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From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: 1001 Arabian Nights
Message-ID: <658@k.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 22-Nov-85 16:21:26 EST
Article-I.D.: k.658
Posted: Fri Nov 22 16:21:26 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Nov-85 04:17:54 EST
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Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
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If it was only about 400 pages, then it was not a complete edition of the
"Arabian Nights" (or "Alf-Laylah wa-Laylah", the "Thousand Nights and a
Night").  Rather, it was one of the many heavily edited and abridged
versions that bedevil the market.

To the best of my knowledge, the only complete "Arabian Nights" in English
is Sir Richard Burton's translation last century.  This is some twelve
volumes of small print and multi-page paragraphs.  Burton's prose is
beautiful, as always, but the sheer length of the thing makes it rough
going.  One of the greatest features of the Nights is the story nesting.
Scherezade will be telling a story about, for example, a merchant who digs
up a Djinn bottle at the seashore, and once he manages to trick the Djinn,
the merchant will tell the Djinn a story that explains his defeat, in which
there is a character who tells a story...  until it can be rather difficult
to keep all the levels of nesting in mind at once.  This is great for a
fully-formed adult intellect, but I think most kids would have a lot of
trouble with it.

The stories are often fairly racy as well, although there is none of this
grotesque twentieth-century description of every gesture and moan.  (R.
Crumb once parodied this style of "erotica" with "Food Comics", where a
family sits around the table and does nothing but eats food, the dialogue
consisting exclusively of "Boy, this sure is good eatin'!" and the like.)  I
think most parents would object to their children reading it for this
reason, though I don't think exposure to mature sexuality hurts children
myself.  (Rather the opposite, in fact.)  However, the length and complexity
of the "Nights" does make it adult reading.

I got my copy at a bookstore in North Carolina some six years ago, but I
haven't seen it in a bookstore before or since.  I have also seen it
advertised in those publisher's overstock catalogs that some sleazy outfit
sends through the mails.  Apparently the set was reprinted by a "Burton
Appreciation Society" sometime earlier this century, and most copies have
been sitting in warehouses ever since.  Your best bet is to find a local
bookstore that has a "Book Search Service", or a store that specializes in
overstock.  Be prepared to pay between $75 and $150, though; and don't try
to carry it home on the bus!
-=-
Tim Maroney, Professional Heretic, CMU Center for Art and Technology
tim@k.cs.cmu.edu       | uucp: {seismo,decwrl,ucbvax,etc.}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim
CompuServe: 74176,1360 | God is not dead; he just smells funny.