Jack Zipes has produced an impressive collection, representing a wide range of tales based on sorcerer-apprentice interactions. This book concludes with biographies of the authors, editors, collectors, and translators; a filmography; and a bibliography. It also contains a "Selected and Chronological List of Sorcerer's Apprentice Tales" (featuring more than 100 tales). In addition, there is an index and a multitude of dramatically expressive illustrations by N. Frank. As to the appendices, Zipes claims that the actual number could have been so extensive that he decided to list only some tales. Among the folklore collections, there is an extensive representation of major publications of Western European tales (Danish, German, Greek, Scottish, and Swedish) and Slavic (Bulgarian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian), as well as Arabic, Indian, Mongolian, and other tales.
The texts are divided into three sections: Part 1: The Humiliated Apprentice Tales (containing thirteen tales), Part 2: The Rebellious Apprentice Tales (containing thirty-five tales), and Part 3: Krabat Tales (of Sorbian/Lusatian origin dating from the eighteenth century, eight tales). On the one hand, the time-range of the two main groups of texts is quite impressive: it covers plot variations from 8 CE to the 1990s for "Rebellious Apprentice" and from 170 CE to the twentieth century for "The Humiliated Apprentice.” On the other hand, such a wide range could raise concern about the arrangement of the collection, since the compiler has put together both authentic folktales and their literary versions (such as a Goethe poem from 1798). This does not mean that the rich gold mine of folk texts is left entirely without attention, but this mixture does give a feeling of uneven distribution between the literary versions and the original folklore texts.
Moreover, oddly, in the contents list each tale is preceded by the name of the publisher/translator rather than information about its country of origin. It seems that the latter approach would provide more valuable information to the researcher. For example, the Slavic tale "The Blacksmith and the Devil" is attributed to E. Hodgetts, translator of Russian folklore. It would be better to provide the original source of the translated text, namely, A. Afanasyev's Russian Fairy Tales of 1859, # 31, recorded by V. Dal. At the same time, some authored tales, like poet and novelist H. Hesse's "Forest Dweller" or popular children's writer E. Nesbit's "Magician's Heart," stand out like foreign bodies among the versions of authentic folktales.
Another concern is the collector's approach to the interpretation of the text, specifically, to what inspired its creator. In examining the psychological pressure in a typical relationship between master and apprentice, Zipes observes "opposition and resistance” to all kinds of wicked sorcerers. He analyzes these two terms by discussing such subjects as child abuse, slavery, and exploitation. Zipes reminds his readers of the oppressive conditions that the apprentices may have been living under, an unnecessarily politicized approach that is not fitting for an academic publication of recorded folklore texts and their literary variants. This author's view, based on contemporary "questions of the hour," seems to underlie the presented tale classification. It is made according to the pupil's relations with the mentor, and the main conflict arises from the "master-slave" opposition: for example, Humiliated Apprentice contains "authoritarianism and enslavement," and Rebellious Apprentice contains "empowerment and self-awareness."
A valuable component of the book is Zipes's comprehensive article "The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Harry Potter, and Why Magic Matters," which serves as the introduction to the collection. Here Zipes demonstrates the interactions and mutual influences in the historical development of the tales and explains the extreme popularity of the recurrent plot. According to Zipes, this popularity lies in the eternal conflict between generations, caused by the desire of the younger generations to gain knowledge in order to either change the world through freedom of expression or find ways to cope with the existing social order. It seems, though, that such persistent attention to social struggle, inspired by the dream to "turn the world into heaven," can distract the reader’s attention from analysis of the origin of the tales and their motifs.
The introductory article also contains a valuable discussion of the motifs and evolution of two plots (ATU 325, 325*, 313) with an emphasis on the Rebellious Apprentice. Zipes traces them to the Greek and Egyptian versions, which served as sources for a variety of later adaptations. He points to a direct correlation between the popularity of a certain type of tale, and its adaptation in music and cinematography, and the socio-political situation of particular historical periods, for example during dictatorships or during periods of economic struggle when the poor seek magical knowledge as a tool for survival. However, the article does not mention any other interesting features that make these tales so attractive to readers and researchers. For example, Afanasyev pointed to those elements of religion and humor in similar tales (for example, about the blacksmith and the devil), and he specifically highlighted relationships among wizards and devils as seen in some Slavic tales (cf. E. Pomerantseva's Mythological Characters in Russian Folklore, Moscow: Nauka, 1975).
Zipes seeks an explanation for the continuous popularity of Hegel's "Master-Slave Dialectics," which features the process of acquiring self-awareness and individuation. Another theory, developed by Theodor Adorno, explains this phenomenon on a deeper level, arguing that the conflict in rebellious apprentice tales is based on self-consciousness attained through antagonism and resistance to the traditional world order, which demands total obedience. This, in turn, reflects the family’s and society’s control over children, which serves as a catalyst for endless reproduction of the tale. Pointing to these related memes, Zipes determines that the stable features of the tale are the following: the power of magic needed by a young man to survive; the miraculous transformations caused by magic; and an absolute necessity to resist the evil master's dominance.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice provides a selection of high-quality tales. It gives an overview of the types of the tales included, and the introductory article is filled with examples showing the variety of the corpus. In addition to presenting analysis rooted in psychology and sociology, this book offers a convincing explanation for the immortality of tales featuring the sorcerer’s apprentice, wherein Zipes sees eternal conflicts of manmade societies: generational, political, social, and economical, fueled by the natural struggle of maturing boys to obtain self-identity and self-confidence.
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[Review length: 1057 words • Review posted on June 21, 2018]