This week we tackled another set of folktales, the 1926 Newbery Award winner Shen of The Sea: Chinese Stories for Children by Arthur Bowie Chrisman. I have to say reading another set of folktales was a little rough, since I am more of a novel girl than a short story or folk tale one. (Actually, full confession: I broke down and got the audible audio version for $5 because I just couldn’t handle reading another 16 short stories. That improved it a great deal. I could listen to them while I walked or cleaned or, more often than not in the past few weeks, packed.) However, surviving the folktale marathon did mean that I had last week’s South American Tales from the Silver Lands fresh in my mind for short story collection comparison.
What I liked. My favorite story was “The Rain King’s Daughter” in which a young princess, daughter of a water god, is left behind when her fiancé, future-father-in-law the King, and all the able-bodied men go off to war quickly in the middle of the night. But then the enemy cuts the army off and only the swollen river prevents them from storming the city. So the princess has all the women of the city dress up in the armor and war masks the men left behind, and using an old man as her spokesman, the princess scares the army into retreat by seeming like a great and powerful army. Then, when the king hears about it, an adviser says that there is a rule that any woman who dresses in the armor of the king has to be killed. The king is very sad about this, but then a giant fish eats that adviser, so the King just goes home and his son and the princess get married. Practically Paper Bag Princess! That girl power story, however, is an exception. (Although that type of surprising comedic moment is present throughout the book.) There are very few female characters, and even fewer with names or personalities.
What was interesting/comparison to other Newberies. I thought the thematic differences between the folktale collections Shen of the Sea and Silver Lands were some of the most interesting aspects of the books. In Shen there was almost always a king or emperor, often some sort of nature demon (a shen), a twist of fate that raised up the humble or humbled the proud, and a lot of focus on honor and fate. In Silver Lands the enemies were more often witches or sorcerers, the youths were praised for their purity and closeness to nature, and there were more often forests and birds and animal helpers who saved or aided the pure youths in restoring peace and harmony.
What were some limitations. I’m no expert on Chinese folktales (or any folktales for that matter), but it seems as though these are more Chinese-style folktales than retellings of traditional tales. Other reviewers of this book seem to indicate that author Arthur Bowie Chrisman had claimed to gather the tales from shop owners in San Francisco, perhaps creating most of the narrative lines himself. I don’t have any expertise or research to comment on this, but maybe that is sort of the point. I (and many Americans) still have such a gap in my knowledge of Asian culture that I can’t tell whether a collection of stories that uses Chinese terms is authentic or blatantly orientalist.
Why I think it’s a Newbery. Again it’s a collection of folk and fairy tales in an exotic location, which continues to be a 1920s Newbery award preference. (Next week we’re going to have our first American-set Newbery book: Smoky the Cowhorse.) Also, Shen does have dragons, demons, witches, and stubborn, rude, and lucky children, warring armies, all set in tales that have a lot of comedy and irony.
What it teaches me as a writer. Last week, the South American folktales reminded me of the importance of theme and repetition, but this week’s book reminded me that too much repetition and set up can make for a story that drags, even though it made me wonder what was going to happen next to re-imagine the pattern. Also, I wanted to get to know the characters as people with relationships, not just a collection of characteristics and social ties.
Have you read Shen of the Sea? Do you have a more authentic set of Chinese folktales to recommend?