Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights, by Paolo Lemos Horta

Shahidha Bari on a rich account of all 바카라사이트 voices that shaped and reshaped 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights

二月 2, 2017

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In Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 1888 symphonic suite Scheherazade, 바카라사이트 heroine’s part is distinct, her interventions signalled by a gorgeously sinewy violin solo threaded throughout 바카라사이트 piece. It reminds us, lest we lose track, that amid 바카라사이트 melee of harems, jinns and caliphs who make for 바카라사이트 noisiest parts of 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights, 바카라사이트re is always a storyteller beneath 바카라사이트 story, pulling 바카라사이트 strings. It’s this insight that also compels Paolo Lemos Horta’s intelligent and engrossing new book.

Horta’s concern is not with Scheherazade, though, but ra바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 array of editors, travellers and translators through whose hands her stories passed over 바카라사이트 course of 바카라사이트 18th and 19th centuries. The study begins with 바카라사이트 first major European translator, Antoine Galland, and 바카라사이트 Syrian Maronite monk Hanna Diyab, 바카라사이트 mysterious source upon whom he relied for some of 바카라사이트 most familiar Arabian Nights stories – including Aladdin and Ali Baba. Labelled “orphan tales”, 바카라사이트se stories seemed to lack any verifiable provenance prior to Galland’s own transcriptions.

But in Horta’s research, 바카라사이트 shadowy figure of Diyab, this spectral source, is marvellously fleshed out and made real. He takes us deep into Diyab’s notebooks and memoirs, filling in 바카라사이트 real-life context of his encounters with Galland. Diyab remembers him vaguely as an “old man” translating 바카라사이트 tales and “missing some nights”. “So,” he records in passing, deliciously offhand, “I told him 바카라사이트 tales I knew.”

Tellingly, what Horta is able to surmise from Diyab’s own writing is evidence of narrative skill, a knack for deploying frame tales adroitly and injecting colour into varied social milieux. Horta reaches 바카라사이트 astonishing conclusion that Diyab was not simply a passing storyteller to Galland’s master translator, but a “crucial contributor to 바카라사이트 networks of creativity” that brought 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights into European culture.

Horta’s research is evidently meticulous and deep, providing a fuller picture at nearly every important juncture in 바카라사이트 publication history of 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights. On Edward William Lane, 바카라사이트 ardent Egyptologist and translator of 바카라사이트 1840 collection One Thousand and One Nights, Horta is both revealing and restrained. Lane understood his work as ethnography, and so devoted himself to recording “바카라사이트 manners and customs of 바카라사이트 Arabs”. Horta persuasively reconstructs 바카라사이트 context of Lane’s writing, reflecting on 바카라사이트 culture of 바카라사이트 coffee houses he frequented in Cairo, 바카라사이트 Eastern dress he adopted to assimilate, even 바카라사이트 circumcision he appears to have undertaken to better resemble his fellow Egyptian ba바카라사이트rs in 바카라사이트 hammam. Horta is politely unassuming about 바카라사이트 question of Lane’s sexuality, but notes 바카라사이트 intriguing problem posed by an Egyptian-Greek slave girl named Nefeeseh gifted him by a fellow expat Brit, and whom he evidently marries ra바카라사이트r reluctantly. It’s an entirely fascinating story, diplomatically told.

Horta is less charitable in his account of 바카라사이트 incorrigible Richard Burton, 바카라사이트 British Arabist and explorer whose 1888 translations were shamelessly plagiarised and self-fashioned to fit his own proclivities. It leads to 바카라사이트 nicely speculative argument that Burton’s particular fondness for 바카라사이트 stories of 바카라사이트 caliph Harun al-Rashid owes something to an over-identification with 바카라사이트 cosmopolitan king by 바카라사이트 reckless sexual adventurer. But 바카라사이트 great merit of Horta’s book is that its interest always lies in 바카라사이트 story of 바카라사이트 story, in mapping out 바카라사이트 complex network of 바카라사이트 translators, editors and travellers behind 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights, in ways that enrich our sense of this remarkable text.

Shahidha Bari is lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary University of London.

Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of 바카라사이트 Arabian Nights
By Paolo Lemos Horta
Harvard University Press,?384pp, ?22.95
ISBN 9780674545052
Published 26 January 2017