Rating: WORTHY!
This one was another delight despite the music. Again it was one disk, two stories, each a bit under thirty minutes. The reading was excellent, the music not so much. I like UB40, but not when it's mixed in with a story so that you can't focus on either one. Denzel Washington read Anansi, which is a spider who is the owner of all stories. The idea of Kwaku Anansi seems to have arisen in Ghana, but has been well preserved in Jamaica, to which all-too-many Africans were shipped during the hellish slavery years.
I like Anansi, because he's not always guaranteed to win, so you never can be quite sure what will happen. In this double story, he first outwits a snake by means of a sneaky ruse, and simultaneously proves you don't need a carrot and a stick - just a stick! The other part of the story sees Anansi not faring so well as he dishonestly pretends he's fasting after his mother-in-law died.
Neither Denzel Washington nor UB40 hail from Jamaica, and I can't help but wonder why a Jamaican actor and a Jamaican band (if they must have music!) were not employed here. Washington does a fine job of sounding Jamaican, and UB40, a phenomenally successful band named after a British unemployment benefit form, do a fine trade in reggae and have a string of classics behind them, but if they could afford Denzel Washington, surely they could afford Sean Paul or - and here's another issue: why is this all guys doing the reading? - Roxanne Beckford, or Audrey Reid or someone like that? Jamaicans are not a scarce commodity! That said, Washignton has been a favorite of mine since movies like Fallen, Courage Under Fire, and Much Ado About Nothing, and he does a fine job.
Max von Sydow has been a favorite of mine ever since The Exorcist and Three Days of the Condor, and he takes East of the Sun, West of the Moon (not to be confused with the A-ha album!) to grand heights. This is very much a story in the mold of Beauty and the Beast, but it's different enough for children, and it has a charm all of its own. I recommend this brace of fairy-tales.
