Customer Reviews

The Arabian Nights (New Deluxe Edition)

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I will say that Husain Haddawy's translations of "The Arabian Nights" are the best you'll read for quite some time. I've had these books for awhile now and they're great. Haddawy has done a remarkable job and provides great introductions for both books. A map is also provided in each book showing the locales mentioned in the stories.

There are really two volumes you will need to get the complete collection. This volume has the earlier stories as told by Shahrazad, classic tales of mystery, fun, and excitement.

The second book " The Arabian Nights II" has the more popular stores most people are familiar with. Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Fourty Thieves, Ala al-Din (Aladdin) and the Magic Lamp.

Be sure to get them both and you'll be transported to the mystical lands of Arabian Nights. Enjoy.

I really had no idea how much I would enjoy this! I came to it with some vague recollections of some of the tales as they had been adapted into children's stories, but I soon discovered I actually knew almost nothing about the Arabian Nights.

The introduction was extremely helpful in explaining the history of the Arabian Nights, why there are different versions, and why those different versions may contain different tales. This volume collects the oldest, "original" tales. More familiar stories that were added later--such as Sinbad and Aladdin--are collected in a separate volume, Arabian Nights II.

This translation is an absolute joy to read. The language is vivid and alive--thoroughly modern, yet (judging from the effect on me as a reader) certainly successful in conveying the nuances of the original text.

I glanced at the Modern Library Burton edition after reading this. It reads like a King James Bible. Why subject yourself to a translation that you to re-translate in order to read--especially with a wonderful modern translation like this available? How terribly that must choke the pace of the stories!

I felt like the King himself as I read this, knowing that I needed to put it down to go to sleep, but constantly telling myself, "Well, maybe I'll push on for just one more night..." Funny, sexy, violent, and packed with magic and adventure, it really had it all.

Except for children, for whom the original tales are too sexual and violent, I can hardly imagine an audience this WOULDN'T appeal to!

I have loved the Arabian Nights since I was a kid. But its fame as a "children's book" has often been a disadvantage -- most editions are simplified, hobbled and sanitized. The unedited versions geared more for adults are a hundred years old, and often show their age. Burton, for example, is an impressive edition but the language is almost a parody of High Victorian English. This edition by Haddawy is almost as perfect as it could possibly be. First, the introduction is wonderful and definately worth reading on its own -- how many times can you say *that* about a book? It sets the stage for understanding the work, the problems in translating it, and the world the Nights came from. It is clearly, smoothly written. These strengths are carried over to the main text as well. The writing is so direct, modern, vivid, and thrilling! It effortlessly takes you into this vanished world of danger, love, magic and adventure. Many expressions are modernized, such as "demon" for "genie" or "God" for "Allah," which work well, although I wouldn't have minded the the more "romantic" terms. Haddawy explains his choice of stories... the full original text only contains about 300 nights worth of tales. Most of the famous stories were added later (Aladdin, Sindbad, etc.) in response to greater interest in the work. Readers looking for these stories should check out Haddawy's companion volume, "Arabian Nights II," which has these famous stories and shares almost all the virtues of this volume. Finally, these books are wonderfully put together: great paper, type, binding... very satisfying just as a physical form. For those who loved these stories, or anyone with a sense of adventure, buy this! Buy it now!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Haddawy's translation of "The Arabian Nights". It has a feeling of authenticity, as if it is truely an oral story being passed down through the ages, as it once was. The whole concept of the book is mind-boggling, with stories within stories so many times over that half the fun of reading the book is trying to follow the winding path that the stories lead you down. The physical book itself is also top-notch, as the Everyman's Library editions always are. For me, investing the few extra dollars for such a beautiful edition is well worth it.

This book may not be what you expect. It is not the Disney-fied, watered-down version that most of us were introduced to as children. Several of the more famous stories that most Americans would associate with "The Arabian Nights", such as Ali Baba or Aladdin, are actually not part of the work. They were added much later, by the early European translators. Also, the book contains bawdiness and violence (particularly towards women) that may not be appropriate for young children, so be forewarned. Overall, I feel that this an authentic, lucid translation of a fantastic story, wrapped in the most beautiful of packages. Highly recommended.

It's a safe guess that most people are familiar with The Arabian Nights or at least some of the stories from The Arabian Nights. However there are so many more stories than the few presented in fairy tale books or in the recent tv mini-series. I decided I wanted to read all of the stories.

I did some research into different translations and versions. I chose this one because it was a new translation and the translator was of Middle-Eastern origins. Haddaway explains in the introduction how his style of writing, the sentences structure, and word choice reflect the cadence and style of the stories he heard told as a boy growing up.

The language is beautiful, well written, and very funny. There is the occasional problem with vague pronoun use, but English pronouns can be very tricky for non-native speakers (and for native speakers as well). These problems are few and far between and don't detract from the stories. I highly recommend this edition of The Arabian Nights.

