Richard F. Burton (1) (1821–1890)

Despite being an abridgment of Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights this is still a chunky doorstop. The translator’s flowery style and archaic language is likely off putting for someone reading for pleasure but suitable if you are looking at it from a scholarly perspective. Caveats include misogyny and racism which is hard to determine whether it arises from the original text or Burton’s imperialist Victorian perspective. All wives were considered unfaithful and likely to be frolicking with ‘blackamoors’ when the husband is away therefore they all deserve to be murdered. Some of the stories are pretty hard to take. This reviewer would recommend a more modern translation with lots of annotations.… (altro)

Vikram and the Vampire is a number of stories within a story. It is an old Hindu folk tale that was translated by Sir Richard R. Burton from the original Sanskrit. He’s possibly more well known for his translations of The Arabian Nights and The Kama Sutra.

The story is about King Vikram who has promised a sorcerer that he will capture a baital, or vampire. The baital must be transported from his tree back to the sorcerer. They make a pact that the King must never answer a question posed by the baital. If he does, the vampire is returned to the tree from which he came and the journey must start over.

To fill in the time during their travels, the baital tells 11 different stories. These are similar in style to the fables written by Aesop. During the telling of the tales, he often outwits the king by forcing him to answer a question about the story. Vikram finally succeeds in delivering the baital to the sorcerer when the final tale ends in a question that can’t be answered. There's a final twist in that the vampire reveals the sorcerer’s intent to kill the king who then beheads the sorcerer first. He releases the vampire as a reward for his service.

The fables covered morality topics such as greed, lust and envy. Often a wrong or immoral decision leads to the downfall of the main character. What I found most interesting was the frequent inclusion of suicide in these stories. Women kill themselves when they can’t be with a man they’ve seen only once and a family of four beheads themselves for the honor of a god. I don’t know much about the Hindu culture but, from a Western viewpoint, this doesn’t speak well to their value of human life.

The writing also includes very detailed descriptions of female appearances. Every aspect of their body is related to some pleasing natural quality. For example, their teeth are often like strings of opals. The litany of similes goes on for paragraphs and they are very similar between the 11 individual tales. The first few instances were entertaining but they became tiresome half way through the book.

The book provided an interesting reading experience but I was ready for the end after the first few parables. They were all very similar and became repetitive. The original collection of folk tales in Vikram and the Vampire is actually composed of 25 stories but Burton only translated 11. Thank goodness.… (altro)

I had a hard time getting into this book at first but as I got more use to it I really started to enjoy it. Arabian Nights is short stories while a longer story is happening that is kinda forgotten after the beginning until brought back up again at the end. Some of the stories felt repetitive, dealing with the same things, events, and places but it got better and more unique as I continued. The only story I truly disliked was the last short story, just didn't have a good flow and I had no idea what was going on. Would of liked some more build up on the main story going on between the King who was killing women until the one telling the stories came, that would of been interesting to do a chapter on them here and there between the different stories just to keep readers reminded rather than spill it all in the end.… (altro)