Reading Notes: African Stories from Lang's Fairy Books, Part A

Hi!

Let me just say that I really enjoyed this unit! One of the things that I have liked the least from other readings is how they aren't very just. The bad guy keeps winning. So, reading these stories and getting to see the bad guy lose at the end of most of them was so refreshing.

I also liked that in the stories about the Jackals some characters overlapped, like the hedge hog and the greyhound. Especially since it gave more meaning to the actions in the later stories by creating a more complex backstory than I have seen in other readings. This isn’t something that is easily recreated in a story for my blog just because there isn’t a guarantee that anyone reading the story has read any of the other stories and putting two plots inside one story would be a lot for a blog post.

For a story this week it would be interesting to see what could be done with the first story about Motikatika. I think that I would probably stick to my general theme of making things less gruesome. So, I could make it about two kids at school evading a bully, or people trying not to get caught by the cops. In those situations, the bully or the cop would be the ogre and the people would be the mom and the baby. The bully would catch hold of a kid and ask for his lunch money and the kid would offer to find someone else to give him lunch money. The cop would arrest someone for a crime, and instead the person offers to turn in someone else but is actually framing them.

I think that both of those stories would be fun to write and could make for interesting reads. I think that the one that I am more knowledgeable about would be the one with the bully, making it easier; however, because of my lack of experience the cop story could be exciting to write. We’ll see when Thursday gets here!

Bibliography

Fairy Books by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1903)

Photo: A Series of Anatomical Plates The Structure of the Different Parts of The Human Body. by Jones Quain, M.D.Published in 1854. PD-1923

Comments

Reading Notes: The Man in the Moon and Pygmalion

Hello! I couldn’t quite decide how to start these notes, so I decided I would stick with that theme and take style notes over how the stories in the anthology were started. Many of them started with some form of “ once upon a time,” or “one day” this included the stories in, The divine, Tricksters, and the Fairytales sections. This is a beginning I think a lot of us are familiar with from fairytales and has almost become a cliché in some ways. Unless I was going to write a fairytale, I don’t think that I would use this tool to start a story and even then, I might not. The other stories in the anthology had what I called a “ cold start ,” to distinguish them from the stories that used the “once upon a time” start. There were a few similarities that I noticed. The stories in the Origins section were a very cold start. For instance, “ The Man in the Moon ” only states that there was a blacksmith that didn’t like his job. We don’t learn anything about who he is as a p...

Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales, Part B

Hi! I missed the second reading for this week, so I am making it up today with these reading notes over Japanese fairy tales. This reading included three stories, one of and Ogre, a Goblin, and a Princess not unlike the story of Cinderella. All three of these are from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, who is pictured above with her husband. Out of the three stories, I liked the story about the Princes Hase the best, so I took notes over that story specifically. Here are those notes. The story of Princess Hase is told from a third person perspective. In the story there is very little dialogue. In fact, the only dialogue in the pieces, is that of the step-mother right before her poisoning attempt backfires and at the end when Hase’s father finds her hiding in the mountains. I think that this sparing use of dialogue at the worst and best point in the story is an interesting style choice that creased a stronger connection to the story at those points. I think that ...

Reading Notes: Persian Tales Part A

Hello! This week I chose to read the Persian Tales unit and was not disappointed. Some of these fairy tales like “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” and “The Wolf-Aunt” reminded me of the Brother’s Grim Fairytales in their more original forms. The others seemed a little more child friendly like we might expect of fairytales today. Thinking of my story for this week, any of them could make a fun base for writing, but I think that the ones that would be the best to work with would be “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul,” “Nim Tanak,” or “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer.” For “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” I would make the circumstances of the boy’s death make more sense to a modern reader, not just based on a bet with his father that he willingly submits to. I would also want to somehow bring the boy back, maybe instead of the Bulbul growing out of the stalk, he does. Or maybe his father doesn’t kill him but hides him instead. Either way I would like for the boy to live. For “Nim T...

Mythology Blog

Search This Blog