He read it all and lived to tell about it

The Arabian Nights : Acompanion

Robert Irwin
Nonfiction 342 pages
Tauris Parke Paperbacks. 2004

Henry Reeve discussed the translations of the Arabian Nights available during his time, saying, “Galland is for the nursery, Lane is for the library, Payne for the study and Burton for the sewers.” Burton’s version of the Arabian Nights is full of archaic language, gratuitous vulgarity, and racism. It is also the most readily available complete translation, and the one you may have to read if you want to become thoroughly acquainted with this story collection.

During the time Burton was translating it, a Middle Eastern superstition claimed that no one could read the entire Arabian Nights without dying. Author, Robert Irwin, writes that he read the entire Burton translation without dying, but not without pondering suicide as an alternative to slogging through it. Fortunately, if you wish to be better acquainted with the Arabian Nights, you can read Irwin’s Companion instead.

Irwin explores the Arabian Nights from a variety of perspectives as evident in his chapter titles, including, “Street Entertainments”, “Low Life”, and “Sexual Fictions”. Of particular interest is Irwin’s discussion of how stories mutate, merge, migrate, and reappear elsewhere. For example, a short story about partners plotting to kill each other is the plot of “The Pardoner’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales. Later it’s a movie plot in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Other versions of a story from the Arabian Nights, “The Tale of the Woman who Wanted to Deceive her Husband” also appears in Sanskrit in the 11th century, Latin in the 12th, and in the 14th both Persian and Italian in Bocccaccio’s Decameron. In the 20th century, Thomas Mann reused the plot once again in his Dr. Faustus.     

Besides Mann, other modern authors have found inspiration in the Arabian Nights, including James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Jorge Luis Borges, John Barth and Salman Rushdie.

Irwin’s The Arabian Nights : A companion offers an expansive and thoroughgoing look at this great work. There is little that he doesn’t touch upon. If you don’t want to risk death by reading the entire Arabian Nights, then read Irwin instead.

Something to rave about

World Wide Rave : creating triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories
David Meerman Scott
Nonfiction 194 pages
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.  2009

The main theme of this book is that older advertising methods have gone stale and that the best way to get people talking about your product is to provide them with information that’s useful to them. Simply telling people how good your product is won’t work — they don’t care about your product  —  they only care about their needs. If you satisfy their needs, with information that is useful, novel, or humorous, then they will respond to, and spread, your message. When enough people spread your message, you’ve started a “world wide rave.”

The author calls his style of marketing a “world wide rave” in part because he wants to avoid the “sleazy connotations” of the ubiquitous term “viral marketing.” He believes that communication should be genuine and not generated by anonymous paid promoters disguised as objective reviewers.

“Viral marketing” refers to making your message infectious so that it spreads far and rapidly. Your information stands a better chance of being raved about when it is useful, novel, or humorous. The message should have a short, catchy title to engage viewer attention.

Sharing is a major key to starting a rave. Scott contrasts old-school marketers who lose sales by over-defending their copyrights with those who generate buzz by passing out goodies. More than one band has built its audience by giving music away while asking nothing in return. Many companies who offer eBooks and other information packages ask viewers to provide their email addresses. Scott claims that the practice of asking viewers to fill out forms discourages them from continuing to the downloading stage. He believes that better results are gained from offers with no strings attached.

Scott claims that anyone can start a rave and cites several examples of non-professionals who have done so. However, most of his example rave starters are large corporations. Scott provides no instructions for starting raves. There is no sure-fire method for getting a rave going — it’s a matter of trial and error — perhaps not the sort of basket to put all your eggs in.  

The Arabian Nights – Gathered, Privately Printed, and Out of Print

While not all of us are familiar with the titles, “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment” or “One Thousand and One Nights”, most of us have heard the story, “Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp”, and several others associated with the story collection informally known as the Arabian Nights.

Some of the collected stories are quite ancient and of Indian origin. Others relate the fictitious doings of actual historical figures from 9th century Baghdad. Still other stories contain historical fragments from 13th and 14th century Cairo.

Some of the most well-known Arabian Nights stories were not actually part of those stories collected in Arabic versions of the text. These additional Middle-Eastern stories included “Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp”, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, “Prince Ahmed and his Two Sisters”, and “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor”. They were added by French translator, Antoine Galland, and his successors.

After Galland released his 12 volume edition of the Arabian Nights, scholars began to seek the most authentic version of the text. The lengthy Egyptian version came to be considered the standard one. One of the earliest English translations by Edward Lane was heavily censored.

Although Richard Francis Burton’s translation is the most well-known uncensored version, it was preceded by John Payne’s version. Both Payne’s and Burton’s uncensored editions were printed for private subscribers, rather than the general public. Although Burton’s edition is the best known, it has been criticized for dwelling excessively on sexual matters and for its archaic language.

Most available printed editions of the Arabian Nights are abridged, intended for children, or both. A printed set of Burton’s volumes would cost you dearly, if you could find one. Luckily it is available for Kindle and other eReaders. One reviewer of the Halcyon Classics edition sold by Amazon faults it for not having working hyperlinks between the table of contents and the stories. For a broad selection of translators, this omnibus looks like a good choice.