Fairytales are for children, right? Wrong, if you go by Sarah Pinborough's retellings of Snow White (Poison), Cinderella (Charm) and Sleeping Beauty (Beauty).
I'm assuming I don't have to recount the basic plot points of any of those three stories, and I can't really expand on how Pinborough changes them, and adds to them with other fairytales without spoiling the stories, so let's just hope straight to the review part...
Pinborough's books are definitely for grown ups, although the core elements - princesses, princes, massive castles, adventure - are all there. What isn't there is that clear line between good and evil, which is one of the many things that make the books far more adult than most fairytales. Instead of an easy categorisation of good and evil, Pinborough presents everything in shades of grey, along a scale, meaning you feel sympathy for so-called bad characters. Top of the list here is Lilith, Snow White's stepmother, who rather than being a jealous harpy is a multifaceted character whose nature has been formed by terrible experiences in earlier life. It's easy, in Pinborough's world, to understand why she does bad.
We all know the stories of Cinderella and Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin, but how many of us have read the original versions of them? Or at least, the versions recorded by the Brothers Grimm in one of their editions of Children's and Household Tales?
I confess I haven't, so it was with very little knowledge of how the many fairytales we know today were collected that I came to this retelling of 53 of the Brother Grimm's stories by Philip Pullman.
The author of the Northern Lights series picks his favourite tales to retell, taking the versions told by the Brothers Grimm as his base, and then adding improvements as he sees fit, often taking inspiration from other recorded versions of similar stories.
What emerges is a collection of beautifully told but sometimes bizarre tales. After each one, Pullman writes an author's note, explaining the origins of the tale, the way it is structured and other information. These notes are enlightening, and heighten the experience of reading the story, although skipping them probably wouldn't mean you lose anything from the book.
Reading this book made me realise just how ridiculous many of the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm are. Many feature families who desperately want children, but so often treat them badly - abandoning them, abusing them or giving them away in exchange for material possessions. There are few mothers or fathers who come out of the tales well, and even those that are forgiven for their misdeeds are done so too easily.
In addition, many of the tales seem like they are structurally missing something - a fact Pullman often points out, sometimes making suggestions for how the stories should have been fleshed out. However, it's worth bearing in mind that these are stories originally told orally, so would never have been very long, and would have changed and lost or added things from telling to telling. The structural anomalies are amusing more often than not.
Pullman includes all the most popular fairytales of today, but there are dozens in the book I didn't know. Some are sweet (The Goose Girl at the Spring), some are dark (Thousandfurs), some are clever (Farmerkin), and some are just downright ridiculous (Gambling Hans). They're all, however, compelling reads.
This collection is well put together, and I loved the author's note and the introduction by Pullman to the work of the Brothers Grimm. It also helps that the cover of this book is stunning, reflecting the gorgeous work hidden on the pages within. This is a collection of stories to go back to time and time again, and to share with young and old alike.
How I got this book: From the publisher, Penguin Classics, in exchange for an honest review. Grimm Tales for Young and Old told by Philip Pullman is out in paperback on September 5, 2013.
Book 17 in my challenge to read one book (I haven't read before) a fortnight in 2012 is Beauty by Robin McKinley.
I've been on a bit of a fairytale kick recently, and this is one of a number of retellings of fairytales I've read.
As you might have guessed from the name, Beauty is a retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast. The usual elements are here - Beauty, the Beast, Beauty's dad, servants that talk.
But this retelling is full of so much more. Its basic storyline is not significantly different to any other Beauty and the Beast telling, not even the Disney version (although there's no Gaston), but it does have masses of detail and depth that make you feel like you know the characters really, really well, and it creates a fantasy world that sits alongside the real world depicted with ease.
Beauty lives with her two sisters and her father, a shipping merchant. She enjoys her life and her books, until her father's business collapses, and forces the family to move hundreds of miles away to a small village to make their living there.
One day Beauty's father hears some of his sailors have returned, and he leaves to find out what has happened. On his way back he gets lost, ends up taking shelter in a great home owned by the Beast, and promises his daughter in return for safe passage home.
And so Beauty goes to the Beast. The world she encounters is completely different to her own, and we feel all the trepidation and amazement she feels at hearing strange voices in the house, meeting and getting to know the Beast and learning to live without her family.
McKinley weaves a magic world that leaves us wanting to find out immediately what curse has befallen the Beast and his home. However, she keeps the reader waiting and it's worth it. This is such a well-known fairytale, but McKinley manages to give it a new angle during the big reveal.
In addition, there is so much more going on in the book than just Beauty and the Beast. We empathise with B
eauty's sister, Grace, who lives with a broken heart because her fiance was on one of the ships owned by Beauty's father which never returned from its last voyage. Similarly, Beauty's other sister Hope also captures our hearts, as does her steady husband Ger.
Beauty manages to capture the fantasy of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale while grounding the book in reality with detailed prose and well-fleshed out characters.
