If you’re a regular reader of this column then you know my reading taste is fairly, well, eclectic. I have a passion for most books about varied subjects (fiction about airports, bad crime novels and biographies of things I wouldn’t think about like curry). But mostly, I tend to go in a certain direction when I have certain moods. For example, when the wind whips against my window, I like poetry, sitting on my couch with my cat curled up next to me. When I’m travelling I like fast-paced novels about people disappearing or children dying. When I’m ill, I like books about women searching for relationships and when I’m in an “improvement” kind of mood, I like reading mythology.
Mythology is basically a fairy tale that’s been told so often it has the stamp of approval from history, which makes you feel good when you’re reading it because you can imagine you’re actually “studying” something, when you’re really just have a good time.
So, my recent bookshop pick was the Pancatantra by Ramsay Wood (not to be confused with celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay), a slim little volume bearing those welcome words for book lovers who don’t like their favourite stories to end: Book One. What also attracted me to the book was that Doris Lessing had done the introduction, and it was like a double whammy.
What do we know about Ramsay Wood? I know that the book, far from being a new one, was actually published in 1980. I’m not sure if it was the same book because this one is called The Pancatantra Retold and that one was Selected Stories From The Pancatantra, but the stories they tell are the same, that of Kalila and Dimna, two jackals in a lion’s court. The secondary story is of a rat and his friends, but the jackals of the title story stay in your mind a lot longer. The Pancatantra, as you may or may not know, has dubious origins, but most can agree that these allegorical fables were told to rulers on how to better rule their kingdoms.
Why should you pick it up? It’s snappy, it’s retold in modern language, it’s funny, and it’s a far sight better for you than any monk who sold his Ferrari. It’s not a “self help” book with all those awful connotations, but it does help you think about old-fashioned values and see how some of them can still apply to modern day life. It’s not preachy in the slightest, and it would also be good bedtime reading if you have kids who are too old for picture books. Enough of a hard sell? I can’t help it, I just love seeing old Amar Chitra Katha favourites available as actual books for the 10-year-old still in me.
The columnist is an author