The Arabian Nights Entertainments

edited by Jonathan Scott

The classic collection of Arabian tales. These tales have inspired countless other creative works ranging from books, to films, to video games. Unfortunately, I can't say that they did quite the same for me. Perhaps the fault is with this version (not the one pictured), which is particularly long and could have benefited from the services of a good editor. The version I read was produced in the late 19th century and comprised of four volumes of the most syrupy and overly romanticised prose I've had the misfortune to slog through. After about the fiftieth tale of star-crossed lovers who fall devotedly in love at first sight, I was ready to put it down and move on to something else. I eventually dragged myself through most of the first two volumes before skipping to the end.

The story is promising at the start. A woman voluntarily becomes the wife of a woman-hating sultan who has vowed to wed and kill a different bride each night. Her plan is to distract him by telling him stories which so captivate his attention that when she is obliged to stop for the morning, he'll delay her execution until he's heard the end. The trick, of course, is that the story NEVER ends. And I found that to be the most annoying feature of these stories. Just as one story appears to be winding down, the principal character of that story will find an excuse to begin another story, which will never fully resolve because the principal character of THAT story will start another story, which will lead into another story, and so on and on and on.

Now don't get me wrong, there are some good stories in here. Some of them are quite entertaining. The problem is that most of them are not. The version I read was downloaded from Project Guttenberg so I could read it on my PDA. If you'd like to give these stories a try, I would suggest you try and find a more modern compilation and look for one that is heavily abridged. (The Richard Burton collection pictured at the top looks promising.) 1001 nights is just a bit too much; I'd have been much happier with about 20.