First Impressions of 'Arabian Nights'

Three words stick out to me after plunging to the Arabian Nights' Frame Story:

1. Intrigue- perhaps because of the blend of realism and fantasy or perhaps because the Nights posses a diversity which I have never before experienced, however something about these tales keeps one just on the edge of their seat.
2. Difference- the characters must obey a completely different set of cultural and social rules of which I am unacquainted.
3. Accessibility- however above all the Nights seems to me accessible, some element of my own human experience is able to bypass the large chasm of cultural, literary, racial etc. differences and I find myself appreciating Scheherazade's daring, taking part in King Shahryar's rage, and the Wazir's worry. 

Elements which struck me as intriguing, different, and accessible in the areas of...

~PLOT- one moment the two kings are lamenting over their wives' infidelity (quite a reality), and the next the find themselves conversing with a young lady who lives as prisoner in a jinni's coffin (quite a fantasy)

~CHARACTER- character's are defined by their physicality, their race, and their position in the social caste. For instance, in order to highlight the rotten character and overall of the man who the Queen used to betrayed King Shah Zaman the storyteller gives  how the man was black (racial), and 

~FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE- translator Francias Burton gives the Nights a quasi-meter, and employs flowery word choice all for the purpose of highlighting the otherness and magical feel of which the Nights seem to posses. 

In tide of yore and in time long gone before ...