Customer Reviews

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Each one of Idries Shah's three delightful Nasrudin books - The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin, the Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin and the Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin - is not only the perfect gift for any thinking person with a sense of humor, but a fitting antidote to the stress, pressure and confusion of modern life. For beyond the laughter lie deeper levels of meaning that reveal themselves at their own pace and can help broaden our perception and increase our understanding. The bite-sized jokes center around Mulla Nasrudin, an age-old Middle Eastern teaching figure whose antics mirror those of the human mind as he juggles the roles of wise man, fool and our own self. Calling these jokes "perfectly designed models for isolating and holding distortions of the mind which so often pass for reasonable behavior," author Idries Shah notes that they have been used for centuries by the Sufis as teaching exercises. Other specialists - from physicists to psychologists - have employed them to illustrate concepts that defy more straightforward explanations. I've not seen anything like them anywhere else.

I read this book many years ago wondering, 'What on earth do these tales mean?' I searched for meanings and morals in the jokes and situations the Mulla finds himself in. Only recently, upon rereading it, I saw what Shah has pointed out several times. The stories help pinpoint certain habits of mind including certain glitches in the thinking process that invalidate one's conclusions and ideas. Beyond that, I have found, upon examining these tales, a way of using the mind that avoids the glitches, the ditches, and the pitfalls to which human thought is often susceptible to. Do I recommend this book? Absolutely. It not only has shown my mind to me, it has shown the way to what my mind can become. The book is a teacher, a teacher that shows what's wrong, and in so doing, what may be the right way of using the mind and oneself.

This is a collection of Sufi (Islamic mystics) teaching stories. Shah is famous for his many collections of them. I've read 10 of his books. They are invariably entertaining. The Sufi masters are referred to as idiots--they can appear as such to the uninitiated. Reminds one of some of the Hasidic and Elijah stories, Yogi Berra's quips, Tibetan Buddhists masters of Crazy Wisdom, and the Peter Sellers movie "Being There." It's sometimes hard to tell if the protagonist knows what he's doing or not. Some of the stories are easily understood by the reader; some are more like Zen koans. I found this book among the best of the ones I've read of his. You might also try his "Wisdom of the Idiots" or "The Dermis Probe." The latter is Shah's term for the dilemma of the 3 blind men differing over their descriptions of an elephant.

The trend during the last few years towards stories about stupid people brought us such non-classics (but entertaining reads) as "The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said", "The Darwin Awards", and others. But what few people know is that such stories were circulating 1000 years ago in the Sufi storytelling tradition.

These stories are the equivalent of our "Urban Legends". Oddly enough, as I read this, I wish that I could view the world in such simple ways as the Mulla Nasrudin, who is the character in all these stories. His views, often twisted, very often completely at odds with his surroundings, are also very pragmatic, and make perfect sense in his mind.

These stories are tremendous fun, and rather thought-provoking.
Enjoy!

In the introduction to the book, the curse placed upon Nasrudin as a child by his teacher is related. Caught talking in class, holding all of his classmates enthralled with his stories, Nasrudin and his listeners received the eternal curse that no one from then on could hear one of his stories without hearing seven.

I could not put down this book. As usual I tried to browse,and tried to go back and forth among my usual half dozen books, but I could not put this book down. The ancient curse still holds. I had to read it all and all over again, taking notes and paraphrasing. Elsewhere a reviewer complains about the translation. So, hey, what's the big deal? REWRITE IT ALREADY!

Some of these stories were stolen directly by Henny Youngman and Milton Berle for their famous one liners (I am NOT making this up!). You can even uncover the source of Mark Twain's famous quip about the reports of his death being greatly exagerrated. Or do we all share the same source, with jokes about wives, donkeys, thieves and other work? Many of these brief stories remind me of the apophthegmes of the early Catholic Desert monks in Egypt and the absurdities related about them with great seriousness. Unfortunately in English we most often find them through BEnedicta Ward and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cistercian studies 59). I prefer Solesmes's Dom Lucien Regnault's five volume collection, no longer in print. Other reviewers find an element of the Zen Koans here. Whatever they are, you cannot put this book down.

At first I found the elaborate cartoony pen and ink line illustrations by Richard Williams and Errol Le Cain offensive and even dare I say sacreligious (actually I do not dare to spell it!). But then I checked the copyright page and discovered they come from the original 1968 edition, and they became comprehensible within their historical context. We forty years later will never see the likes of this again. These were done by sheer human talent, without the aid of computers, with only a page and a stain. Amazing, and frequently incorporating the intricate scrolls of a Persian rug or mosque filligrees.

For this body of universal tales comes from the Sufi mystic branch of Islam. Nevertheless it could be often Il poverello Saint Francis of Assissi here riding a donkey in rags and disturbing everyone's accustomed and unjust modes of thinking. In this way it does serve as a Zen koan, to break us out of superficial and unhealthy thought patterns, to liberate us to the ground of all truth. And it is very funny stuff, which you cannot put down, and some of which you have heard on stage in old vaudeville and talk shows.

Look beyond your preconceptions. For your own enjoyment, and enlightenment, find this book today. With Nasrudin we would have no more ideological nor cultural nor genocidal nor religious wars for resources. We would all together be too darn busy listening and laughing to his great stories. It's a curse his teacher placed upon us all, long long ago!

For example:
Nasrudin was at a loose end. His wife told him to go for a walk. He started up the road, and continued walking for two days. Finally he met a man walking in the opposite direction. "When you arrive at my house," he said to him, "go in and ask my wife if I have gone far enough, or if she says I must walk further."

Rather reads like the Tao of Pooh, as well, no?
Also here is the origin of the Seven with one blow story.

What an incredible book! If you really want to understand what it means to be caught between the esoteric and exoteric traditions, I suggest you read this....

Why would anyone read these stories about this inconsistent, incomprehensible mulla? This guy who is stupid and vain, insightful and wise, at the same time. Because 'he is us' as we are in our own present and potential states. By persistent study -- without dissection -- it is possible to see the patterns in these stories reflected in our own lives.

Shah published these stories from original sources over 30 years ago. With all the 'teaching story' material published since then they stand out as the real stuff for those that want it.

My son has just turned 13. He is turning into a surly, pimple-faced coach potato. But he has read this book (Pleasantries of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin)as well as listen to tapes of Nasrudin tales by ISHK many times since his seventh birthday. For now, these stories amuse him. But my hope is, that these tales will sit in his mind over the years laying dormant (or whatever the mind does with undigested material) until some event, or incident in his future life bears the full nutrient that these stories provide.

This book contains a collection of traditional stories about the "Mullah Nasrudin". They are somehow similar to the German "Till Eulenspiegel" but maybe a little bit harder to understand (that's why I didn't rate the book with 10). If you have a favour for esotheric literature, you will find them extraordinarily amusing

i absolutely love this book. it is chock full of stories that all of us can read or listen to a laugh, learn, perhaps even cry. for me, i laugh at the stories. it's funny, you know that gestalt figure - ground theory? well, sometimes the joke is figure and the lessons are ground. other times, the joke is ground and the lessons are figure. the wise suggest that each story provides multiple layers of lessons, dependent upon our level of personal and spiritual growth. i have shared stories from this book with patients, at staff meetings, with my family, church goers, even clerks at busy department stores. almost everybody looks at me strangely. oh well. the book is extremely highly recommended!!! i give it an A+ for humor, an A+ for wisdom, and a B+ for the silly drawings. this is a book that i often will pick up and read 2 pages while i wait for the doctor ... i've been reading this book, back and forth, for 20 years now, and i've not yet grown tired of it.