“To understand a people, acquaint yourself with their proverbs” runs an Arab adage, and here are the books that do just that. The popular Apricots Tomorrow, a selection of sayings from the Gulf region, is joined by sister titles The Son of a Duck is a Floater and the newest book in the series, Unload your own Donkey, which draws on sayings from the Maghreb and Levant. Paralleling age-old Arabic sayings with English equivalents, the proverbs highlight the uncanny similarity of inherited wisdom in both East and West.
The previous collection of Arabic proverbs produced by Primrose Arnander and Ashkhain Skipwith had an obscure title: The Son of a Duck is a Floater. The title of the present volume is equally obscure, intriguingly obscure. What on earth, the bookshop browser is meant to ask, can `Apricots Tomorrow' mean?
Perhaps there is this inherent mystery in proverbs: that though they are supposed to convey a moral or a message, the message is often a puzzle inside a riddle inside an enigma. I remember being perplexed as a boy by my mother's admonition `You can't have your cake and eat it'. What was the point, I wondered, of having a cake if you couldn't eat it? Then again, are we advised (a) to feed a cold and (b) starve a fever? Or are we being warned that if we feed a cold, the next thing we shall have to treat, as a consequence, will be a fever? And if he who hesitates is lost, why must we look before we leap? Many of the examples gathered here leave me similarly unsure about what I am being told. I have peddled them round the Middle East and have had different explanations from different friends. Some of these proverbs may puzzle you too, some may strike you as wise and witty. All of them should set you thinking and talking, not only about the advice and sagacity they contain, but also about the differences and the similarities between Arab society and our own. The editors have assembled a rich assortment of mystery and stimulus. If you also find obscurity and inconsistency, that is only the reverse side of the coin. As the old English proverb says, a fly in the ointment is worth two in the bush.
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