Not a translation of the Arabian Nights, but a discussion of their history and their influence. Author Robert Irwin notes that there is no definitive version of the Thousand Nights and a Night (which is more or less how they were known in the Arabic-speaking world). Traces go back to the ninth century, but stories continued to be added until the nineteenth. Irwin notes the Arab intellectual world doesn’t think much of the Nights, which are seen as naïve and vulgar; it can be argued that they are more part of the European literary tradition than the Arabic – especially since some of the most famous stories (for example, Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) seem to have been invented by European translators in the 1600s and don’t exist in original Arabic versions. (There are two Arabic manuscripts of Aladdin, one from Oxford and one from Baghdad, but both turn out to be reverse translations from French versions).


The most famous version is Richard Burton’s; Irwin notes that a lot of the Burton “translation” is more of a Burton “invention”; for example, in the original Arabic, King Shahriyar embarks on his virgin-a-night project after finding his wife with “a black slave”; in Burton’s translation she’s with “a big slobbering blackamoor with rolling eyes which showed the whites, a truly hideous sight”. Burton also exaggerates much of the obscenity and vulgarity in the stories – to be fair, though, the originals are definitely not Disney material. However, Jorge Luis Borges preferred Burton’s version to more authentic translations, arguing that “neutral” versions were no contribution to literature.


The Nights probably influenced many European writers – even, paradoxically, some who never actually read any of it but just heard about the stories. Irwin notes some were influenced by the storytelling technique – for example, the Heptameron and Decameron – while others picked up on the exotic settings – Vathek and The Saragossa Manuscript. Certainly many expressions and ideas from the stories have made their way into popular Western culture; how many times have we heard that “the genie is out of the bottle” with regard to some technological advance of controversial import?

This is an erudite but readable and fascinating book. I have an abridged copy of Burton’s version (the full one is sixteen volumes); I’ll have to read it in the light of some of Irwin’s insights. ( )

Irwin provides some history for the tales in 1001 Nights as well as a good description of the (presumed) context in which they were told and retold, and the history and context are greatly enriching my reading of the recent (2010) Penguin Classics edition of the "complete" Calcutta II collection of stories. He tells also the history of the Nights as a western literary phenomenon, presenting the collection as a very influential precursor of entire genres of Western literature -- science fiction, sword-and-sorcery, fantasy, magic realism -- and does the whole thing with humor, humility, and general good nature.

This is exactly what a "Companion" should be and when I finished it I went back to the start and began again. ( )

Very well written introduction to a world that most of us know very little about. Straightforward chapters on history of the text and dueling translations worth the price of admission by themselves. And who can pass up a book that brings us the word 'urinomancy'? A model of cultural commentary. ( )