Fable Stories

Abstract

Lively cartoon work to present a strong array of some thirty-nine Chinese fables. The English sometimes suffers, as on 13 when again appears twice in the same clause. The following story, Sincerity Can Affect Even Metal and Stone (15) does not make much sense to me. I think that I am missing something. Mr. Dongguo and a Zhongshan Wolf (26) uses the strong traditional motif of the judge who seems through stupidity not to comprehend -- until the culprit puts himself back into confinement. I enjoy encountering again Add Feet to a Painted Snake, whose moral wisely admonishes Sometimes, one ruins the effect of something by adding superfluous things (70). On 92, we find the lovely fable of the man who drops his sword overboard in midstream but marks the boat so that he can later, nearer shore, jump over at just the place where he dropped the sword. On 107 we find A Loss May Turn Out to Be a Gain, a fine story I first learned from Tony DiMello. Following that story on 112 is Waiting by a Tree for a Hare to Turn Up, another very good story. The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind (122). And the oriole is not aware of the human being with a slingshot. In this fable, we never learn who might be stalking the human being! A Snipe and a Clam Locked in Battle (160) shows nicely that it is the passing fisherman who wins in a battle like this! This story serves as a good example of the book's art. The artistic approach to human beings -- and to animals, for that matter -- is highly stylized. It seems to follow stylized patterns I have seen especially in Japanese illustrated material. Breaking Arrows (180) seems to come straight out of Aesop! A Man from the State of Zheng Buys a Pair of Shoes is a fine fable I have encountered before (185). This man trusts a ruler's measurement but not the source of the ruler's measurement, his own feet! The book's last fable, Paradox (194), presents well the salesman who touted both an unbreakable shield and an irresistible spear. The morals are helpful for pointing out the proverbial sense of a shortened expression of a particular fable. That proverbial sense is not always clear, I believe, to a foreigner like me.