The Man with Bad Manners

by Idries Shah, Rose Mary Santiago (Illustrator), Rita Wirkala (Translator)

This story is about a badly behaved man and how a young boy initiates a plan to change his behavior and, with the help of all the villagers, succeeds. It will bring laughter to young children and at the same time teach them valuable lessons about conflict resolution, initiative and cooperation. Rose Mary Santiago's illustrations provide delightful and amusing counterpoint to the story. This is the third book she has illustrated in this series.

32 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Idries Shah (Persian: ادریس شاه), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي), was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.

Born in India, the descendant of a family of Afghan nobles, Shah grew up mainly in England. His early writings centred on magic and witchcraft. In 1960 he established a publishing house, Octagon Press, producing translations of Sufi classics as well as titles of his own. His most seminal work was The Sufis, which appeared in 1964 and was well received internationally. In 1965, Shah founded the Institute for Cultural Research, a London-based educational charity devoted to the study of human behaviour and culture. A similar organisation, the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK), exists in the United States, under the directorship of Stanford University psychology professor Robert Ornstein, whom Shah appointed as his deputy in the U.S.

In his writings, Shah presented Sufism as a universal form of wisdom that predated Islam. Emphasising that Sufism was not static but always adapted itself to the current time, place and people, he framed his teaching in Western psychological terms. Shah made extensive use of traditional teaching stories and parables, texts that contained multiple layers of meaning designed to trigger insight and self-reflection in the reader. He is perhaps best known for his collections of humorous Mulla Nasrudin stories.

Shah was at times criticised by orientalists who questioned his credentials and background. His role in the controversy surrounding a new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by his friend Robert Graves and his older brother Omar Ali-Shah, came in for particular scrutiny. However, he also had many notable defenders, chief among them the novelist Doris Lessing. Shah came to be recognised as a spokesman for Sufism in the West and lectured as a visiting professor at a number of Western universities. His works have played a significant part in presenting Sufism as a secular, individualistic form of spiritual wisdom.

Idries Shah's books on Sufism achieved considerable critical acclaim. He was the subject of a BBC documentary ("One Pair of Eyes") in 1969, and two of his works (The Way of the Sufi and Reflections) were chosen as "Outstanding Book of the Year" by the BBC's "The Critics" programme. Among other honours, Shah won six first prizes at the UNESCO World Book Year in 1973, and the Islamic scholar James Kritzeck, commenting on Shah's Tales of the Dervishes, said that it was "beautifully translated".
The reception of Shah's movement was also marked by much controversy. Some orientalists were hostile, in part because Shah presented classical Sufi writings as tools for self-development to be used by contemporary people, rather than as objects of historical study. L. P. Elwell-Sutton from Edinburgh University, Shah's fiercest critic, described his books as "trivial", replete with errors of fact, slovenly and inaccurate translations and even misspellings of Oriental names and words – "a muddle of platitudes, irrelevancies and plain mumbo-jumbo", adding for good measure that Shah had "a remarkable opinion of his own importance". Expressing amusement and amazement at the "sycophantic manner" of Shah's interlocutors in a BBC radio interview, Elwell-Sutton concluded that some Western intellectuals were "so desperate to find answers to the questions that baffle them, that, confronted with wisdom from 'the mysterious East,' they abandon their critical faculties and submit to brainwashing of the crudest kind". To Elwell-Sutton, Shah's Sufism belonged to the realm of "Pseudo-Sufism", "centred not on God but on man."

Doris Lessing, one of Shah's greatest defenders,stated in a 1981 interview: "I found Sufism as taught by Idries Shah, which claim

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

When the worst behaved man in the village - a man so rude that he deliberately returns greetings with taunting nonsense words like "blah, blah, blah," and bangs pots and pans late at night outside his neighbors' houses, in order to wake them up - goes to visit another village, a local boy comes up with a plan that will either rid the villagers of this pest, or reform his ways. Digging up his potatoes, the man's neighbors plant carrots instead, also repainting his house, both inside and out. When he returns, everyone pretends that they don't know him, and that his field and house are not his at all...

