Story
Scheub (African languages and literature, Univ. of Wisconsin), the author of several books on African oral traditions, including The Tongue Is Fire (Univ. of Wisconsin, 1996), here provides a scholarly discussion on what gives power to story. Using 25 traditional tales from southern Africa, Scheub cogently argues for the importance of story in our past and present. He demonstrates that structural elements such as image, narrative, rhythm, and trope are used to shape meaning, which "is essentially constructed of feeling." Scheub repeatedly invokes the importance of emotion, believing it to be "the essential component in story." He maintains that everyone can generally agree on the surface meaning and the moral of a story; what gives real meaning is individual interpretation, stirred by the emotion that each of us brings to the story. Scheub presents a compelling, complex argument, best suited for academics.?Louis J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, NYCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.