Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #776808 in Books
• Published on: 1980-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 263 pages

Review
'Kalila and Dimna is the greatest present of the Islamic heritage ... Wood's superb stories should be set alongside Italo Calvino's retelling of the folktales of Italy. No higher praise is necessary.' Carlos Fuentes'Ramsay Wood follows his originals closely, and slips with skill in and out of stories as closely interfolded as the petals of a rose.' Ursula le Guin'Racy, funny, vigorous, contemporary - I defy anyone not to finish it in one sitting.' Doris Lessing

The Times Literary Supplement March 17, 1980 (also referring to first UK edition)
His version will certainly be much more attractive to modern readers than the older translations, with the drier narratives and unfamiliar oriental hyperbole.

Le Monde, September 15, 2006 (referring to the French edition of the same book)
Crossing linguistic and cultural frontiers, these fables also transcend conventional time-frames. They abound with temporal paradoxes . . . They contain words of advice whose meaning only becomes gradually clear, sometimes after a very long delay.

Customer Reviews

A Mirror for Princes
The question is: How to deal with what may seem unpredictable? 'The Iliad', 'The Bible', 'The Ramayana', and many other collections of tales, all deal with archetypal situations which arise over and over again, and how they play out. The old myths and stories lay out patterns of response to the automatic behaviour which our species so often displays.

Ramsay Wood's 'Kalila and Dimna' is bursting with such stories. They are part of a corpus of wisdom tales, also called 'The Fables of Bidpai' or 'The Panchatantra' in an ancient educational genre known as A Mirror for Princes.

Aesop's Fables are indebted to them, as are many other collections of tales in many cultures, down to la Fontaine and beyond. They feature the doings of all kinds of animals: cunning, stupid, wise, strong, greedy, weak, forbearing, thoughtful and impatient. These fables came from India in the 1st millennium BCE and Wood re-tells them in accessible modern language which, at times, is truly enchanting.

From them we see that there have always been people who understood how things happen and this helps avoid surprise or discomfiture over the inevitable. It may even help some of us by-pass the undesirable.

Tales within tales
I hugely enjoyed reading this book. It is a fascinating and entertaining compilation of stories which have been handed down over two thousand years. The animal kingdom provides a host of characters who relate colourful tales within which other tales emerge, within which more tales are told. The stories can be read on many levels: my granddaughter enjoys them on a simplistic level, but they also contain many a message about human foibles, strengths and weaknesses. Ramsay Wood writes in a style which is contemporary, but which still resonates with the ancient history of these fables.

A new, old classic
The remarkable pedigree of this collection of fables goes back more than two thousand years and, as Doris Lessing's illuminating introduction points out, its offspring can be traced in literary artefacts from the Far East to the Far West.
However, this new version of Kalila and Dimna is delicious enough even without the extra seasoning of historical curiosity.
Ramsay Wood has restored and polished these venerable stories for a contemporary readership with verve, color, pace and truly zany humour while preserving the spellbinding story-within-story framework. Read it yourself - or aloud to children. I did and we all loved it. We learn that this represents only a portion of the original. Next, please?