Misadventures in the Land of Fables #43
‘The Young Lady and the Looking-Glass‘ by William Wilkie claims to be a metaphor for how fables work. A mother puts a mirror in the corner where her spoiled and willful daughter goes to sulk and thus, by seeing her reflection in these moments, they young lady is confronted by the deformity her behaviour inflicts […]
Fall in the Garden of Eden
Fruit falls from trees when ripe, if we don’t pick it, or if birds and insects and rodents don’t get to it first. Thinking about the Garden of Eden, I wondered what if the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil also fell? What if Eve found it on the ground and […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #42
“The Fables, then, must have grown up through many centuries in the country of their origin before setting out on their travels.” Continuing with my journey through Cooper’s ‘Argosy of Fables‘, I discover that some of the Persian tales are in fact Indian in origin and that I have encountered them before. I have passed […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #41
Time for another up-date on my adventures in Cooper’s ‘Argosy of Fables.’ After a thrilling period of discovery, I began to find I recognized many of the ‘Hindoo’ fables. I have already read the Panchatantra and many tales were drawn from that ancient text. I have now reached the dusty, sun-baked expanse of Persia. The […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #40
The latest fable was inspired by an illustration of two, well three, tortoises attributed to Hokusai. This is how I saw it: Two tortoises come face to face. They may have been about to pass each other, but in the instant Hokusai has captured, they seem to have paused. We see the encounter from above […]
Stories I Would Like to Have Written #2
‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak Maurice Sendak’s ‘Where The Wild Things Are‘ was published sixty-one years ago this week. Not a significant date it’s true—I’m one year late for the sixtieth anniversary party—but still a tweet today (from Barnes Children’s Literature Festival) commemorating the book reminded me how much I loved it […]