Illustration by Maurice Boutet de Monvel for "Fables choisies pour les enfants"
In reading La Fountain's Fables, where people and familiar animals do something wrong or funny, stupid or thoughtful you could feel pleasant esprit, refined humor, and subtle moral. It's really a casual and innocent world. It's a sober manner, sober enough to become sometimes very surreal. Imagine the tiny story--- a crow is having a cheese in its beak. A hungry fox sees it, and approached, saying flattery to the crow. Finally the crow couldn't resist to sing, and drop the cheese, which the fox cleverly takes. Perhaps nobody wish to cinematize this, but perhaps anybody could agree that this is more than a dramatic script or visual effect.
Snow White has been cinematized. Alice in Wonderland was also. Even The Lord of the Rings could be filmed. Fairy tales, the Greek myths, epics, Sci-Fi, so they are. But I'm sure that my favorite mottoes in childhood could never be visualized. They're Fables by Jean de La Fontaine, and stories and chronicles of wildlife by Ernest Thompson Seton.
I used to read Ernest Thompson Seton's wildlife stories in such an enthusiasm. I don't know why but "Lobo the King of Currumpaw", or "The Biography of a Silver Fox" were to me a true hero stories. Instead of being charmed by fairy tales or superheroes I liked to free my imagination on the unknown land and unknown life in the Rocky Mountains, Canada, New Mexico or the Arctic Circle, with wolves, bears, reindeers, rabbits and horses. In these stories I've learned how wild animals follow their instinct, how vital is it to keep the natural law to protect life and avoid unnecessary conflict with their enemies, but in combat, how they maximize the strength, advantage and specialty while making the weakness inconspicuous as much as possible.
Simplicity is the finest aspect of the fables and animal chronicles. They tell us to "Do the right thing."
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