Monday, January 22, 2018

Reading Notes: Jatakas, Part B

The Crocodile in the River.

What I liked about this story was how the author described exactly what the monkey did each day. The precision with which the details are truly allowed me as a reader to understand what it was the monkey did along the river. I also think the author did a good job of describing the setting. I think as a writer it is important to describe the setting for which the characters are interacting because it allows the reader to imagine the action better. Another aspect I liked with this story was the art of deception. I think that I would enjoy incorporating trickery into my stories. I feel this would be a good way for me to teach lessons or just make the stories more fun. One thing I didn't necessarily like was the stanza at the end. I feel that as a writer there are better ways to rap up a story or deliver a message. So if I were to try and re-create this story in a different manner I would probably try to find a better way to end the story. In thinking about how I might try to re-create this story, I was thinking about possibly using dogs and a squirrel or so. I thought it might be fun to have a dog trying to catch a squirrel to symbolize the crocodile and monkey from the story. It is just a thought but if I do so I will try to simplify this story to be more of a children's story. I think that the original story was already pretty basic and simple which is why I enjoyed it, but I think I might be able to make it more relatable and modern by possibly using squirrels and dogs. Overall, I enjoyed reading this story and it laid a good template as to ideas for my own writing style.

I got this picture from Pexels since the story described a crocodile.

Bibliography:

Vanarinda Jataka, in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers.

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