I'm not entirely sure that I understand the point of this tale, which is taken from the folk tradition of Afghanistan. Of course, the importance of courtesy, and its role in maintaining harmonious communal relations, is obvious, but how exactly does the "lesson" dreamt up by the young boy work? I suppose one could assume that, shocked into thinking about how terrible it would be, not to have a place to call home, the rude man reforms his ways, but I had trouble suspending my disbelief, and wasn't convinced that this method would actually prove effective. I also wasn't terribly impressed with Rose Mary Santiago's illustrations, which were just a little too cartoon-like for my taste.

Given my lack of enthusiasm, I hovered between a two and three-star rating, eventually settling on a two, since The Man with Bad Manners was, for me, just "OK." Still, folklore enthusiasts might want to give it a try, given the paucity of Afghani folklore available in the west. Perhaps they will have a more positive experience with this one.

[Elissa Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 9, 6, and 4 year old boys love this book.

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Man With Bad Manners.
Another of those stories that seed in the mind ending in all kinds of unexpected places. The illustrations are as clear as anything: jump off the page.
Help any child to be polite.
I should know: it used to `bore' me to say `Good Morning' and although I didn't say blah blah to you too. I nearly did, a sort of grunt. Pity I never saw this telling story.
There was once a village, in the West this time, where everybody had a house and a field. In the fields they grew carrots cabbages potatoes, that kind of thing.
They were a courteous people, except for one man. He had a house and a potato field and bad manners. When people said good morning or good evening he said Blah Blah or Boo Boo.
Well the people of the village didn't take much notice of him because they knew what was a polite man and what was not.
But then the behaviour /comportment of the man with bad manners grew much worse. He began to bang tins cans in the night and became a real disturbance. The people stuck their heads out of their windows and asked him why he was banging tin cans in the middle of the night and why he was so bad mannered but he just banged the tins more loudly.
Then: The naughty man goes off to visit friends who are also bad mannered so they like him.
Watching all this is a very clever boy. He has an idea and the solution .
He suggests, and the villagers agree that they should replant the bad mannered man's field with carrots and paint his house, inside and out a different colour. Working together they do this. When the man with bad manners comes back, the village pretend they don't know him.
The bad mannered man is fooled and thinks that perhaps this is not his village. If it isn't, where does he come from? He becomes sad in an instant.
The villagers tell him they have the secret and they'll tell it to him if he promises to behave properly. He promises and then he promises again and again.
So the villagers tell him what they have done and put everything to rights, replanting his field with potatoes and painting his house red again.
The man who was bad mannered keeps his promise and ends up polite and happy.
The devils in the detail.

[qurat · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING! I loved this book (oh,and Taisir did too :)
We read the book for 3-4 weeks straight. Every member of my family was conscripted to read it and by the end we'd all memorized the words. The illustrations by Rose Marie Santiago are just so... good. They take you right into the story. Lovely.

This was a great experience- I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the work of this unique author and an amazing illustrator.

[Brennan Wieland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting... The illustrations in the book added to the story and had a neat feel. The man in the story is known for his terrible manners and everyone dislikes him. He takes a trip, and his neighbors paint his house different colors and rearrange all his furniture. When the man returns home the people act like they've never seen him before. When the man realizes he has no home he renounces his ways. Then they live happily ever after. The book left me confused as to why he changed his ways.

[Mary Miserandino · Rating 4 out of 5]

The man in the story was loud and rude and his neighbors wished he would go away and not come back! A clever boy comes up with a plan to either send the man away, or get him to change his rude behavior. The words are simple, but send a very powerful message about the importance of good manners for people to be able to get along in society. The illustrations are colorful and bold and enhance the story.

[Danny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a strange book about a man who is so rude that his neighbors disguise the entire village so that he won't recognize it when he returns. A hand-me-down from the Seeley family.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a strange book about a man who is so rude that his neighbors disguise the entire village so that he won't recognize it when he returns. A hand-me-down from the Seeley family.

[Ci · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sort of teaching for social conformity -- if someone is a misfit, then lets shock him enough for change. Useful vocabularies.