Fairy Tales

[osprey_archer]

One of my friends writes poetry and occasionally, bubbling with enthusiasm, emails it to us, so for Christmas I illustrated a few of her poems. Today I got them bound at Kinko's, which means the project is complete in good time - happiness!

I think the leaf picture turned out the best, artistically speaking (it’s hard to go wrong with leaves), but I had the most fun drawing the Fenghuang, a mythical Chinese bird. The drawing probably resembles a Fenghuang like an ibex resembles a unicorn, but that's all right, it has spiky fiery feathers and an enormous tail and a neck like a snake, which is surely enough for any mythical bird.

Does topics ever converge on anyone else? This week has been riddled with fairy tales: Fenghuangs, The Last Unicorn, discussions of a Disney movie marathon, my discovery of this unbelievably awesome webcomic, which is like a fractured fairy tale except brilliant, and also as long as the earth is round and totally addictive so don’t start reading if you need to get up in the morning or anything.

I thought I’d gotten over fractured fairy tales, after Ella Enchanted and Gail Carson Levine’s other (worse) retellings, and Shrek and Once Upon a Marigold, and this terrifying book called Zel by Donna Jo Napoli, and—but apparently the yen was just dormant.

Oddly enough, I never read many real fairy tales. They were distinctly out of fashion during the nineties, and also housed somewhere in the bowels of the nonfiction section—why? Given that they have fairies and ogres and dragons, how are fairy tales nonfiction?

But even if they had been available I would have avoided them. I read a more or less original version of Bluebeard when I was about seven, which apparently imprinted itself on my eyelids because I can still remember Bluebeard’s wife standing on top of the tower, waiting desperately for her brothers to rescue her, and Bluebeard’s below sharpening his ax and she’s got the bloody key to the horrible room with the severed bleeding heads...

I always think of that story when people complain about adulterated fairy tales, the ones that excise the bits where the bad guys have their feet danced off or their eyes pecked out. I’m not sure why saving little kids from the mental scarring is a problem.

Comments

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

My sisters and I were obsessed with fairy tales when we were little, mostly attributed to the video series my grandfather gave us of Pat Morita introducing similarly themed tales from around the world.

I rather think that the people who most enjoy the fractured fairy tales are the ones who became disillusioned in the originals when they grew up and found out they weren't real. ...I don't actually think that, but it's a plausible theory.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

For what value of real do you mean? I mean, I'd think everyone knows going in that pumpkins don't become carriages or mice horses. Or is it more that they expected a Prince Charming to come for them, and they're stuck with (oh, the horror) real men, who have personalities and are thus totally unsuitable as Prince Charmings.

I always liked the mice in Disney's Cinderella best, anyway. The scene where they steal pearls from Cinderella's stepmother, right under the eyes of the watchful cat? Priceless.

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

I need to read that comic. It's on my list of things to read, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I have to say, I rather adore Gail Carson Levine (I've never seen the Ella the movie because I hear terrible things about it) and am rather fond of Donna Jo Napoli, too, especially Sirena, which I recommend.

I love the Andrew Lang fairy books for straight up fairy tales, even if they do get all Victorian and anti-feminine-y.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ella the movie is supposed to be, even by the low standards of book-to-movie conversion, an abomination.

I really liked Ella but I thought Levine's later adaptations were disappointing, especially Fairest. I've enjoyed some of her non-fairy tale books, though, like The Wish - it probably helps that The Wish is similar to Ella. In both books the main plot is the heroine overcoming her own shortcomings (with romance or friendship as the reward), whereas in Fairest the heroine overcomes her shortcomings by finding a boy who (unlike everyone else ever) thinks she's beautiful, and finding a city of people who are just like her which means she's actually normal after all, yay!

I think the heroines who solve their own problems (and actually have problems) are more compelling. (And, okay, the fact that the heroine thinks she's hideous does count as a problem, but it's not one I find interesting, so it's not so much that the book is bad [although I would submit that it has other problems, and is certainly not as awesome as Ella] as that I'm not in the target audience.)

Actually it's not so much that I find problem-appearance books uninteresting as infuriating - they always end in a makeover and a boyfriend and everything is all!better! and it drives me crazy.

Aaaaaand I just wrote you an essay. Oops.

Sirena is the book about the sirens, and the siren who refuses to lure men to their deaths and instead goes off to her own island and there's a shipwreck and she gets a boyfriend who later abandons her for the greater good of Greece, right?

I may have read Napoli's books too early. I remember being very put off by the sensuality. Except I think I read Sirena around the same time as the Kushiel books, so that doesn't quite make sense.

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

Lol, Sirena vs. Kushiel. I like that book better than any other Napoli books, although it may have been the story material itself. Lots of people retell fairy tales, but very few do outright Greek myth retellings!

Also, I take your point about Fairest. I remember liking it when I read it, although not in a re-read kind of way. I like Levine's sensitivity with characters and ability to draw emotion, but do take your point. I think that's why I'm such a rabid fan of Robin McKinley--because she has girls doing things. Not in spite of the fact that they are girls; they just happen to be heroes who are girls, and I think that's partially what makes her books so appealing. Not to mention damn fine storytelling. XD

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes - and the authors who do retell Greek myths (Waiting for Odysseus, Nobody's Princess) seem to be trying to fix ancient Greek gender politics, which generally means they write about someplace that shares nothing with ancient Greece but chitons and the Parthenon.

If I never have to read another book where the main plot is our heroine doing battle with "You're just a girl, you can't X," it will be too soon.

I've only read McKinley's Sunshine, but I enjoyed it a lot. What else do you recommend by her?

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, where do I start? XD

Read The Blue Sword, which may be the quintessential McKinley. Also, Beauty. And, of course, you've read Sunshine. (These are my top three.) Dragonhaven and Outlaws of Sherwood, her only books with male protagonists are also quite good, but you really can't go wrong with any of her books. Really!