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My Selections

TPB1988's picture

I read The Story of the Humpback,  The Story of the Fisherman, and  The Story of the Husband and the Parrot. I don't know if it because the book itself has a universal theme but each of the selection I chose seemed to have a similar moral to tell. I really enjoyed all three but I recommend  The Story of the Humpback because although it is the longest and saddest one, it is also the most thought provoking.

Comments

Shayna S's picture

Morals

 A few of us have mentioned finding morals at the end of the stories. I'm curious as to if there really are suppose to be morals in these stories. The context that they are told in does not seem to warrant this...unless we think of the stories as nudges actively affecting the behavior of the king. Is this intentional? Or are we just like the Duchess from Alice in Wonderland, trying to tack morals onto anything for the sake of having them?

spleenfiend's picture

my selections

i read the story told by the jewish physician, the story of the husband and the parrot, and the story of the merchant and the jinni.  i actually clicked on these randomly since i wasn't sure which stories to pick.  the above post makes me want to read the story of the humpback too, so i may read that later.

spleenfiend's picture

i would like to add that i

i would like to add that i have since learned that picking random stories doesn't work as well.   for the second assignment, i continued reading from the beginning in order and was actually able to get a sense of how layered the stories are, and i found myself sucked in, though the harvard classics translation is pretty horrible.  it's full of long, annoying paragraphs.  i may have to switch.

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