The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night; Complete

by Anonymous, Joseph-Charles Mardrus (Editor), E. Powys Mathers (Translator)

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is a translation by Powys Mathers from the French edition by J.-C. Mardrus.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Fantasy, Literature, Middle East, Short Stories, Fairy Tales

2341 pages, Paperback

Published December 31, 1990

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A library of books is the fairest garden in the world, and to walk there is an ecstasy.

Within the span of the ninth to the thirteen centuries my library consists of these: Beowulf, The Pillow Book, The Tale of Genji, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, The Sagas of Icelanders, Njal's Saga, and this. What a show of power, then, that a monumental collection the likes of which the Anglo world has never even attempted to replicate is popularly framed as a collection of children's tales, sexy times, and a text that is of little worth without the supposed genius of one bastardizing Orientalist. I'm not going to pretend that I enjoyed all of this, or most, or even more than a mere handful of tales in their entirety and bits and pieces of the rest of the thousand and one nights, but I do recognize its worth. It's rather sad that most prefer to coddle this or simplify it to extremes, for these times are in desperate need of critical consideration when it comes to the culture that brought about this work.

The most contemporary descendant of this work in my library is The Corpse Exhibition: And Other Stories of Iraq. Do you know how sad that is? Look, in a lot of ways the uglier parts of the Islamic Golden Age have been inherited by the European Golden Age in the forms of anti-blackness, antisemitism, rape culture and so much else illustrated by the contents of these tales (slaves of the Trans-Saharan trade weren't allowed into Islam for fear they would realize the horrifying hypocrisy of it all), but that does not justify this persistent void in history, in literature, in Disney movies and so-called common sense. Wiki says, "The best scholars and notable translators, such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, had salaries that are estimated to be the equivalent of professional athletes today." Wiki also describes hoards of sciences and art and appreciative insight, taught today as "discovered" by Europeans along with whatever else was judged as fit pickings. Everything else apparently is sufficiently covered by mentions of terrorism and hijabs.

You know those stories that involve proto-legends of ancient civilizations, glorious in their existence and devastating in their fall, always hoped to have remnants, always yearned towards by a few of the wiser characters? Where is that for the civilizations of these tales? Where is that deep and abiding interest in the historical complexities these tales incorporate, the genre bending that describes the bridgework between Ancient Greece and modern Grimm, an inheritance that does not bend over backwards to insist white people have always and ever shall be the people? I'm not justifying Orientalism, or god forbid implying that even more of the ancient architecture and cultural artifacts of this era should be stripped away from their homelands and carted off as so much stolen booty to the likes of the British Museum. What concerns me is this terrifying lack of caring about the worlds that brought these tales together and, for all popular media likes to pretend, are still with us today. China, Persia turned Iran, Rûm on one side and Rome on the other, India before Pakistan and Bangladesh, Damascus in contemporary Syria, Constantinople turned Istanbul in contemporary Turkey, Cairo in contemporary Egypt, Greece, even much belittled Sudan and, of course, Irāq. Looking above, the works I mentioned previously are all of recently Anglocentric rehabilitated Japanese and Northern European construction. Yeah, I could put more effort into expanding my reading, but don't tell me there aren't ideological forces interested in keeping the trek beyond the infantilized The Arabian Nights a hard one.

What I found in this were traces of fairy tales, science fiction, horror stories of corpse-eaters and refrains of that much esteemed Odyssey. Hospitality was paramount, hygiene was mandated, and riches were glossed over as much as the titles of colonial lords and plantation owners were in later years. Gender was every so often malleable, entertainment was a consideration of disguise and ethics, and the descriptions of jewels and gardens and what I could get of the poetry were beyond compare. Islam is the main tenet, but much as Beowulf did with pagans and The Divine Comedy with philosophers, quality of past ancestry outweighs lack of present belief. Tropes run as rampant across these tales as they do across television shows and sociopolitical relations, and more often than not the fictioned morales and implied -isms were a mirror to the Anglo mores of today. It wouldn't surprise me that, for every reader frightened by the myriad similarities between the Golden Age of nine centuries past and their present, there is another combing the pages to fuel their Islamophobia. There may be insinuations in these pages that Christians bless themselves with the shit of their religious leaders, but the hegemony they were written in has long since passed, and contemporary retribution is justified by nothing.

