Review by Edward Tanguay November 24, 1997

"I will teach you how to give me so much trouble," said the lion, and opening his huge mouth he advanced to swallow her.  But the princess expected something of the sort and was on her guard.  She bounded on one side, and seizing one of the hairs of his mane repeated two or three words over it.  In an instant it became a sword, and with a sharp blow she cut the lion's body into two pieces.  These pieces vanished no one knew where, and only the lion's head remained, which ws at once changed into a scorpion.  Quick as thought the princess assumed the form of a serpent and gave battle to the scorpion, who, finding he was getting the orst of it, turned himself into an eagle and took flight.  But in a moment the serpent had become an eagle more powerful still, who soared up in the air and after him, and then we lost sight of them both.

These stories are bizarre.  Like Salvadore Dali paintings. You soon get the idea that anything can happen in these worlds. It seems like many of these stories were based on dream journals. 

The atmosphere of these stories likens that of the Koran.  The same violent and immediate form of summary justice pervades the stories:

"I see," said the genius, "that you have both made up your minds to brave me, but I will give you a sample of what you may expect."  So saying, with one sweep of his sabre he cut off a hand of the princess, who was just able to lift the other to wave me an eternal farewell.

She would have continued, but her tears choked her, and the Sultan of Cashmere, convinced by her beauty and her distinguished air of the truth of her tale, ordered his followers to cut off the Indian's head, which was done immediately.

Without an instant's delay he sent for th grand-vizir, and ordered him to seize and question the Sultant's sisters that very day.  This was done, They were confronted with each other and proved guilty, and were exectued in less than an hour.

As in the Koran, there is the sense that one must simply obey the Law, and if one doesn't, terrible consequences will happen anit is not one's position to ask why. Many of these tales would make excellent nightmares, in fact.

At some points the stories did not have that well-worn feel to them ("Then a year passed and they met again.") but seemed a bit made-up, like a joke that you tell when you only know the punchline and just have to move quickly through the part that builds up to it.  

You can identify a number of reappearing themes in the Arabian Night tales:

• humans changing into animals and back again
  
• Trap doors and underground caverns.
  
• princes, princesess and kings
  
• Magic:

In his convent there is a black cat which has a tiny white tip to its tail.  Now to cure the pirncess the dervish must pull out seven of these white hairs, burn three, and with their smoke perfume the head of the princess.  This will deliver her so completely that Maimoum, the son of Dimdim, will never dare to approach her again.

• Monsters eating people

At last he came to the captain, and finding him the fattest of us all, he took him up in one hand and stuck him upon a spit and proceeded to kndle a huge fire at which he presently roasted him.

• Olive jars, diamonds, gold
• the love of prince and princess
• Adventure!

I found a few characters and stories I had already known, e.g. Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin. There were also other hidden stories such as one with Sinbad the Sailor with the monster sounded a lot like the adventure in the Odyssey when Odysseus was on the island with the one-eyed giant.

These stories obviously came from various origins and were tied together at some point by the frame story of Shahriar marrying and killing a wife each day and Scheherazade telling him only part of a story to save her life and the lives of other women. Yet that frame story broke down after awhile and turned into "chain stories" in which characters from one story would then tell new stories. Then sometimes (at least in my collection) stories would just end and new one's begin. It is like being in a museum when you see only shards of pottery loosely put together.

I liked the story about the man who was eating at a couple's house and choked on a bone and died. The couple didn't want anyone to think they killed him so they brought him to a doctor and told him he was sick.   The doctor treated him, found out he was dead and didn't want to have the town think he killed him so he dropped him down his neighbors chimney.  His neighbor came home at night and say someone in the fireplace and beat him up, then turned on the light and thought he killed the guy, and it goes on and one.  This could be turned into an excellent stage play.

The story of Camaralzaman and Badoura in which Camaralzaman poised as a Prince was also classic: a love story with an unexpected threesome twist at the end, an ending one would probably not find in stories from Western culture!

I liked the story of Sidi-Nouman about the man who had a wife who wouldn't eat. He noticed that she would get up in the middle of the night and come back a few hours later.  One night he followed her and found that she met with a ghoul in the cemetary, dug up corpses and ate them (has Steven King gotten ahold of this one yet?).  Later, she turns him into a dog, then you get a story from this dog's point of view how he tries to stay alive and eventually takes revenge out on his wife.

I read the Wordsworth Classics edition with illustrations.  Nice.

Edward Tanguay

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