Creighton University

I found three books from this series, "Le bestiaire du capucin," in my thirty minutes at Gibert Joseph this trip.  This booklet is earlier than both "Les insectes de la fable" and "Les fables du Renard."  The list of members of the collection "Le bestiaire du capucin," named only "La Collection" in the booklet itself, are fewer than in those other two booklets.  The illustrations here are all duochrome, i.e., black and beige.  Guittard adopts here a curiously nervous style.  Typical of his work are LM and FM.  "The Rat and the Oyster" presents the temptation well.  "The League of Rats" suggests well what rats are up against in the cat.  There are here thirteen of La Fontaine's fables that feature the rat.  Yves Le Pestipon notes that more than fifteen of his fables deal with the rat.  Le Pestipon reminds us that, in all its ins and outs, ups and downs, the rat is like man.  "Il est comme l'homme."

I found three books from this series, "Le bestiaire du capucin," in my thirty minutes at Gibert Joseph this trip.  This booklet, along with "Les Insectes de la fable," is later than "Les fables du Rat."  Several of the illustrations here feature four and perhaps five colors.  The style is distinctive, often provocative, sometimes unnecessarily disjointed.  Among the best of the images are the two illustrations for FS, the illustration for "The Fox and the Goat," that for "The Sick Lion and the Fox," and that for "The Fox and the Goat."  Yves Le Pestipon begins his Apologue with this strong statement: "Le Renard est la fable.  La fable est le Renard."  The book is unpaginated.

I found three books from this series, "Le bestiaire du capucin," in my thirty minutes at Gibert Joseph this trip.  This booklet, along with "Les fables du Renard," is later than "Les fables du Rat."  Several of the illustrations here feature two and three colors.  The artist has a difficult but challenging task here.  Part of that task is to help readers beyond an initial "Yecch!" response to contemplate the particulars of this specific fable's situation.  The artist's temptation may be that she gets taken up in entomology.  I find her approach to "The Lion and the Mosquito" good.  Her illustration for AD is simple but effective.  "The Coach and the Fly" is adequate; such a good fable could have elicited so much more!  "The Spider and the Swallow" gave me a chance to appreciate this good fable for perhaps the first time.  I would not have thought that La Fontaine had eleven fables including these creatures!  Yves Le Pestipon begins his excellent Prologue by pointing out that, in La Fontaine's time, "insect" meant more or less "an animal able to live in slices or sections."  That sense has the word including, for example, snakes.  He suggests that, for La Fontaine, "insect" calls up "little animal" by contrast with the big animals.  One basic lesson that they teach is: "One can be small and still be full of oneself."  The fly who thought he brought a coach up the mountain is a fine example.  The book is unpaginated.