Les Fables de La Fontaine: Tome 1

Abstract

Here is a heavy book offering on some 320 pages half of La Fontaine's fables, each with a full-page colored illustration. An AI at the beginning is also a T of C. I am trying to order Volume 2; this first volume presents those fables beginning with the letters A through J. This arrangement has a particular advantage: someone wanting to find a number of fables about one animal -- like the ass -- can find some of them grouped together here. Of course the character one seeks might be mentioned second in the title -- as in The Horse and the Ass -- and then one still has to seek elsewhere. The arrangement also has one unusual result: epilogues to Book 6 and to Book 11 appear next to each other in appropriate alphabetical order between titles involving Enfouisseur and Faucon. I find the illustrations simple and dramatic. Is there a certain lack of definition inherent in this art medium? Are the illustrations computer-generated? Among the best of the illustrations are The Eagle and the Owl (13); SS (25); The Donkey and the Lapdog (29); The Astronomer (40); The Cat and an Old Rat (104); The Cat and the Two Sparrows (109); The Horse and the Ass (125); GA (146); The Two Roosters (176); The Crow Wishing to Imitate the Eagle (180); The Curate and the Dead Man (190); The Daughter (244); and The Oyster and the Litigants (300). I think The Frog and the Rat (269), although its illustration is nicely dramatic, gets the story wrong. This frog does not want to hang on to the cord! In the end, I wonder if this artistic style does not have a lot to do with the art of recent graphic novels and comic books.