Reading Notes - African Tales (Reading B)

I think that the main lesson that I've taken away from African Tales is to always finish reading the story before making notes. You might think that one thing was going to be really important and then it turns out to just be a side note, or you might think something is just detail or unimportant, but it turns out to be a major plot point. I also am more focused on magical realism. 

I think that magical realism is fun to read but difficult to write. American tradition doesn't support stories that feature casual magical beings and items. Magic has to have this air of gravitas, a seriousness that gets played off of by certain characters taking it lightly, but the reader is always in awe of the magic. We don't have any stories where magic is just incorporated into our every day lives, or at least, none that are very prevalent come to mind. 

I liked how in Hassebu, they heard that the ground was hollow and so they dug and found a pit full of honey. None of the wood cutters thought: "Wow, where is all that honey coming from?" They just thought they could sell it for a higher profit than wood. Hassebu got to the palace of the King of Snakes, and never even wondered how the hell a tiny hole in a pit full of honey led him to a palace with a golden door that belonged to snake--the King of Snakes. He didn't question how a snake-based monarchy was operated? He treated the talking royal snake who lived in a splendid house, which was accessible through a pit in the ground which was originally filled with honey (somehow), as if it were nothing. Just something that was happening and all he could do was react accordingly. 

I just like that no one has to explain themselves, even though I find myself still looking for explanations. It's frustrating because I think you miss some of the important themes when you'r distracted with questions like "How?" I try to remember not to worry about "How?" and focus more on "Why?" 

Another thing that I think Western tradition has made a difficult transition is the emphasis on logic over emotion. In the West, the brain is the most important part, we have to think things through rationally before we accept them. In other cultures and traditions, how you feel is just as valid or maybe even more so than what you think. When the monkey was telling the story of the Washerman's Donkey in the story "The Heart of a Monkey," I was entertained. But then, in the end, when he said that the hare said: "The donkey has no heart, because she came back even though the lion tried to eat her the first time." But I thought that the fact that she kept coming back meant she had no brain. I mean, I certainly wouldn't have kept going back if the lion tried to eat me the first time, Queen of the Jungle or not. 

I think for my story this week, I want to do a magical realism story where we don't need explicit rules or explanations to enjoy. I want to just have giants roaming the earth, like in Makoma, and people dealing with them in a casual way (even though Makoma was not casual about the giants, since he kept going around beating them up with his hammer). One story that sort of does this comes to mind: John Henry, from the old African-American tradition. "Born with a hammer in his hand," he plowed through a mountain and beat a steam engine so that all the other recently-freed slaves could keep their railroad jobs, but then he died because his heart couldn't take it. 

"Died Wid his Hammer in His Hand"
Palmer C. Hayden via Wikimedia

I don't know how I'm going to do it, or what it's going to be about, but I'm gonna try to come up with a magical realism story.