Reading Notes: Bidpai (B)

Title: The Lean Cat and the Fat Cat
Author: Maude Barrows Dutton
Link: Story link.

Plot:

• A king, overwhelmed by the size of his massive library, asks scholars to boil it down to just the important bits of info -- sort of like SparkNotes.
• Bidpai, his wiseman, present him a series of stories including this one:
• A Lean Cat lives with an Old Woman in an impoverished little hut. They survive on broth.
• The Lean Cat meets a Fat Cat, who claims to feast daily on the stolen scraps of the King's banquets.
• The Old Woman warns the Lean Cat to not stray from his honest, broth-eating life, but the temptation of luxury is too much for the Lean Cat.
• The Fat and Lean Cats decide to break into the King's next banquet.
• Unbeknownst to them, the King issues a decree that all cats are to be put to death on sight at the banquet.
• The Lean Cat is caught stealing from the table and is executed.
• Crime and get-rich-quick schemes don't pay, kids.

Illustration by E. Boyd Smith. Source: Google Books.

Setting:

• India, in the kingdom of Dabshelim.
• An unnamed kingdom within the story.
• The palace where the King hosts frequent banquets -- and the Cats sneak away morsels.
• The shoddy hut where the Old Woman lives.

Characters:

• King Dabshelim: Lazy, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of volumes within his library.
• He asks for the scholars to give him a quick tour of the best information once they've read it all.
• Brahmans: Scholar-priests who read every book in the library and then compile a highlight reel.
• Bidpai is the illustrious "speaker" for the wisemen.
• Old Woman: Poor but honest. She provides what she can for her Lean Cat, though it is not much.
• She urges the Lean Cat not to steal from the King's banquet, lest he be caught.
• Lean Cat: Malnourished and desperate to find luxury. He is seduced into theft by the thought of the lavish lifestyle that the Fat Cat leads.
• Fat Cat: Plump and pampered, he leads a life that the Lean Cat envies. He convinces the Lean Cat to abandon his honest ways in a get-rich-quick style scheme that causes the Lean Cat to lose everything.
• The King: Hosts frequent banquets and declares an inexplicable decree that all cats are to be put to death on sight. This is a real head-scratcher because cats would probably keep down the rampant mouse problem that the castle surely has.

Writing Style:

• These stories really have nothing in common. If it wasn't for the "library highlights" notion at the beginning, this would hardly resemble a coherent tale. That being said, even though this is a cop-out in terms of story coherence, I still will probably utilize it for my portfolio. Easy money is easy money.