A Book for Clarity and Solidity

There is this book of the Grimms'fairy tales right beside my bed, always, the

translation by Lucas, Crane, and Edwardes. I sometimes try to imagine life without it and then just feel grateful.

There are so many books to read and so little time, that choosing what we are going to read is an almost inconceivably difficult problem. We try to balance all the considerations involved, such as time available, sheer pleasure, the necessity of finding truth that stretches, and avoiding narcosis and the road that leads nowhere.

I picked up the book last night after having spent a few difficult hours with some other books that were valuable but difficult, subtly flawed and limited here and there, and it was like walking into sunshine.

The story I lighted upon, Fundevogel, begins:

There was once a forester who went into the woods to hunt, and he heard a cry like that of a little child. He followed the sound and at last came to a big tree where a tiny child was sitting high up on one of the branches. The mother had gone to sleep under the tree, and a bird of prey, seeing the child on her lap, had flown down and carried it off in its beak to the top of the tree.

The forester retrieves the child and brings it home where it becomes the eternally faithful, beneficial friend of his own son.

There was time for one more before I slept, The Golden Goose, which begins:

There was once a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called Simpleton. He was scorned and kept in the background.

This third, simple, most unlikely, scorned, brother in such tales is the one who achieves the treasure hard-to-obtain, marries the king's daughter and inherits the kingdom. He does this by sharing with a being in distress, helping a fish or other animal or a small old person. Simpleton's brothers in this story are selfish and rude to a little gray man who is hungry, to their own harm. Simpleton meets the little man and responds with this:

I only have a cake baked in the ashes, and some sour beer. But if if you like such fare, we will sit down and eat it together.”

So they sat down. But when Simpleton pulled out his cake it was a nice sweet cake, and his sour beer was turned into good wine.

The little man directs Simpleton to a golden goose at the roots beneath a tree, and grace follows.

I think of the countless women who evolved these stories, these teachings, these images of our inner lives and shared them with their children. Robert Frost once suggested that we should probably take as much time to read a book as the author took to write it. Impossible to do, of course, but I keep coming back to this book whenever I am looking for clarity and solidity.