AFRO-AMERICAN FOLKTALES: Stories from Black Traditions in the New World

by Roger D. Abrahams ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 1985

A multiplicity of black folk tales--107 altogether, from the US and the Caribbean--transposed into pedestrian standard English, and arranged under subject-headings that have little to do with their original nature or character. Abrahams is a prominent folklorist (Prof. of Humanities and Anthropology, Scripps and Pitzer Colleges) and this collection, unlike his African Folktales, does at least carry source-notes. But his feeling for the material is nil. It's mock-scholarship, for instance, to affix the label ""Florida"" to all the Zora Neale Hurston stories, from Mules and Men, scattered through the volume; it doesn't even make sense, with these homogenized versions, to label the dispersed Joel Chandler Harris' Brer Rabbit tales ""Georgia."" It shows a small but clear lack of storytelling savvy to change a title from ""How Jack Beat the Devil"" to ""Jack Beats the Devil."" (Title-changing is a regular practice here--some are unrecognizable.) The section introductions are stilted and pedantic. ""Getting a Comeuppance: How to Act Stories and Tales How Not to Act"" begins: ""No subject is talked about more in Afro-American communities than each other's business--which, as we saw in the last section, means the way people behave toward one another. Such notions as responsibility and reputation are therefore very important. . ."" The stories themselves follow suit: the clever twists are more or less intact, and so are many of the phrasings (though they sound artificial, wrenched from their oral roots); but there is no color, no flavor, no lilt. There is also nothing like the range of materials in the old Langston Hughes/Arna Bontemps anthology.

Pub Date: April 2, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION