A Clutch of Fables

Title

en_US A Clutch of Fables

Description

en_US This is a hardbound book (hard cover)

en_US This book has a dust jacket (book cover)

en_US Teo Savory

Creator

en_US Antonucci, Emil

Contributor

en_US Antonucci, Nine Emil

Date

2016-01-25T19:38:25Z

en_US 2002-08

en_US 1976

Date Available

2016-01-25T19:38:25Z

Date Issued

en_US 1976

Abstract

en_US Here is the hardbound version of a book I had found earlier only in a paperback version. There are several strange things about this book. This book seems to have none of the paperback's difficulties with either the placement of the Unicorn Press (it is in Greensboro) nor the date of publication (it is 1976). Let me take some of my comments from that 1977/79 listing. I expected that this would be yet another book using the concept fable very loosely, and I was wrong. This is a book of fables. They are like the works of Monterroso, but developed one stage further. So they are often four pages in length rather than two. They are certainly thought-provoking. Social satire is evident in The Alley Cat and the Laws of Status (13). One of the most trenchant is Little Brown Burros (25), and one of the most provocative is The Birds: A Fable With Alternative Endings (29). Maybe the saddest is A Dried Mermaid (33). Great for its category-jump at the end is The Purple Martin And His Cook (39). My final award, for most poignant, goes to The Silver Swan (73). Savory has fun throughout with the transformation of standard speech to fit the particular animal world of an individual fable. Thus in the battle between tyrannical mutant buffaloes and drab indigenous buffaloes, a white-harness (rather than white-collar) class of drabbians grows up serving the mutants (43). Further examples include humanpox (57) and local birds who belong to a Man-Watchers Club (65). The illustrations are reminiscent of Thurber, but Antonucci shows a less definite sense of line than Thurber does. The Ants and the Grasshopper (9) builds directly on the Aesopic fable. I like Savory's work here very much. This copy was withdrawn from the Cape May, NJ, library. Their loss is our gain!

Identifier

en_US 5464 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/80999

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US Unicorn Press

en_US Greensboro, NC

Subject

en_US PZ4.S268 Clu 1976

en_US Teo Savory

en_US Title Page Scanned

Type

en_US Book, Whole