More than two thousand pages have passed since I opened Volume One, and all I can say is that I didn't have the toolkit to appreciate the sociocultural wealth that has amazingly survived till this day. True, it's not that esteemed by even its proper home of the Arabic canon, but it wouldn't hurt if more readers could engage with this with more than entertainment or Fox News in mind, cause no, the Middle East didn't pop out of nowhere. No, the best place for this work is not an uncritical pedestal and a lah-de-dah translation. All that does is steamroll that indoctrinated gap between the Ancient Greeks and the European Renaissance even more, and the world of today is much too small for that to hold.

Whether they are written or spoken, words can destroy kings and ruin empires.

There is nothing new under the sun. Are you ready to seriously consider the old?

P.S. Yes, I'm including this in my Summer of Women 2015 count. Anyone who begs to differ, bring it on. Women were reading and writing a hell of a lot earlier in Islam than in Anglo Christianity, and appealing to historical stereotypes is a poor excuse indeed.

[Aya · Rating 4 out of 5]

King 1: I miss my brother king 2
King 2: damn my wife is sleeping with a black slave I KILL HER AND HIM. oh and I will go see my brother.
King 1: let’s go hunting brotha
King2: no I’m soo gloomy. Oh and btw your wife and every single one of your concubines are sleeping with black slaves too. I saw them.
King 1: I KILL THEM ALL.
King 2: damn bro this whole thing sucks I don’t feel like being king any more.
King1: me neither hey let’s leave everything and go see if other men’s wives suck too
*they go off*
King1: look it’s a genie sleeping on a women’s lap
Women: this genie abducted me on my wedding night so as a revenge I have slept with like 500 men, now you two sleep with me!
*both sleep with her*
King 1&2 damn even man genies get cheated on, I guess this is life what can you do. Hey let’s be kings again because we can do whatever we want!
King 1: I have an idea! I’m gonna sleep with every single virgin in the kingdom and KILL HER right afterwards so that she never gets to cheat on me! Vasir (prime minister) bring me all the virgins!
*after a while*
Vasir (totally not bugged that his only job as prime minister is to bring virgins to the king to sleep with then murder): crap I ran out of virgins the king is gonna KILL me..
Vasir’s daughter Shahrazad: bring me dad!
Vasir: ummm.. your nuts kiddo.
Shahrazad: no I have a plan! I will tell him really interesting bedtime stories sooo slowly that by the end of the night he will let me live till the next night to hear the rest of my stories and I will till him like a THOUSAND of those!
Vasir: that’s a pretty solid plan you got there. Still I’m gonna buy you a coffin just in case.

*first night*
Shahrazad: here’s a story with one angry genie, a bunch of women who are all witches, oh and everyone gets turned into animals!
King: wow that’s a really cool story so what happens next?
Shahrazad: oops its morning now, I will till you tomorrow night.
King: guess I’ll have to keep you alive till tomorrow night then.

And this goes on for one thousand nights more.


I’ve seen the Arabian nights on my dad’s shelves as a kid but all the adults agreed that they are not appropriate for a child so I was never allowed to read them. Now Im all grown up and I’m reading it in its original language(Arabic) and although I was familiar with most of the poetry and the main plot, I couldn’t help hating it, then I realised that this is the kind of book you just should NEVER take seriously, that way I managed to enjoy it. I’m doing this thing where I read a couple of stories before bed as a kind of bedtime stories (you know like what the characters are doing in the book) and so I’m really taking my time with this one.

Before starting this book you should be willing to enjoy it’s absurdity.

[Daren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well it took me over two years of chipping away at it, but I have completed the four book, 2342 page epic The Book of Thousand Nights and One Night.
This is the English translation from the French translation of Dr JC Mardrus by Powys Mathers. I know from perusing other editions that the stories are in a different order, and the spelling of names is significantly different. This edition is by the Folio Press (1980) and contains a lot of black and white artwork by Frank Martin and Eric Fraser - and they are great in themselves.

