The Red Swan

"The Red Swan" Ed. by John Bierhorst     Bierhorst is translating pretty much directly from stories that belong in oral tradition. Reading them, you can almost hear the story-teller. When translating from oral tradition stories, you have a couple of options--translate directly, without adding the cultural context which makes it more accessible for someone not from the culture, or leave the story alone and translate without embellishment. Bierhorst chooses the second option. Because of this, the online reviews are mixed. The main comment seems to be that he doesn't try to make the stories linear, and some readers don't like that. From our perspective, this means that we may enjoy and understand them more intuitively. You be the judge. Does he "get" how we experience the world? We applaud him for at least making the effort. There are 64 stories, drawn from many of our nations, organized by themes: The Dream Father; From the Body of Our Mother; The Lure of the Serpent; A Gift of Honey; Tales of War; Winter and Spring; The Birth of the Hero; The Hero as Provider; The Hero As Deliverer; Comedy of Horrors; Jaguar and Fox; Ghosts; Tales of the White Man; Myths of Returning Life; Death and Beyond