Reading Notes: African Stories from Lang's Fairy Books, Part B

The first story here, "Hassebu" was slightly harder for me to read than the others in part A of this set. I thought it was cool that Hassebu found something to do but then he was betrayed and left to die and I was so sad for him. I felt the betrayal for him. I love stories written in this manner and I really hope that I'm able to capture raw emotion in my readers as I write. So, that's what I'd like to take from this story: the ability to really pull out the emotions of my readers.

"The Heart of a Monkey" is a cute story and I liked that the shark made friend's with the money. I enjoyed imagining the monkey hanging out on the cliff, talking to the shark. I didn't like that the shark ended up trying to sacrifice the monkey to his king though, so maybe I could write something about these two with a different ending. I'd like them to remain friends, rather than enemies!

I also really like the story within a story style of writing that's used in "The Heart of a Monkey: The Washerman's Donkey". I'd love to write something in this style but I've avoided trying because I'm worried that my attempt will not work out as smoothly as I'd like it to. Maybe this week I will attempt to write a story within a story.

Finally, "Makoma" inspired me to write something a little more mythical than most of my writing has been. I loved that when he overtook someone, he took in their powers. I think I could definitely write something using this premise. If I decide to go with this, I could combine more than one of my ideas together and use the generational story as well. I also liked the overall message that it's lonely at the top.

(If it's lonely at the top; online source, pattidawnswansson.wordpress.com)

I definitely think that whatever I write this week is going to combine some of the overarching themes from more than one of these stories.

Source
"African Stories from Lang's Fairy Books", by Andrew Lang, online source