Book review

Just finished this one today.

The Arabian Nights translated by Husain Haddawy
What strange and entertaining stories... or so Dinarzad would say.
Not for kids. Not even for teenagers. On the one hand as you read through these you can get an idea of why a portion of Middle Eastern culture is so screwed up, especially regarding women. But on the other hand they're fascinating and I found myself wanting to know what would happen next.
The G-rated version of the base story is about a King named Shahrayer who decides to marry a different woman every day and to have her executed the following morning until the daughter of his main governor, Shahrazad, decides that she will stop him by marrying him and telling him stories every night that will leave him so intrigued that he would delay her execution so that he could hear more. The stories she tells are old Arabic fables and fairy tales mainly from the 13th and 14th centuries. I lost track of how many stories there were since they're divided into "nights" (271 in total) and each tale lasts a minimum of three nights with most going on and on for many nights spinning tales within tales. But it's actually not hard to keep a mental thumb in the page and remember the beginning tale that all subsequent tales within eventually lead back to. It's a win for brains over brawn because it impresses upon the readers that storytelling used to be a vital part of society - all societies, as all cultures have fables and fairy tales in their history. In this case and in the case of many of the tales, a good story would be enough to spare the lives of many characters.
I thought the introduction and notes about the translation process was even more interesting than the material within. The translator explains the history of the different translations and how at one point when someone decided that it had to be 1001 nights that all kinds of stories from varying cultures were added in that didn't belong to the original collection such as Aladdin and The Magic Lamp. He also specifies how and why original texts were changed to suit the different audiences and from what I understand this is the most accurate translation you can find if you're interested. From an academic standpoint it's fascinating, but like I said, keep kids away from it... they're immature sensibilities probably won't be able to handle all of the bawdy and childish nonsense that takes place in the stories.
Of course, since the base story of Shahrayar and Shahrazad is just a vehicle to hold the old fables, their story is never finished other than to say that tradition holds that the king learns to trust women again and they live happily ever after, essentially. The stories are also said not to be set down in any particular order, but I think I could see a pattern that seemed to fit in with Shahrazad's plan in that as the tales progressed the women became less wanton and treacherous and the king not only stopped planning to put her to death after he heard the end of a tale, but eventually just started asking for the next one after one was definitely finished. This would seem to confirm that this is the best translation. I can't say it's the greatest book I've ever read, but it was a curiosity that was well worth the time to pursue.