Last week I began to poke around in the distant corners of the land of fables, the hinterland. I went to the bottom of the Perry list* and started to work my way up. I can report most of these fables were unfamiliar and forgettable, as you might expect, but at number 559 (out of […]

I came across this accidental masterpiece in ‘Lives and Deaths,’ a collection of Tolstoy’s shorter works translated by Boris Drayluk. It surprised me, hidden away at the end like an afterthought, its simplicity and brevity (only nine half-pages) proving more potent than the longer texts preceding it. The story is an unpretentious, plain-spoken account of […]

In this new animated adaptation, Guillermo Del Toro takes the much-loved episodic tale for children and fashions a more coherent narrative with a deeper emotional anchor. He makes the story his own, bringing to the fore his perennial themes of death and loss, the Underworld, and the shadow of fascism. The film is a triumph: […]

Stories of kids with superpowers don’t appeal to me. That’s why I was slow to watch Eskil Vogt’s ‘The Innocents,’ despite the pedigree shown in his other work—he wrote all of Joachim von Trier’s films, proving himself consistently sharp, sophisticated, and insightful. I needn’t have worried. He brings the same sly sophistication to bear on […]

Aesop’s ‘The Sleeping Dog and the Wolf‘ is a simple, straightforward tale arguing you should seize what’s in front of you, not wait on the promise of something better. A sleeping dog is attacked by a wolf. It saves itself by its wits, convincing the wolf it would get a better meal in a few […]

THE LION IN LOVE Aesop’s ‘Lion in Love’ warns of the dangers of giving too much of ourselves for love, or for a love that does not appear to be requited. The scenario is a curious one: a lion falls in love with a girl and approached the father to ask permission to court his […]