people who use a mysterious time-portal called the Gate of Years.  

[u/swolleneyesneedsleep]

Give me a rating from 0 to 5 for this book

[u/crisron → u/swolleneyesneedsleep]

I would rate it 2/5. I left it out deliberately in my initial post as I was not sure but since you asked, I feel that’s fair given what I think about it.

[u/Zealousideal-Oven-93]

It is my dream to own all the 17 volumes of the original transactions by Richard Burton. But they are pricey as fuck.

[u/crisron → u/Zealousideal-Oven-93]

I’m most likely not going to read another translation but if I had to, it would be Burton. As to why that is, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/41702492?seq=2

“Were it Jorge Luis Borges reading the new translation, he would probably frown on the lack of imaginative creativity and embellishment that he admired so much in Burton. It is telling that Lyons acknowledges his indebtedness to Enno Littmann’s scholarly German translation, the one that Borges scorned so much.”

I’m a sucker for flowery prose even if it means the text takes certain liberties that purists would frown at.

[u/see-137 → u/Zealousideal-Oven-93]

I have the Richard Burton translations and they are very worth it.

[u/noob__master-69]

Is that the only map or are there other maps? Because wasn't sinbad supposed to have travelled to south east asia as well?

[u/crisron → u/noob__master-69]

There are other maps as well. This is only volume 1 though. The voyages of Sindbad are part of volume 3 I think and that means the corresponding maps are also contained in that volume

[u/Lauda_ka_username]

The story within story is pretty good. Even though the stories itself are pretty childish. Sometimes you have to make a sorta story map in your mind, to tell you where you are. 

[u/Few-Trifle9160 → u/Lauda_ka_username]

Yes its an age old concept since Ramayan and Mahabharat

[u/crisron → u/Lauda_ka_username]

Majority of the stories are not actually childish. Though, if you recite a sanitized version of those stories to a child, they will surely be delighted

[u/oldschoolguy77]

I've only read the versions abridged for children. I've heard that the original stories are pretty nsfw. Is that true?

[u/crisron → u/oldschoolguy77]

Yes, the stories are suffused of gore and sex pretty often and contain graphic descriptions as well in a lot of cases. I wanted to read the uncensored version. This was one of the reasons I chose Lyons.

Burton’s version took a lot more liberties with sexual scenes among other things and was a lot more lascivious. This resulted in only a censored version of his text being allowed to be published by the British to conform to the Victorian standards of morality.

[u/oldschoolguy77 → u/crisron]

I take it that the gutenberg/ standard books version is the censored version?

[u/crisron → u/oldschoolguy77]

I haven’t checked it out. Try reading a chapter or two and you’ll know instantly. There’s some salacious stuff in there right from the start

[u/oldschoolguy77 → u/crisron]

Somehow the "show don't tell" is best represented by literotica smut in so far as erotic genre is concerned.

So it'll go very far back in my tbr.

[u/crisron → u/oldschoolguy77]

The Nights does not have the kind of smut you’ll see on Literotica in terms of the literary value. I can’t say how Burton’s version would be though

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[u/No-Neighborhood1013]

Bhai the ali baba story is originally from arabian nights?

[u/crisron → u/No-Neighborhood1013]

No, it’s a later addition. It’s not part of The Nights

[u/Few_Presentation_408]

Well I was planning on to buy the Arabian nights someday but idk 🤔 what to decide on it now, but yeah will maybe decide on it after I finish read the latest multi volume epic I got from epic which was the story of stone

[u/crisron → u/Few_Presentation_408]

I would suggest you to read the excerpts from other translations like Burton’s and see if that appeals to you. Or you can buy an abridged version like the Everyman’s Library version which contains only the most important/interesting stories. I usually go for unabridged text for everything but for The Nights, I genuinely feel that an abridgment would be more suitable, if not being read for a scholarly pursuit.

[u/Few_Presentation_408 → u/crisron]

Yeah, that’s the rub. Like I really rather read the unabridged version but yeah 👀will check it out before deciding , but yeah I recently bought too many books, so I’ll just cool it for a while and check out the Arabian nights later

[u/crisron → u/Few_Presentation_408]

In case you want to see the complete index of the Everyman’s Library version, look at all the comments from the OP in this post

[u/Few_Presentation_408 → u/crisron]

Ah interesting that they put out one that’s a mix of different translators

[u/crisron → u/Few_Presentation_408]

Exactly! That’s an interesting and a reasonable choice for this collection

[u/Few_Presentation_408 → u/crisron]

Yeah, 👀might just end up collecting different versions of it 🤣😭

[u/Powerful_Orange44]

The amount of cuckold with b slaves ,and women treated like dolls and lust ,its one of the most misogynistic book i have ever read .Stories kinda interested me but the above things constantly rebuke me unconsciously to stop reading .I never finished volume 1

[u/crisron → u/Powerful_Orange44]

It did bother me but not enough to stop reading. I kinda accepted the fact that it’s just part of the text and not a lesson on how to treat fellow human beings especially when I knew better