When I was a kid, my favorite fable was the one where a man and his son and their donkey head off to the market. (I was always miserable for the donkey though - I thought the fable would be better if the poor beast simply fell into the river and swam away, instead of drowning.) But it's the moral of the story that is important.
Please all, and you will please none.
After reading the last review I got, where the reviewer pointed out that my heroine did not "resist enough" when she met the hero, I was glad. Why? Because I'm one of those readers who doesn't look for books where the heroine and the hero meet and she Hates him. Or he hates her. Or there is the 'Big Misunderstanding'. Or something of the sort. Oh, I read books like that - all the time - and I understand that it's formula romance. But I guess I don't write romance. Or maybe I do. There is romance in my book - there just isn't the usual contrived drama. I saw a movie the other day, called
'The Holiday', and in it, the heroine meets the hero, and they are in bed fifteen minutes later. I can understand that - I mean, Jude Law! Right? And probably some people got up and walked out of the movie theater at that point, but I thought it rang true. You can be felled by Cupid's arrow - love can strike you in an instant - so yeah, I got a totally shitty review, but I'm glad.
Æsop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey |
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| A MAN and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?” | 1 |
| So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.” | 2 |
| So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.” | 3 |
| Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor Donkey of yours—you and your hulking son?” | 4 |
| The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the Donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the Donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned. | 5 |
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:
| | “PLEASE ALL, AND YOU WILL PLEASE NONE.”
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