It could be nothing short of 5 stars.

It is truly an epic collection - hundreds and hundreds of stories - of religious teachings, moralistic tales, bawdy tales, fantastic tales of creatures, demons and djinns, comedic stories, stories of sadness, stories within stories.

Set largely from Baghdad, but ranging from Iraq through Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Yemen, as far as India, and other named places fallen to obscurity or lost.

The famous stories - The Voyages of Sindbad, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Ala Addin and the Wonderful Lamp are there, but so many more.

All told by Shahrazad to King Shahzaman and her sister Dunyazad, in the hope of remaining alive another night...

[Adina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember the stories were among my favorites. After Anderson.

[lucia meets books · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book and I think I only read 50 pages, which was a lot because I really didn't want to continue reading it. Everything felt so gross and awful, I remember that at least three times the narrator said that women just "threw themselves to the floor with their legs open" so the men could do their things -.-

I think there was rape at some point too, something to do with a giant that was sleeping in a tree who had a wife I think, I don't remember clearly though and I won't open the book up to look for it.

I know it's an old book that was written on a diferent time frame where these things weren't that big of a deal but those are the reasons why I would never read this book.

[Steve R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a translated edition of this work a while ago but then, reading a well done GoodReads review, discovered that the actual work was probably more than twice the seven hundred odd pages I’d just finished, and that there were both extensive songs and verses as well as excessively erotic passages which were usually expunged. Tracking down the best recommended translation, I found it in four volumes, each of which exceeded five hundred pages in length. Although it took almost eight months, it was a true delight to read.

Actually, 99 of the 1001 nights were unaccounted for, since the numbered nights in succession frequently passed over certain numbers.

What I found most attractive besides the fanciful tales of beautiful young women, exceedingly handsome if exceptionally idle and wasteful young men, shipwrecks in which only the hero ever survives and hidden tunnels leading to underground chambers full of untold treasures were the flights of oratorical descriptions which the author (or speaker, for I always envisage these tales being told in a tent around a brazier after an extended supper) very often presented. Hyperbole, yes. Over-the-top descriptions, yes. Totally unrealistic imaginings, yes. But they were fun!

For example (and there’s a lot of them! Unfortunately, GR limits reviews size - only 6 of my 14 pages of quotes were allowed):

Amazement, Weird Way of Showing: ‘The Ifrit Maimun danced round and round, with a finger thrust up his anus, by which he sought to exclaim, ‘I marvel! I marvel!’’

An Apple (Magical): ‘It is not a natural fruit, but was made by the hand of man; it was born, not of a blind tree but of the study and vigil of a great philosopher. He passed his long life in learning The curative properties of all plants and minerals, and, as a last triumph, mingled his knowledge and the life-giving simples of the world in this one apple. There is no disease, whether it be plague, purple fever, leprosy, or the awful coming of Death himself, which cannot be cured by smelling at the fruit.’

Beauty of a Girl: ‘A girl’s skin has not only the light and whiteness of silver but the softness of silk. Her waist is a branch of myrtle, her mouth a flowering chamomile, her lips two moist anemones. Her cheeks are apples and her breasts are little ivory gourds. Light shines from her forehead and her brows ceaselessly hesitate as to whether they should meet or part. When she speaks there is a flash as of fine pearls; when she smiles a river of sunlight flows out of lips sweeter than honey and softer than butter. The seal of beauty has made the dimple of her chin, and her belly is beautiful. The lines of her thighs are excellent, folding one over the other. Her flanks are fashioned all of one ivory and her feet are molded of almond paste. Her bottom is full and not depressed, the waves of a crystal sea or the mountains of the moon.’

Beauty of a Girl (again): ‘Zubaidah was taken aback by the girl’s beauty, for the child had hair of night, cheeks like the red hearts of roses, pomegranates for breasts, shining eyes and languid lids, a bright brow and a face compact of moonlight. The sun rose in the morning from her forehead and the shadows crept at night out of her hair; without her breath there would have been no musk; lacking her, the flowers would never have known their perfume; the moon borrowed from her; branches would not have swayed in the wind without the example of her waist, nor could the stars have shone had they not learnt their shining from her eyes; bows would never have been stretched to fight in perfect curves, save in imitation of her eyebrows; the coral of the sea had heard of her lips and blushed because of them. When she was angry, the lovers fell dead all along the earth, and when she recovered her temper, their lives came back to them. Her young eyes knew more than the oldest sorcerer, for it could magic the two worlds with a single spell. She was the miracle and honour of her time; she was a glory to Him Who fashioned her.’

Beauty of a Girl (again) ‘She was the most perfect of the masterworks of God! She was naked; the balance of her neck and the black fire of her eyes surpassed gazelles, her body the wind-dancing araks; her hair was a winter night, her mouth a rose, sealed with the seal of Sulaiman; her teeth were hailstones in the sun. Her neck was a bar of silver, her belly had its dimples and counter-dimples, her buttocks their valleys and stages; her navel could have held an ounce of black mush; her thighs, though heavy and firm, had the resilience of cushions filled with ostrich down. Between these thighs there lay in its warm nest, like a rabbit without ears, her pretty love tale, with terrace and hollow, hill and vale, and fair regale to banish grief and bale. You would have called it a smooth crystal dome or an inverted silver cup.’

Beauty of a Young Man: ‘… his eyes wound all the world, his cheeks are anemones fallen upon a terrace strewn with jasmine, his mouth is the seal of Sulaiman, and his lips are dyed with the blood of rubies; he has the neck of a young antelope and it bears up the glory of his head as a lily is carried on its dew-wet stem. He is above all praise, for he had beauty such as a craftsman can appreciate, and is as charming as he is beautiful.’

Bestiality: ‘I saw embraced upon a couch, roiling in every lascivious contortion, the girl I had been following and an enormous ape with an almost human face. After a moment or so, the girl disengaged herself and, standing upright, took off all her clothes; then she stretched herself again upon the couch, and the ape leapt upon her nakedness, clasping her in his arms and covering her. When he had done his act, he rose and rested for an instant; then he took her again and covered her. He rose again, rested again, only to hurl himself upon her a third time; And this continued until he had given ten assaults, while she had answered him as finely and delicately as if he had been a man. At last the two fell back, worn out to the point of unconsciousness, and lay without movement.

Body of a Princess, Strangely Shaped: ‘She stood like a frightened deer, and her face was salt upon a lover’s wound. Truthfully, if she had not gone further to meet Diamond it was because the heavy haunches slung to so slight a waist prevented her, and because her backside, dimpled with valleys, was so remarkable a benediction that she could not move easily without it trembling like curdled milk in a Badawi’s porringer or quince jelly heaped on a plate perfumed with benzoin.’

Boy, Young and Attractive: ‘a child picked out among ten thousand, whose beauty dispelled the shadows as a girl moon at her full dispels them. His eyes, those cups of drunkenness, troubled the wise with the sweet fires of their regard, his lashes shone like curved dagger blades, the curls of his musk black hair confused the heard like nard, his cheeks nocked the cheeks of young girls; his smiles were arrows, he walked nobly and daintily; the sun had dexterously painted a freckle on the left commissure of his lips; his breast was smooth and white as a crystal tablet, and his a lively heart.’

Bragging: ‘I have been called the most expert genealogist of horses in all Arabia. My art is to tell at a single glance and with never a mistake the race of a horse, the blood of a horse, the tribe which bred him, and the kind of country which pastured him. I can give instantly the distance any horse would travel in a given time at a gallop, at an amble, or at a quick trot. I can tell hidden disease or disease which is to come; I can describe the causes of death of the sires and dams back to the fifth generation. I can cure equine ills which had been written as incurable, and have a dying horse win races in an hour. I might say a great deal more if I were not so modest.’

A Bum: ‘a back side again, heavy, tender, firm and self-possessed; when the girl turns it, antelopes and gazelles flee away; when she unveils it, the sun is put to shame; if she moves, she falls over; if she leans with it, she slays; if she sits down, the impression of her sitting may never be removed.’

