Kids in the Anglophone world grow up reading about Robin Hood, King Arthur, Coer-de-Lion, Captain Hook and Peter Pan, and Treasure Island. Tales of the knights of chivalry are as familiar to a boy’s mind as are his own childhood memories. The characters of these yarns are vivid, as is the historical-imaginary world they rule.
Yesterday was lovely. I thought I would sit outside and write a bit, read a bit and hang out with some kids. The novel I am reading right now is T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. Well, the kids asked what it was about. So, I began to tell, in my broken Creole, of the life of Arthur and Gwenevere. Immediately regretting my choice of language, I begged the children to let me tell the tale in French.
After dropping a few crucial details about the key characters, I realized that I would have to do much back-pedaling to explain about England and chivalry and such. I compared Arthur’s vision of abolishing “Might is Right,” an England where serfs and maidens could be free to roam the woods and roads without fear of rape and pillaging, to an Haiti in which people could live without fear and wherein poor field workers could own their own land. In the end, I think the kids rather got the idea.
I shall have to work on my story telling skills.
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