As a child learning to read I was
always drawn to fables, myths, and legends: Aesop’s Fables, Greek mythology,
Nordic mythology, the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
These stories always taught lessons and imparted general knowledge that perhaps
other kids didn’t absorb by just going through the day to day life, and these
lessons were always something I was seeking. Sometimes they were obvious to
interpret: don’t steal, don’t ask stupid questions, respect your elders, etc.
Others were more challenging to divulge and more complicated to understand, but
I was always one to enjoy a logical puzzle or mind game. These stories fueled
my desire to read, and as a child I really was a voracious reader. For example the
most trouble I was ever involved in in middle school was getting caught reading
during class lectures (ironically it was in my English class), and all the way
up until high school I would read at least two books a week and be in the library
every day scouring for new options.
But I digress a bit. In short, myths and stories with a
lesson involved have played a pivotal role in my reading career. So, Tales of Juha seemed very interesting
looking it over since it appeared to fit this bill. Also, I’m not very familiar
with Middle-Eastern/Arab folklore at all which added an incentive to delve into
this book.
As a book with many short tales of wit and wisdom I
find it at least semi-interesting. I enjoyed the story (one of the longer ones)
of Juha outwitting the two thieves by playing on their strong greed. I feel
like this is a common tale showing the fallibility of the “deadly sin,” as well
as the stupidity of many criminals. Similarly, the next tale was about Juha
hearing a thief on the roof and purposefully giving him false information in
order to outwit the thief showing that wisdom often (and always should) outdoes
the stupid.
While some paragraphs have an intentional moral of the
story or lesson to teach, some are just plain goofy or contain clever wordplay,
for example, the story about age. Someone asks Juha how old he is and he
replies forty. Ten years later he asks him how old he is and he replies forty.
When the guy calls Juha out on this Juha replies, “I’m not the kind of man who changes
his word, or takes it back. Isn’t that the way a proper man should behave?”
This is just a trick on words, because yes a proper man should stick to his
word, but the joke is obviously that things change and this can’t be taken
literally. The story is amusing but not much of an axiom. Which brings me to my
next observation…
Not many of these stories are funny. At least, in my
humble opinion, they are not funny in the laugh out loud way that some of our
readings have been. I do believe I chuckled
at one short tale between pages one and forty-one. And it was about facial hair.
Maybe this is because it was late and I was tired, but I really just don’t
think many of these translate well into humor when there’s a legitimate lesson
to learn, or perhaps I just don’t have a good grasp on Arab humor (which I
admit could definitely be the case). Hopefully the next part of the reading
assignment will have a few more laughable moments!
No comments:
Post a Comment