Giga: New Aesopian Fables for the 21st Century

Abstract

Here are one hundred fables in a large-format paperbound book of 125 pages. The foreword conveys misinformation, e.g., that Aesop met with Phadedo, Menippus, and Epictetus. The association with the latter is off by some seven hundred years! The author chooses the Japanese word giga or caricature because many of the characters in these fables represent common hopes, ideals, goals and shortcomings that shape society today (i). In a moment of deep and unsought irony, the author's expression of gratitude on i for a proofreader contains the typo particuarly for particularly. A beginning T of C identifies the issue involved in each fable. The illustrator for each fable is meticulously listed at the back. There is a good variety of black-and-white Japanese illustrations, generally not well presented here. The prints are dark and sketchy. Some, like the tree on 60, seem like digitalized images done at the wrong resolution. Others seem as though they have taken an image and extended one direction without extending the other. The stories range from half a page in length to two pages. For me the best of the first ten is #9. A mole father shows (misinterprets) the world to his son.