Cautious Circumspection: ‘Hujr sleeps with one eye open and his mind awake. I will give you an example: one night, as he slept by my side and I watched over his sleep, a black snake came from below the mat and made straight as if to crawl over his face. Without waking, Hujr turned his head away. Then the snake crawled towards the open palm of his hand. Hujr closed his hand. The snake when down to his stretched foot. But Hujr bent his leg in his sleep and pulled his foot away. Disturbed by these movements, the snake made for a pitcher of milk which the King had always by his bed. It swallowed greedily and then vomited the milk back into the jar, while I rejoiced in my soul, saying: ‘When he wakes, he will drink the poisoned milk and then die. I shall be free from this wolf forever.’ Soon Hujr awoke in a great thirst and lifted the pitcher; but, before he drank, he sniffed at the milk, his hand trembled, the pitcher dropped, and he was saved. He is like this in all things; he thinks of everything, foresees everything, and never can be taken unawares.’

Christians, Disparaged: ‘Christians make a virtue of horrible continence and honour the emasculate priesthood. They are perverts who know not life, and are unhappy because they are never warmed by any sun.’

Clitoris: ‘Zumurrid took Ali Shar’s hand and placed it gently on the curved part of her story. Ali Shar felt something round and as high as a throne, as fat as a chicken, warmer than the throat of a pigeon, hotter than a loving heart; and this round thing was smooth and white, melting and enormous. Suddenly it reared up like a mule between his fingers; like a mule pricked in the nose or an ass stabbed in the back.’

Cuckolding: A father’s two wives are seduced by his son on the pretext that he has merely gone back to retrieve slippers: ‘…he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Father, father! One, or both?’ ‘Both, you wanton, and may Allah curse you! Cried the far away answer. ‘He has told the truth after all!’ cried the two girls. ‘I suppose we must not hinder him.’ And that, O King, is the trick of the slippers by which that wanton of nippers got the two women in his nippers.’

Curse: ‘O son of bastards and bitches, I spit in your face! Black dog, foul gallows bird, I piss upon your head!’

A Daughter (Ideal): ‘…our daughter shall be a smile in the sky, and I should love her; her hair would be silver and gold; her tears, if she wept, would be falling pearls; her laughter, if she laughed, would be gold coins; and if she smiled, her smiles would be buds of rose glowing upon her lips.’

Death: ‘the Destroyer of sweetness, the Separator of friends, the Plunderer of palace and cot, the Builder of tombs, and the Enricher of graveyards.’ ‘the Separator, the Destroyer of palaces, the Builder of tombs, the Inexorable, the Inevitable.’

Death, Its Suddenness: ‘And in the twinkling of an eye, Ali Baba’s wretched brother sighed out his soul and lay at the entrance of the cave in six parts. Such was his destiny. So much for him.’

Decision on Marrying an Old Man: (paraphrase) When a young princess has her father propose her marriage to a much older, rather repellant man, she tells him she’ll think about it. She tells a servant of hers to follow the old man as he goes out to the desert and to observe his ‘jet’. When it is reported that this flow of urine was ‘finished’, she tells her father to forget about it. I guess that the way a man pees is indicative of his virility.

Dowry, Extortionate Demands: ‘My daughter demands a thousand bracelets of red gold, five thousand golden denars of Hajar coinage, a necklace of five thousand pearls, a thousand squares of Indian silk, a dozen pairs of yellow leather boots, ten sacks of Irak dates, a thousand head of cattle, a mare of the tribe, five chests of musk, five flasks of rose essence, and five coffers of ambergris.’
Dress, of a Princess: ‘The pretty women used all their art; they combed and scented her hair until the musk of Tartary had fumed off in jealousy, and hearts danced to see her braids falling below her hips, tressed like palm trees on a day of festival. They put a belt of red lawn about her waist, and each of its threads was a hunting noose. They draped her in rose-tinted gauze which confessed her body, and put drawers upon her of royal amplitude and a more cloudy texture, sewn to enslave the world. They braided the long division of her hair with pearls until the stars of the milky way were cast into confusion. They put a diadem on her brow, and then were thrown into a trance by the picture they had made. Yet her beauty was more than all their art.’

