The Arabian Nights Reader. By Ulrich Marzolph, ed., (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 2006. Pp v-373, table of content, introduction, notes, work cited, index, ISBN 0-8143-3259-5)

The work of fiction Alf Laila wa-Laila or the Arabian Nights, as known in popular culture, was introduced to the West in the XVIIIth century. The Arabian Nights Reader is part of larger series in fairy-tale studies. Ulrich Marzolph, the editor, is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Near Eastern narrative culture. His “Arabian Nights Reader” provides 16 articles, from both Eastern and Western scholars, in English language, and covers a research period of about 55 years (1942-1997). It aims at introducing non-specialists to relevant scholarly ideas and problems surrounding the Nights, as many scholars like to call them. However, this book, in spite of the intentions of its editor, assumes the reader is familiar with the topic and I would suggest that some preliminary research on the Arabian Nights would be advantageous. The first part of the book is constituted by a single article, examining the researchers’ reception of the Arabian Nights from the 19^th century onward, as well as the classification of genre, origins, and foreign influences. The author, Muhsin Jassim Ali, lists and criticized some of the greatest scholarly work done about the Nights that have cast the foundations for their study. The second part offers a selection of four texts presenting a more historical –oriented approach. This section of the book is valuable for the field of folklore for, besides arguing of the date of production of the Nights, it examines the different perspectives of the Western world on the Orient. Furthermore, it demonstrates how one can learn about history and culture from a simple tale. Texts present systematic examinations that might be too specialized for some readers. All these articles base their argument upon old manuscripts of the Nights. It seems the field does not agree on when the original manuscripts of the Nights were dated. Nonetheless, some of these authors have focused their research on the identification of the iconic but historically false editions of the Nights. They also discuss the problems around translation, fabrication and adaptation of the text. This is the section of the book that seems less accessible for a reader without background information. The third part of the book consists of three texts, which present an argumentation based on textual analysis and foreign influences. Gustave E. von Grunebaum proposes a study of the traces of Greek romance in the Nights through the examinations of similar structure and motifs of love and faith. The Nights has multiple roots from different cultures and its content, that might not be exclusively Oriental, is an issue for many scholars. Romance is also studied by Peter Heath, who examines this genre as one of the most important of the Arabian Nights. It is a genre that exists through the tension between fantasy and reality, this concept is embodied in the story of Shahrazad fighting for her life. Her passive fight passes through oral tradition, which is, as Tzvetan Todorov demonstrates, synonymous of survival. The characters become actions because their traits are causal rather psychological. In the Nights, any character is a potential story and romance is used to reassure and comfort the reader or listener of the tale. Thus the Nights show a double function of comforting both the king Shahriyar within the story and the reader standing outside the diegesis. The fourth part of The Arabian Nights Reader proposes case studies based on specific tales of the Nights: The “Tale of the Three Apples” by Roger Allen, the “Tale of ‘Ali b. Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar” by Jamel Eddine Bencheikh, “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” by Michael Copperson, the “Tale of …