Books to work on 3’.

 

 

 

 

“The most fierce…”, “he couldn’t sleep…”, “…who ever could sing?”, “And soon he could understand…”[2] are grateful sentences to kids, things and verbs they can experience : but, on the other hand they fear magic and magicians that, also if at the end they seem to accept, they still ascribe to a wellknown habit of adults to mask their own weariness, and however children don’t like reproaching them.

I’ve so liked this book which so little space gives to magic and magician insolence, even smiling and frank, as in a few of these tales : and rather you can admit that, notwithstanding the favour of some enchantment, “due to his anger or his fear…”[3] keeps on standing the dull wall of human laziness, which is successful even in convincing humans to make with it their Law too, to everyone valid and easy to obey just to sweep away any anxiety from mind.

Are then the algorithms valid as a Law ?

So we have just been coming to the last tale of the book, ‘The old man and the rope’, where a really odd world let the children alone, without anyone reading or speaking or to be asked on their own questions : and if someone does, he or she is considered no socially profitable and then rejectable, that is the definition of ‘old people’.

It is a tale without any magic and enchantment, which rather recalls History[4] - the luckiest children did read that at school – into “the youngest and strongest ones” can agree even a death Law  to sweep away any people not able “to get any plough in the fields… neither to reap the wheat, …they are all in their pains and old age.”[5]

The ancient Bobore doesn’t oppose, he accepts the Law and he doesn’t express what he’s really thinking of, as “no one gives them any importance”[6]. He let his son, which unwillingly obeys to Law, can lead him up to the rope of Muccidorgiu ravin, a real existing place near Gorropu throat.

Come to the top, however, the son decides to hide his father in the near forest, where he’ll take something to eat : months pass by and an awful drought stops the harvest, even carrying the famine, so that the good son cannot carry to Bobore other than a few grains.

But Bobore doesn’t decay, as the youngest people in town begin to do, and surely taht is not due to his living alone in the forest : what the old man has thought of, linking his experience to his own memory, is not at all a magic recipe as it will save even the distressed citizens, still suffering from their lack of strength and ideas…

Children like to know about a favourable ‘law’ which doesn’t oppose to Law but which – also if it’s hidden to ordinary people - can efficiently integrate what does lack in any existing Law : and even when it has already become as an Algorithm.

                   

                                            Marina Bilotta Membretti, Cernusco sul Naviglio February21, 2021.

 

 

[1] “Fiabe della Sardegna”, by Alberto Melis – Paintings by Giuseppe Braghiroli/ ‘Giunti Editore SpA’, ‘Giunti Kids – Un Mondo di Fiabe’.

[2] “Fiabe della Sardegna”, by Alberto Melis – Paintings by Giuseppe Braghiroli/ ‘Giunti Editore SpA’, pp.6-12: ‘Pera Zuanne’, the tale protagonist, has really lived.

[3] “Fiabe della Sardegna”, by Alberto Melis – Paintings by Giuseppe Braghiroli/ ‘Giunti Editore SpA’, p.25

[4] Even in our first school books we know about Tarpea rope in ancient Rome, or about Taigeto mountain in Sparta : Law did decreed death to old and unable people, a social rule that also nowadays seems to be diffused even as a State Law.

[5] “Fiabe della Sardegna”, by Alberto Melis – Paintings by Giuseppe Braghiroli/ ‘Giunti Editore SpA’, p.105.

[6] “Fiabe della Sardegna”, by Alberto Melis – Paintings by Giuseppe Braghiroli/ ‘Giunti Editore SpA’, p.109.