Entourage: ‘I desire that you bring me a horse of pure breed who has no brother in all the world for beauty, no, not even in the stables of kings. His harnessing must be worth at least a thousand thousand golden dinars. At the same time you will bring forty-eight graceful slaves, richly, cleanly, and elegantly clad. Of which twenty-four, in two files of twelve, shall clear the way before my horse, and the other twenty-four, in two files of twelve, bring up the read. Also, be careful to select twelve girls of incomparable and moonlike beauty, each the pet example of her race, to serve my mother. Each must bring a different coloured robe with her, worthy the wearing of a king’s daughter. Lastly, you must bring about the neck if each of the forty-eight slaves a bag containing five thousand dinars of gold, so that I may have money when it pleases me.’

Eroticism: “There appeared thighs molded of marble in their glory and above them a soft hill of milk and crystal, shining and round and tender, a scented belly with rosy dimples faintly breathing of musk and coloured like a garden of anemones, and a breast laden with twin pomegranates, swollen to ripeness and crowned with buds of the same.
Executions: ‘Take this miserable dog beyond the city, flay him alive and, after stuffing his skin with rotten straw, return and nail it to the gate of the enclosure. Burn his body on a fire of dry dung and throw what is left into the drain.’ The executioner swiftly made ‘two Persians out of one Persian’. ‘Of stepmother and Jew he had them seized and impaled above an ardent fire, so that they were consumed as it were upon a spit.’

Farting: ‘Mother of Calamity let out a ringing fart which startled all the horses and sent pebbles jumping from the road into the faces of the warriors.’ ‘Fasyan trailing behind him such a thunder of prodigious farts that the sails of a ship might have been filled by them and the hair of little children turned to white.’ ‘Suddenly came relief. A long and thunderous fart broke from him, shaking the foundations of the house and throwing its utterer violently forward, so that he swooned. Then followed a multitude of other escapes, gradually diminishing in sound but rolling and re-echoing through the troubled air. Last came a single deafening explosion and all was still.

Fat: My body is an orchard of fruits: my breasts are pomegranates, my cheeks are peaches, and my bottom is watermelons.

Fat Girl: ‘She is as swollen as a bag of piss;/She walks about, and there an earthquake is/She farts among the nations of the West/And in the quiet East we hear of this.’

Fate, Its Inescapability: ‘He did not know that when a head is destined to make that fatal leap from the shoulder, it will make that leap and no other.’ ‘No man, though he be hidden in a seven fold jar, can avoid the Death which hangs about his neck.’

Female roles, Limited Range: ‘For a wise man has said, for a girl there is but marriage or the tomb.’
Garden, Luscious: ‘He began to walk up and down the thickets of flowers. The green garden bathed in her stream and was as richly dressed as a woman of rank on a day of festival. The white rose smiled to her red sister, and the nightingales wooed both, as if they had been tender poets making love to the sound of lutes. Among the multiple beauty of the terraces, dew lay upon the purple of the roses, like tears upon the blushes of a startled girl. The birds were drunken with their own songs; in the cypresses by the water the obedient so crooned that the garden of Iran seemed to be a thorn bush in comparison with that place.’

Genitalia, Appreciation: The slave girls seemed to like ‘my merchandise, which they seemed to find unusual in size and quality.’

Ghouls, Nefarious Activities: he ‘west forth to beat the country, to lie in wait about the roads, to make pregnant women miscarry, to frighten old dames, to terrify children, to howl in the wind, to whine at doors, to bark in the night, to haunt ruins, to cast spells, to grin the shadows, to visit tombs, to sniff at the dead, to commit a thousand assaults and provoke a thousand calamities.

