Tales for the Kind-Hearted
Сказки Для Добрых Сердец
by Наталия Абрамцева
Yet another book I`d like to give you... The tales by Natalya Abramceva are kinda strange, and they might be compared to the tales by Donald Bisset - yet not quite... The tales are simple and intricate, and not easy to describe. Yet the author`s description is the most felicitous: those really are Tales for the kind-hearted... One of the tales is A Readhead Tale, another is A Night Tale, yet another is A Silky Tale, and so on... The one I like best is A Very Scary Story about a kitten that talked to a shadow: the kitten was a very young one and did not know what hunting was, and when a grown-up cat explained you had to get up at night and to mouse for mice in the dark, the little kitten decided he had to do that; but instead of finding a mouse he found a shadow on a wall... Many of the tales are questions: Who is the best jumper? Can hares swim? Do little stars fall down? Who am I? What is joy made of?... One is bound to find answers to the questions if one reads the tales, yet the answers are not point-blank; the author invites the reader to think and perhaps find a better answer... as, for example, in the tale about an owl nobody liked, though the owl used to cultivate beautiful flowers and give the flowers to her neighbors whenever she visited them.
I suppose trying to describe these tales is about as much use as trying to describe the tales written by Bisset... In other words, the tales should not be described, they should be read!
The book is written in Russian and worth translating.
© Dodo