Fables in Verse Inspired by Aesop and La Fontaine

Abstract

The author's preface is quite straightforward. He wants to present his own version of already famous fables. He wants to convey them in a manner that is enjoyable and at times humorous. He hopes readers will enjoy his linguistic trickery. The book distributes 110 verse fables over five books, with each fable given a letter from A to Y or Z. The fifth book reaches only to J. I have read the first book and would have trouble recommending this as a good contemporary fable book. Unfortunately, I found two typos on the first two pages of reading: Your singing needs nor more enhancing (1) and A Frog saw and Ox (2). The typos seem not to stop there. Rhyme seems to drive the poetry here. Death and the Sad Man (5) bothers me. Does it help the story to have this man often pray to death to come? I would have thought that the prayer arises just once in a moment of frustration. If the man is always praying to death, why does death wait until now to come? Finally, I cannot make sense of the moral: To sorrow and despair one should always agree,/When assured that life is one's fee. One of Arouetty's best moves is a sudden shift of viewpoint, as from the second-last to the last line of AD (8): He uttered a cry, which put the Dove to flight./There was no pigeon to consume that night. Some of the same freshness comes in the moral for The Monkey and the Dolphin (13): People speak about things of which they have never heard./Follow this advice: when you know little utter not a word! I am surprised to learn that the fox could have got the grapes if he had only persisted (9). The farmer kills the goose in GGE after just one golden egg (14).