Gifts, Excessiveness: ‘At a signal from Iblis, twelve slaves entered the hall carrying twelve cupboards of identical size and ornament. Iblis ... showed the contents of each to Tufhah, cried: ‘These are yours!’ The first cupboard was filled to the top with jewels, the second with coined gold, the third with gold in bars, the fourth with wrought gold, the fifth with gold candlesticks of great elaboration, the sixth with myrobalan and dried conserves, the seventh with silk underclothing, the eighth with cosmetics and perfumes, the ninth with lutes, the tenth with gold plate, the eleventh with brocaded garments, and the twelfth with robes of many-colored silks.’

Guardman, Black: ‘The entrance to this garden was guarded by so black a negro that his very presence shadowed all the flowers. This child of pitch was a giant, his upper lip rose above his nostrils in the shape of an artichoke, and his lower lip fell about his neck. He had the millstone of a mill slung for a shield across his breast, and wore a sword of Chinese steel, hanging from a belt formed of iron rings so great that a war elephant could easily have passed through each. This dark guardian, lying flat upon the skins of wild beasts, sent forth a thunderous snoring from his open mouth.’

[Lynne King · Rating 5 out of 5]

These tales are excellent but as there are four volumes and I have so many other unread, somewhat shorter books, I have decided to read these at a later date. I certainly will not forget as they are on my favourites bookshelf in my office and I cannot possibly miss them!

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the greatest books, if not the greatest book, of all books... ever ...... anywhere.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing collection/translation. 2000 pages of pure fairy tale pleasure.

[Casey Dorsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is racist, sexist, vulgar and violent. If you can get around that, these are folk stories told by common people and there's something in it for everyone. Except prudes.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 5 out of 5]

The anonymous collector of these tales gathered them from many cultures and traditions and framed them all as the wonderful Shahrazad and her sidekick sister Dunyzad holding off King Shahryar for almost three years.

This has it all - magic, romance, adventure, humor (lots of humor - they never said how funny it was). This edition is an English translation of a French translation from Arabic. But, really, that is immaterial in some ways as all the stories came from Persia, Arabia, Europe, Africa, India and Allah knows where else - so they are already transformed.

And transformation is one of the keys in getting into these tales - we recognize characters and situations from before and relish how the tales surprise us as they are changed into something new once again.

[Lizzie]

Combing for to-reads through the somewhat silly 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list this week. Now with Goodreads-friendly spreadsheet.

[Pablo S. Martín · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tras seis meses de lectura interrumpida, entre tomo y tomo, para no cansar el intelecto con estos relatos, completé la maravillosa lectura de Las Mil Noches y Una Noche.

