The Reader Travels

Roger D. Abrahams retells a vibrant collection of stories in African Folktales. Some of the stories remind me of the Norse tales, the perennial “trickster” character weaving chaos like the mischievous Loki. The richness of the oral tradition also brings to mind The Arabian Nights, gaining a new audience in the written word, even if it loses the depth and timbre of the human voice.

I loved the introduction to this book. Abrahams talked about storytelling, comparing it to an African cloth, with different patterns sewn together, each piece an individual, but coming together to make a unique and beautiful whole. Stories are told around a camp fire with different drummers producing different rhythms, the folk roots of modern jazz music.

You get the picture, right? I’m going to stop now, or else I’ll just start lapsing into stoner talk, and nobody wants that.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 5:52 pm and is filed under Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.