Literary One Thousand and One Nights

[sun surfer]

I finished the Haddawy. At times it was a bit of a slog but I'm glad I did it, and in time I am tempted to get the companion Haddawy with the more famous but less authentic stories not included in the 'main' volume.

I put this in the realm of some other older classics I've read that don't quite have the sort of narrative flow we're used to in more modern stories and so it is harder to read large chunks of this with that knowledge because to us it becomes repetitive and more or less predictable. But I think there was a beauty and fantasticality to it all, and I was just mesmerised at being transported to this Middle East of the Middle Ages and feeling like I was experiencing the stories that that culture at that time enjoyed so much.

In the end I do understand and agree with why the Haddawy version used the stories and translation methods it did, and though there really is no 'one' correct version of this and not even anything near it, I enjoyed feeling like I was reading perhaps the most authentic modern English version considering the earliest original collection before Europeans got involved. It was long and repetitive but I suppose that must be accepted for greater authenticity. I read both the Odyssey and the Iliad some years back and though they were great works of art they definitely were also a bit long for what they were and had certain boring chunks too (those long scenes naming all the different random people involved come to mind). Still, as Bookpossum mentioned, this probably would've been better read in smaller chunks over a longer period of time while though I was a bit late finishing it I did read faster than probably preferable. All in all though, I'm very happy now at having the knowledge and experience of reading this classic.