Strange Nature

This intro sets the mood (the "strange nature" of the Nights) more than it describes the text’s history or later influence (these are saved for introductions to the second and third volume).

The mood is “the collective dreaming of commercial folks in the great cities of the medieval Arab world” (xv). They are urban stories “in the vicinity of ruins . . . Tadmur, Petra, Ikhmim, Luxor, and Giza.” There are many secrets: “a veiled woman,” “many locked rooms that should not be entered” (xii), and mysteries that are ambiguous and never solved. They are stories for night, as it was considered “less sinful” to read for pleasure after the day’s work in the Muslim world. (xi) The stories are “suffused by sex . . . [and an] excess of desire . . . emotions are heightened” (xiii).

Their strange nature is their dreamlike quality. Many metaphors for the Nights are given in the intro; my favorite is the sea: “one story, like a wave, is absorbed into the one that follows.” (ix). They are stories told in an effort to stave off death. (x-xi). They are dreams whose destinies are governed by “fate, not God” (xiii). 

Some of the mood survived the translation to English, but not all of it. The note on translation tells us: “Arabic . . . has a vast vocabulary . . . almost unlimited access to rhymes . . . designed to mesmerize the audience by the use of rhythm and sound” (xix-xx). This translation’s goal is to “be more nearly adapted to the eye rather than to the ear.” . . . Allusions have been sacrificed in this translation, as that is “the task of a commentary rather than of a translation.”

After all this, I am determined only to read it at night, after putting the kids to bed. If I can’t read it over a total of one thousand and one nights, at least I can avoid reading it during the day.