NEVER-ENDING STORIES

 Let me tell you a shaggy-dog story, a drawn-out story or narrative that leads nowhere and tries the patience of the listener. In Through the Grapevine, 2001, we read: “In a shaggy-dog story, the teller draws out the story, adding a lot of detail. When the story finally ends, some trick is involved.” And another citation: “The Huntchback´s Tale is, after all, a shaggy dog story that goes nowhere.” (Ulrich Marzolph, et. al., The Arabian Night´s Encyclopedia, 2004.) WordReference paraphrases it as “una historia larga y aburrida”. Reverso tells us it is “un chiste malo”, or chestnut, which, although true, is not the equivalent we are seeking. Collins insists on “chiste largo y pesado.” We cannot seriously accept “historias de perro peludo” as a Google possibility. However, we must take “cuento de la buena pipa” as the parallel equivalent of the English phrase we are dealing with. El cuento de la buena pipa, is a never-ending story that, like its English counterpart, leads nowhere.  Marta Portal explains in her novel Pago de traición (1983): “… como el cuento de la buena pipa que consiste en quererlo contar y no en saberlo, en incitar a escucharlo y en que nunca lleguen a oírlo.”  And Javier Marías in his bestseller Corazón tan blanco (1992), comments: “¿Quieres que te cuente el cuento de la buena pipa, decía mi abuela con malicia.” A never-ending story, a long-drawn-out yarn is a shaggy-dog story in English and el cuento de la buena pipa in Spanish.