Aesops Fables

Just as a program note, I am a wee bit behind on book blogging. I'm hoping that I will catch up and my "to read" list will be a legitimate list rather than a "books that must be blogged about".

When it comes to 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Phillll and I have had several strategy related conversations. Does it make sense to do them in order? Should we plow through the longest ones first, and save the short ones for when we are on our death beds? What about reverse order? I've sort of decided that I'm going to read whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, which means that the summers will be full of dense Russian novels, and the winters will be books from the 20th century.

After one of these strategy conversations, I decided that I might as well tackle the very first book on the list, Aesops Fables. I ended up buying this one on itunes and burning it onto four 80 minute cd's which I listened to on the way to work. The way that the fables are structured is that they are a series of short parables, which end with a statement that pretty much sums up the moral of the story.

Initially, I was a bit leery of this book, thinking that anything penned around 625 BC wasn't probably going to have much relevance to modern day life. But it turns out that ole Aesop did have a few gems of wisdom despite the fact that his text is ancient. The fables are about basic things that we sometimes forget in todays hectic world. Saying Please and Thank You. Not Keeping Company with Asses. Putting all of Your Eggs in One Basket. Never Trust Your Enemy. An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure. Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

A lot of the morals at the end of the fables have endured to the point where they've become common expressions. It was really interesting to listen to the fables as a whole, because it provided the orgin of many modern phrases, some of which are listed above.

After listening to them for a while to, you got to know the characters pretty well. For the most part, if a fable started out with a wolf, you knew something bad was going to go down. Same for jackals. Asses were pretty much just there, and it wasn't really a surprise that the tortoise won the race by going slow and steady.

It made me start to think about how the world would be a much nicer place to be if everyone were to listen to the fables and actually pay attention to the lessons that they are trying to teach us. Perhaps we would treat each other with a bit more respect. Perhaps we would be more cautious about making friends with those who are in reality our enemies. I can't help but think that the decline of the US's image abroad couldn't be helped with some good ole fashioned Aesop inspired common sense. But then again, it is possible that I'm wrong all together - it's too late for all of humanity. Afterall Aesop did say:

A singing bird was confined in a cage which hung outside a window,
and had a way of singing at night when all other birds were asleep.
One night a Bat came and clung to the bars of the cage, and asked
the Bird why she was silent by day and sang only at night. "I have a
very good reason for doing so," said the Bird. "It was once when I was
singing in the daytime that a fowler was attracted by my voice, and
set his nets for me and caught me. Since then I have never sung except
by night." But the Bat replied, "It is no use your doing that now when
you are a prisoner: if only you had done so before you were caught,
you might still have been free."


"Precautions are useless after the crisis."