Raoul Taburin - a bicycle master who does not know how to cycle
by Sempe
This book is strongly recommended by me. The author uses a very light and relax style to bring in a simple story
yet it is very meaningful and applicable, i feel, to many people. The style of writing is pretty similar to Jimmy, a
Taiwan author. Both use mainly pictures and merely a few words to express the story background. Sempe uses
a more comical kind of drawing whereas Jimmy's style is more child-like.
Moving on to the story, it is about a man who is an expert in fixing bicycles. The town folks respected him so much that they named bicycles after his name
-- Taburin. But Taburin has a hidden secreet, he does not know how to cycle. He carefully hidden the truth from
everyone, including his wife and best friend. He wanted to tell them the truth cuz he finds it hard to keep his
own secret. But when he said the truth to his wife, she did not believe him and thought that he is
joking. He feels very terrible. His best friend, a photographer, decides to take a picture of him riding a bicycle
down the slope and his wife supported him. However, he tried ways and means to reject his best friend. After
seeing all his efforts went in vain, he decided to assist his friend. Because of the fact that he cannot cycle, he got
into a serious accident which took him months to recover. Due to some misunderstanding, he fell out with his
friend and his friend went travelling. He became very depressed after that and his wife thought that he missed his
friend. When his friend finally came back, he decided to let him know the truth. After saying the truth, he started
laughing. His friend suddenly realised what's the matter also started laughing. So the ending is they sat there,
both laughing very hard.
Got the story? I believe that everyone's interpretation of the story is different. What the author wanna bring across,
is to start the reader thinking and relating to his/her own experience. This book has gotten me to start reading
again. Heehee, the reason that I love reading so much is that it allows creativity thinking. A book is enough for me
to lock myself in the room whole day, not eating or sleeping. Haha that sounds a bit crazy huh. =p
For me, what I learnt from the story is that everyone has his/her own weaknesses. But we should not be fearful
of that cuz it will make us depressed~ There is no shame in having weaknesses even in the case of Taburin who
does not know how to cycle. We must learn how to face our weaknesses in order to conquer it. Hmm Taburin
should try to work even harder. Maybe he will learn how to cycle one day. \(^_^)/
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