Literary-critical Sunday school 18: Jacob and Esau

Reading: Monika und Udo Tworuschka, Die Weltreligionen Kindern erklärt, loc. 826-847 (Islam; biography of Muhammed)/2119. Listening: Die Bibel, 1.42-2.13 (Genesis 23-27).

J really liked the story of Jacob and Esau. He laughed out loud when it was told how the brothers fought with each other even in Rebekah's womb: "und Rebekka, sein Weib, ward schwanger. Und die Kinder stießen sich miteinander in ihrem Leibe" (Gen. 25: 21-22). He wanted to listen to that passage several times and brought it up later. When we got home we looked at images of the iconic scenes.

Even though we didn't get this far today, I did tell Jamie that the story of Jacob and Esau has a happy ending and that the brothers are reconciled:

Apropos of Isaac/Rebekah we also discussed marriage customs in ancient times and other parts of the world like arranged marriages and cousin marriage. 

The reading on Islam was also fortuitous because it discussed the connections between the Islamic and the Jewish traditions: Ibrahim/Abraham, Musa/Moses, Isa/Jesus, the angel Gabriel. 

2016
Total audio: 9.29
Total video: 59:00
Age 6.04.28

Media update 284

Reading: Richard Adams, Unten am Fluss, 81-87; David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, 160-163, 178, 181. Listening: Käthe Recheis, König Artur und die Ritter der Tafelrunde, 3.42 - 4.18. Viewing: Hexe Lilli: Leonardo, König Artus, Kolumbus, 32:00 - 59:00.

When we came to the difficult point in Lancelot's and Guenevere's relationship when the queen, jealous of Lady Elaine, gives her lover a dressing-down and tells him to get lost, at which point he throws himself out the window, J bust into tears and told me to stop the audiobook. After a few minutes he got a grip and asked me to continue. 

This evening I showed him one of my prized possessions, a reprint of the 1893 edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. He was not yet suitably impressed, but that will come with time.

2016
Total audio: 8.58
Total video: 59:00
Age 6.04.21

Media update 283: King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table

Reading: Richard Adams, Unten am Fluss, 11-81; David Macaulay, Das große Mammut-Buch der Technik, 146-155, 166-169. Listening: Käthe Recheis, König Artur und die Ritter der Tafelrunde, 1.14 - 3.42. Viewing: Hexe Lilli: Leonardo, König Artus, Kolumbus, 0 - 32:00.

The Adams story is not as big of a hit as I thought it would be. The narrative is rather advanced, and the translation is not as good as it seemed at first glance. For several days J requested it for reading time, but not in the last few. So I'll keep on for a bit yet, and then leave off if he loses interest.

King Arthur is the man of the hour. The Recheis audiobook is fantastic, very well put together and narrated. It represents an interesting amalgamation of the British, French, and German Arthurian traditions: Arthur's early biography is according to the British versions, the story of Parzifal is adapted from Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the Lancelot-Guenevere material follows Chretien de Troyes. But everywhere the author also goes her own way.

J especially likes the story of Lancelot and Guenevere. This interest first began when my wife started playing numbers from the musical Camelot for him, which he has been humming and singing around the house for several weeks.

At one point in the German audiobook when the two were talking about Guenivere being already married, J chimed in and said: "Das ist ein großes Problem!". He is also very amused how Camelot's Lancelot considers himself the best knight in the world. 

2016
Total audio: 8.22
Total video: 32:00 (uncounted)
Age 6.04.16

Watership down / Unten am Fluss

This just arrived, which I am very excited about: 

A year and several months ago, just before I started this blog, J and I watched the animated movie as well as some of the t.v. series that came later (German versions available on YouTube), and for several days J was  all about it, playing Watership Down-themed games and drawing the characters. 

He was strangely fascinated with the figure of Captain Holly, a rather sketchy and scarred old campaigner who goes over to the good rabbits.

I recorded him saying at the time: "Ich mag Hauptmann Holly so gern, weil er den anderen Kaninchen berichtet, was in der Heimat passiert ist, damit die das wissen."

The story may be a little too advanced for J at this point, we'll see. But I do think that in his own bunny story, in which the bunnies have a mythology, he was recalling Watership Down. Obviously most of the language-play in the original is not going to come over in translation, but the German seems very good.

Media update 282

Reading: Cornelia Funke, Drachenreiter, 42-448 (end). Listening: Michael Ende, Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer, 3.53 - 7.45 (end); Gerd Köster, Die fabelhafte Welt der Tiere: Fische und Vögel, 49:00 - 1.26; Cornelia Funke, Drachenreiter, 0 - 41:00; Dimiter Inkiow, Die Abenteuer des Odysseus, 0-41:00; Europäische Sagen, 0-20:00; Käthe Recheis, König Artur und die Ritter der Tafelrunde, 0 - 1.14.

The Funke story is the longest I have yet read to J. He really, really liked it, and his attention did not flag at any point. It was the kind of story he would often bring up at random, just because he is thinking about the characters. 

The Ende story also continued to amuse and delight to the end. As for the coded critique of Nazism I mentioned here, it more or less amounted to the fact that the dragons are obsessed with their "racial" purity. Ok. I duly pointed this out to and discussed briefly with Jamie. In this connection I found it interesting that the really evil dragon, Frau Mahlzahn, is redeemed at the end and transformed into a good dragon. So obviously the critique of Nazism is quite shallow ... unless we imagine that Ende is saying that Nazis—Nazi leaders—were capable of total redemption. Seems doubtful. In any case, I look forward to the next installment in this series as well as more stories by Ende.

I was excited to get to Odysseus, but although J seemed interested at the beginning, he freaked when the cyclops devours one of Odysseus's crew and wanted to stop. We'll revisit in several months.

My wife started reading King Arthur stories with J, which he really likes. Our audiobook tracks his English book quite closely, so I've been having J give a quick summary of the chapters as he hears their German titles before we listen. 

2016
Total audio: 6.54
Total video: 0 (uncounted)
Age 6.04.3