The King and the Sea
Book review by Trevor Agnew
The King and the Sea: 21 Extremely Short Stories (2015) Heinz Janisch, Wolf
Erlbruch, Gecko Press, Wellington, NZ, 48 pages
Paperback: ISBN 978 1 927271 80 3
Hardback: ISBN 978 1 877579 94 3
“How are you?”
enquired the King.
“That’s what I’ve
been asking you all along,” said the book.
This book contains 21 short stories about a king and his
relationship with the world around him. Some of the stories are very short
(just as the sub-title promises). In fact, the quotation above is the complete
text of Story 20.
Most of the stories show the king – a small plump bald
man of middle age – encountering some aspect of nature and learning small
lessons about himself. Oceans, stars, squirrels and clouds each have something
to teach the king.
When he tells a bee to buzz off, he gets his nose stung.
She is, of course, a queen bee.
When the king commands a trumpet to play for him, there
is no response. He realises that “you
don’t like playing on your own” and takes a deep breath.
When he orders a
dog to sit, it runs away and the king has to run after it.
And so the 21 stories, each a tiny fable posing a
question about the balance between true leadership and authority. Young readers
are left to spot the moral of each story.
Wolf Erlbruch‘s colour illustrations – some simple,
almost childlike, and some elegant decoupage – complement Heinz Janisch’s text.
The King and the
Sea was first published in Germany in 2008 as Der König und das Meer.
The 2015 English translation is by Sally-Ann Spencer.
Trevor Agnew
5 Feb 2015
