Customer Reviews

The Arabian Nights II: Sindbad and Other Popular Stories (Everyman's Library)

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This is a very rum publication. Five years previous to its appearance Husain Haddawy produced as 'The Arabian Nights' a translation of the earliest extant version of the text (thirteenth- or fourteenth-century), which contains only a fraction of the full text known from nineteenth-century editions. In a polemical preface he denounced the full version as a dilution of a great original by the addition of masses of alien and inferior material. It must subsequently have been pointed out to him that a version of the Arabian Nights that omitted the best known stories would disappoint readers; consequently he then produced the present volume, made up largely of the popular tales 'Sindbad the Sailor', 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves', and 'Aladdin and his Lamp' -- even though, as he points out in the preface, the original Arabic texts of 'Ali Baba' and 'Aladdin', if they ever existed, have never been found and we are dependent on an eighteenth-century French 'translation' that is a fine piece of literature but far from authentic. A reader who wants to go beyond Haddawy's first volume would be well advised to go straight to one of the translations of the complete text, which contains much fine material omitted from both Haddawy's volumes. Of these by far the best is the new one by Malcolm Lyons.

When I have started reading this collection of Arabic stories I was very pleasantly surprised by the excellent translation. The language flows smoothly and practically dances on the pages. The translation has engaged me and kept my attention, until I have finished the book alltogether. This rendition couldnt have possibly been improved.
As for the tales, this is not like Disney's Alladin or Sindbad. Do not be deceived into believing that the stories are effulgent with simple innocence. In parts, there is mild violence and subtle obscenties. However subtle, one might still consider them inappropriate for children. To make it simple, if this was a movie it would be rated pg-13. This aspect aside, the stories flow smoothly with enthralling tales of adventure, magic, and of course the cliche themes of love. Even though the tales of this book have been displayed on television, this rendition flavors them with fresh originality. The only regret is that one wont be guessing about the outcome of the adventures as the ending has been millions of times entrusted to the media and us...

If you read Husain Haddawy Arabian Nights then The Arabian Nights II is a must since it contains stories he omitted from his Arabian Nights Translation. While many may feel his translations are incomplete I still enjoy them. These and many other original Arabic stories give us a glimpse into a long forgotten time constantly diluted by their Disney counterparts. This book includes Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, Ali Al Din ,et Al. I would not recommend this book as a nightly reader to children as some of the content proves extremely lewd however I found it hard to put down once started and would recommend The Arabian Nights II to anyone seeking a unique and adventurous story.

This book is the follow-up companion to Haddawy's masterful Arabian Nights, and both volumes are indispensable to anyone who loves this famous collection of stories. As Haddawy explains, the need for this separate collection is made necessary by the Night's curious history....

When the work was first written down in the 1400s, it was given the title "The 1,001 Nights"--the length of time Shahrazad beguiled King Shahrayar with her wondrous tales. Despite this lofty title, the early manuscripts uniformly end after about 300 nights. It appears no one in the Muslim world minded this inconsistency, and the number 1,001 was taken figuratively to mean "an infinite number." When Europeans first "discovered" the work in the 1700s, however, they assumed these early manuscripts were incomplete and set out to "finish" the work by adding enough tales to reach the necessary 1,001 nights--drawn from other collections, folklore or brand-new stories written to order. Among these later additions are several stories that have, paradoxically, become some of the most famous, best-loved tales of all: Sindbad the Sailor, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.

This leads to a difficult situation when translating the Nights. If your goal is to accurately and authentically translate the work, do you include these subsequent stories? Although they may not have been part of the original manuscript, these tales have been associated with the Nights for 300 years... should that count for anything?

When Haddawy first set out to translate the Nights, he chose not to include anything outside of the original core collection of tales. He made an excellent case for doing so--the original stories have a thematic uniformity and high literary merit, as they come from one of the greatest periods of Islamic literature. The subsequent stories, while entertaining, have a hodge-podge of ideas and themes and were quite often put together by literary hacks simply to take up space.

Still, some of those stories are too good (and too popular) to abandon altogether. That brings us to Haddawy's follow-up volume that puts forth exquisite translations of a handful of stories that, while outside the original collection, have come to define the Nights for the general public. Included are Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sindbad and the story of Qamar al-Zaman. All of the virtues of the first volume are carried over to this one--the translation could not be improved upon and the introduction is excellent. Besides being authentic, Haddawy's renditions are also vivid and immediate, without any of the purple patches found in Burton or other Victorian translations. In fact, as a credit to Haddawy's skills as a translator, you can distinguish the subtle differences in tone and style between these stories, which came from separate sources. I don't know how to describe this other than to say that there are moments in Aladdin when you can feel the influence of the roughly contemporaneous Charles Perrault (natural enough since the story was first introduced in a French version of the Nights), which is not felt in, say, Sindbad (which was drawn from an Egyptian manuscript).

This is a HUGELY enjoyable read that you will want to return to again and again.

I absolutely love Hussein's two books. I had been wanting to read the Arabian Nights for some time and it definitely didn't disapoint. I really loved the introduction he takes you through. You learn all about the history of the tales and it is absolutely fascinating.

This translation of some of the most beloved tales of the Arabian nights is irresistable.

PRODUCT RECEIVED WAS IN PAPERBACK FORM INSTEAD OF HARDBACK AS ADVERTISED. THE TEXT WAS HIGHLIGHTED AND PAGES WRITTEN ON BY PREVIOUS OWNER.

How many stories can you have within a story? Can ancient stories be improved upon? In my opinion the answer is yes, and not only with the Arabian nights but with many European tales as well.

How many times is the imagination sparked by talk of geni's, curses, and the like, but the stories are not well constructed. Reading here requires devotion. I would say it is an excellent reference book, but for fascinating tales, no.