Tall Tales

The classic, nostalgic image of going to a local bar and ‘hamming’ it up with your pals telling tall tales is attractive and perpetual to many men. In addition, the image of English men in a pub drinking beer, laughing and telling tall tales, known as a cock and bull story, is comforting and sought out by men. Good spirits and good times I have heard friends say in the past.

It may be while playing a slow game of pool with music playing quietly somewhere in the background that a story for entertainment is told. The story may be just believable enough that it could happen, but far fetched enough that it can be shrugged off as rhetoric. Rarely have these stories been cataloged and published, but I believe, an author by the name of Salman Rushdie has written and published some of his tall tales.

Rushdie compiled some short stories into a novel titled “East, West.” The story of interest here is titled the “The Prophets Hair.” A very satirical tale about a man named “Hashim.” The story begins with a skillfully written and intriguing introduction, almost a story in itself. “Early in the year 19-,…a young man upon whose cold pinked skin there lay, like a frost, the unmistakable sheen of wealth was to be seen entering the most wretched and disreputable part of the city…”(35) The hook has been set and one can almost imagine slightly tipsy men sitting around waiting in anticipation of the next part of the plot.

Unknown to the reader at this time but you are previewing the end in a Quentin Tarantino way. Rushdie is telling of a son who is searching for a thief (the thief of thief’s) to come steal a hair that his father has acquired. The hair, the hair of the Prophet Muhammad, found several days prior has changed Hashim and turned him almost mad. Instead of returning the hair, “…the moneylender had a different notion. All around him in his study was the evidence of his collector’s mania.”(43) Hashim being “…a man of the world…”(44) doesn’t “want it for its religious value…”(44). He wanted it for the sake of collecting it, and then the trouble begins.

Like any good tall tale, we have a beautiful girl (Hashim’s daughter), a wealthy family along with violence, suspense and mythical unexplained occurrences. Rushdie would have his bar audience captivated at this point. The hair begins to affect Hashim by turning him against his family in a violent fashion. Eventually, the son of Hashim goes to the bad part of town to find the thief. Rushdie has linked the beginning of the story now, and the son, after being beaten and robbed arrives home by means of a flower vendor. While continuing the introductory hook Rushdie tells us of how the daughter returns to the bad part of town “…the very next evening…”(36).

You can almost anticipate what happens next. The thief arrives at the home where by the end of the evening the son, the daughter and Hashim have passed on. The wife ends up in an insane asylum while the thief returns home. Eventually, the thief is shot by the daughter’s uncle (a cop) who was tipped off by the third, underlying plot, a letter written by the daughter. The hair, showing its mystical power again, heals the thief’s sons broken bones and cures his wife’s blindness. The uncle returns the hair to its rightful place, in a mosque; a fitting ending for a bar tale.

With multiple plots, murders, cops, and many other tasty morsels of interest the story is almost believable yet very entertaining. One could imagine this story being told as a cock and bull story in a pub in England or as a tall tale in a bar in America. So, any one ready to go play some pool and consume a pint all while telling tall tales?