Este libro es un canto al islamismo. Un himno como nunca hecho. Una épica de proporciones humanas, solo posible gracias a la inigualable fe y creencias de todo un cúmulo de pueblos en la gloria de Alá y Mahoma, su profeta. En cada relato se plantea la cuestión del destino manifiesto ante los personajes, y la decisión de cada uno de ellos de dejarse en manos mismas del creador, mostrando incluso que cuando se trata de cambiar el destino a la fuerza o ir en contra del mismo, las cosas suelen salir muy mal. Siendo el destino el verdadero personaje tácito de Las Mil Noches y Una Noche. A su vez, la gran separadora, aquella que todo lo extermina, la muerte finiquitadora, es la que pone un balance final a tantos personajes que son los más grandes e importantes de su tiempo.
Es un libro que no solo glorifica a los musulmanes, sino que también a toda su cultura, incluyendo por momentos, ligeras críticas a la misma, aún cuando continúan mostrando su enorme misoginia y fanatismo religioso. Mezclando sátira con versos de extrema belleza poética, la obra se enarbola en múltiples capas de magnífica menipea, alcanzando alturas de fantasía y realismo mágico pocas veces vistas. Tanta pasión, tanto amor por su credo es digno de admiración, y también, digno de temor, pues en pos de defenderlo, han hecho lo inimaginable, e incluso más.
No se puede negar la profunda y encantadora cosmovisión del islamismo con sus genni, sus huríes, sus visires y califas calentones, hay mucho más aquí: gigantes, cíclopes, caballos alados, aves gigantescas, humanos marinos e infinidad más de situaciones y criaturas que han sido el alimento entero de toda la imaginación de toda la cultura occidental.
Pues, en el mundo islámico, aún hoy día, su realidad es esta, genni capaces de conceder deseos, tesoros ocultos, tierras maravillosas esperando ser descubiertas y cuevas secretas que esconden el destino de cada creyente.
Negar la influencia de estos relatos, y por sobre todo, de el marco argumentativo del rey Scharariar y Sherezade es negar que el cielo es imposible de tocar y por eso tan ensoñador alcanzarlo algún día.
Hay en esta compleja y monumental colección tan vasta cantidad de información que es imposible no de apreciar por separado, pues un solo relato, por bueno o malo que sea, no lo es tanto como el conjunto y todo el credo que los rodea, lo cual lleva a preguntarse, realmente, si este tipo de conjeturación argumentativa existe desde hace tantos años, casi desde la niñez misma de la humanidad post cristianismo, cómo es posible que recién en el siglo XVIII y XIX el ser humano comenzara a plantearse lo que el credo, la fe, y sobre todo el poder que estos tienen sobre la vida humana. La filosofía de todo este compendio excede por mucho al islamismo más ortodoxo, planteando incluso lo que es el existencialismo prematuro e incluso un humanismo cuasi renacentista que es absolutamente contextualizado en la distancia.
Por eso mismo, la gran pregunta es planteada a gritos enmudecidos:
¿Existe el destino o poseemos libre voluntad de obrar y cambiar nuestras vidas a nuestro antojo?
Determinismo y fuerza de voluntad, esas son las consignas que han marcado no solo el planteamiento completo de este libro, sino de la humanidad entera que ha continuado existiendo y sobreviviendo más allá de todo.

Gracias, pueblo Islámico, más allá de sus horripilantes costumbres misóginas, racistas y fanáticas, leer este libro es algo que debe ser apreciado por la humanidad en su totalidad.

[Esma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting flying carpets, magical lamps, and grand sultans doing cool stuff. What the actual heck did I just read? I'm a bit traumatized. Kudos to Shahrazad though; much respect to her for capturing the attention of a psychopathic idiot for that many nights.

[Keke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic for a reason, lot of cool fantasy stuff, this is a book that is begging for film adaptions which there are plenty though none of them reach the dreamlike fantasy this book is capable of.

[SJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read several versions of the Thousand Nights and One Night, starting with the extremely opaque OG Burton translation (lots of "an thou not be sleepy"s and "alack and alas!"s). I gave up on that a number of times, yearning for a simpler translation that would just tell me the story of what happened, without the elaborate fuff or archaic language.

This is that translation. The best one out there I could find, bar none.

It is extremely readable, there are even some poems I didn't skip and found to be good (no mean feat considering the verse was translated first into French and then English) and, something I found surprising, includes some racy aspects that Burton excised, mostly when it includes mentions of homosexual romance or hanky-panky, which enhance the stories greatly in my view.

The cons - due to the nature of the stories and their context, this naturally contains historic attitudes that are painfully prejudiced, and I speak as someone not easily "triggered". Lots of stuff about how women are immoral, certain races are subhuman and ugly, lots of plot points to which the only rational response is "WTF". Some "morals" of the stories - men can have multiple wives and concubines but if a woman strays she deserves gruesome torture and/or death, you can do all sorts of horrible things but if you are a Believer and if it is in your Destiny you will prosper, if you are not a Believer you deserve bad things to happen to you even if you do good things.

Yuck.

However, still fascinating, so long as you shrug off the yucky parts and read on, maybe taking frequent breaks. Some great fantasy stories in there, some very interesting insights into the culture and beliefs of those times. Also, for what it's worth, I've heard a theory that the frequent religious references were deliberately added so that the stories could be passed on without being outright banned, despite their many pagan aspects and probable pagan origins in ancient Persia - some food for thought.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

You should definitely read this the way I did. One a night. It's a commitment, but worth it!

[Leeyoojinchoi0721]

let me read it first

[Nada Hemida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extraordinarily brilliant, but really boring and confusing at times.