The Picture Treasury of World Fables 4

Title

The Picture Treasury of World Fables 4

en_US The Great Picture Treasury of World Literary Masterpieces for Children

PTWF 4

Description

Language note: Bilingual: English/Chinese

Yan Wenjing?

Creator

en_US Yan, Wenjing See all items with this value

Contributor

Various

Date

2016-02-16T15:08:30Z

en_US '2015-09

1989

Date Available

2016-02-16T15:08:30Z

Date Issued

1989

Abstract

Here is the fourth volume of an ambitious set of five. This comprehensive presentation is quite an undertaking! This "Book Four" covers, as Page 9 of Book One declares, fables of India, Japan, Korea, Burma, Thailand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tunisia, Egypt, South Africa and Middle Africa. Wow! It offers some 69 fables on 378 pages. There is an English T of C on 3-5. Pagination begins immediately after this T of C with a new set of Roman numerals beginning with "1." I believe that one refers correctly to the Chinese here as "Simplified Chinese." Each story is attributed to a particular writer, adapter, translator, and illustrator. The cartoon approach fits the fables well. One notes the struggles of foreigners to deal well with English. Thus the three Brahmans in the first story want to show off their "respecting" talents when normal English usage would call for "respective" talents. On 76, a spittoon becomes a "spilloon." Liu Kongsi uses a distinctive illustrative style in "A Brahman and a Snake" (7-11). The volume's first stories come straight from the "Panchatantra," here called "The Five Volumes." A number of them are also K&D stories. Many of the next selections come from "The Book of a Hundred Metaphors" from India. One of the best of these has a camel owner face the problem of a camel who had got his head stuck in a jar. "No problem." The owner cut off the camel's head and then removed it from the jar (89-92). Next up from India is "Stories of Sakyamuni," including "The Earth Collapsed" (138-49). This is one of the longest stories in the whole work. "Shadows in a Jar" (150-55) shows husband, wife, and others in conflict because each has seen a rival as a reflection in a jar. A wise Taoist priest comes, understands, and breaks the jar. One of the strongest illustration styles is that of Liu Kongxi in "A Deceived Brahman" (191-97). This is the old story of thieves telling the Brahman that the goat which the Brahman has caught is a dog. A strong silhouette illustration style is shown by Zhao Fangting in "How Did a Badger and a Marten Squabbie" (sic, 250-55). Do not miss the good Korean story of "A Boy Who Hold an Empty Flowerpot" (256-62). The king gives each child a seed and asks them to come back with the appropriate flower in a certain time. Only the one child comes back with an empty pot. It turns out that he is the only honest child, since all the seeds were sterile. "The Rat Married Off His Daughter" (271-76) is told as a fable from Burma. It adds a bull and a rope between mountain and the rat in the chain of prospective husbands. In "The Clever Beauty," a beautiful girl followed by an eager admirer tells him that her younger sister is following and is ten times more beautiful than she is. He stupidly takes the bait and loses her. She has proved that he did not love her (308-312). Xu Huahua in "The Virtuous Man" is either copying or imitating Asterix in his illustrations (313-17)! The story of the three axes from the river is told as a Pakistani story (367). This volume features TH in color on both of its covers. The set was reproduced, I believe, in 2008 in similar but not identical form.

Identifier

en_US 7805512361 (set)

en_US 10572 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/84566

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

Shandong Friendship Press

Beijing

Subject

en_US PZ10.842.S45 1989 See all items with this value

Aesop and others See all items with this value

en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value

Type

Book, Whole