I was surprised to find that Sinbad, Ali Baba, and Aladin were not a part of the original Arabian Nights. I read a translation of the stories as a child and wanted to reacquaint myself with them after becoming an "adult." I must have read the PG version because the stories now are much more involved with magic, adventure, and sex. Did I mention sex? It appears that every story has some in it. Sometimes a lot of it, but not in a necessarily graphic way.

Each story has some interesting twists in it, and there are enough demons and mystery to awaken the adult child within all of us. Some of the stories follow the same general pattern, but each is unique unto itself. The only thing I can say is that curiousity is many a character's downfall. Read it and you won't be disappointed.

Haddawy's translation is the most accurate and elegant yet. Although it does have a few quirks (typos, unfamiliar phrases) it is by far better than any other English translation of the 'Nights.' Also, the Syrian manuscript he used as the basis for his translation is now considered the standard Arabic 'Nights.' (for tales that are especially popular in the West, but are probably less authentic, such as 'Aladdin' or 'Sindbad the Sailor,' check out the second volume Haddawy's 'Nights.') If you want a more complete, but less accurate 'Nights,' check out Sir Richard Burton's translation. I personally have a few more problems with Burton's translation though: I don't want to have to read 16 volumes (10 original volumes, 6 supplementary volumes) of the 'Nights,' his writing style is slightly archaic (Burton was from the Victorian age), and sometimes he gets excessively engrossed in sexual detail and nuance that it detracts from the important aspects of whatever particular scene he is dealing with. I do also have one minor issue with Haddawy's translation (actually it's more of an issue with the manuscript he used): the third old man's tale is missing in the Story of the Merchant and the Demon (this wouldn't be much of a problem if that particular story didn't happen to be one of my favorites.)

I highly recommend this new translation of the Arabian Nights. Previous translators have sought to colorize or edit the tales, but here the translator sought to stay true to the text. Readers may be surprised to see that the most famous tales (Aladdin, Sinbad) are not here, since they were added on at a later date. I enjoyed working through the story sequence and was surprised at the humor (the Barber's tale was hilarious). Read the introduction - for one thing, it taught me to look at the amazing level of detail in the stories, such as the individual dishes a character prepares for a feast.

I read this book several years ago during a time in my life when I was free to devote a good deal of time to it. I immersed myself in it for quite a while, making charts and graphs to keep track of the intricate structure of stories within stories. When I was about half or three quarters of the way through, I began to experience a sort of spiritual excitement or intoxication, similar to experiences I had reading Hegel's *Logic*, or the works of Meher Baba, or some other works. I called the author and told him about this, and told him I thought it was a spiritual book. He said no one has done anything, as far as he knows, to examine or explain the book in that way. I believe many of the characters and situations are symbols for characteristics of the spiritual path; I can feel this level of meaning, but I am not sufficiently knowledgable in that area to really explain them fully. However, it is quite clear that the overall scheme of the book has a meaning.

Scheherazade was a beautiful young woman of high status, living in a kingdom where the women had met a great misfortune. The king was betrayed by one of his mistresses, so he took the habit of recruiting a new mistress every night, whom he would slay in the morning to make sure he was not again betrayed. Scheherazade told her family, to their great dismay, that she was going to volunteer for this duty. The stories are the ones she used to engage the interest of the king, so that his curiosity was so great he would delay killing her for at least one more night.

The first stories portray people of the absolute meanest and most crude nature, full of lust, violence, selfishness, suspicion, and a very low nature. Bit by bit, the tone of the stories becomes elevated, until at the end they are stories of unbelievably sublime love, self sacrifice, absolute humility and the willingness to undergo any suffering for the sake of the beloved.

By this method, Scherezade raised the consciousness of the king, and liberated him and his kingdom from the thralldom of his previous state of ignorance.

I hope one day to say more about the specific symbolic meaning of many of the characters and situations, which are extremely evocative and mean a great deal more than what is on the surface.

"`What an amazing and entertaining story!' said Dinarzad, the sister of queen Shahrazad. And she would reply, `What is this compared with what I shall tell you tomorrow night if I stay alive.'" This dialogue ends every night of "the nights" and makes us all to wander and expect what will happen the next night. While anticipating the next night, the readers' hearts and minds goes ups and downs with the book. The Stories of "The Arabian Nights", or "The One Thousand and One Nights," are very entertaining and strange. It makes you turn those pages to find out what will happen and you will discover those stories (and stories within the stories within the stories within the stories), you never dreamed of, which made you finish the book fast and delighted.
Although I expected to read the story like "the story of Sindbad," and "the story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp," which are explained by the introduction, is later addition to fulfill the name of the "one thousand" nights, I really enjoy this translation of the oldest version of the Nights. The translator, Husain Haddawy, even made this book more familiar to us. He changes "Allah" to "God," and such. This book about four hundred more pages will bring you a lot fun time while you read it. I highly recommend you to read this version of "The Arabian Nights."