Fairy Tales Retold

[Teresa Edgerton]

Does anyone else have a taste for "novelizations" of familiar folk and fairy tales? I feel like this is a kind of fantasy I really love, but when I start listing those I've read, it turns out that many of them were actually quite disappointing.

I very much liked both of Robin McKinley's Beauty and the Beast retellings: Beauty and Rose Daughter. But while I loved the first half of Deerskin, the second half of the book just didn't seem to match; it was like two completely different books stitched together.

Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer is beautifully written, as is the Tanith Lee anthology of slightly twisted fairy tales Red as Blood, and I can think of three excellent books based on Tam Lin, Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope, and The Queen of Spells by Dahlov Ipcar. But I didn't care at all for Lee's Snow White story, White as Snow, and as discussed in another thread Gregory Maguire's books never quite satisfy me.

Does anyone have any favorites (not mentioned above) that they could recommend?

 

[dwndrgn]

I've not been a big fan of the 'retold' fairy tale unless it is so disguised as I don't notice it. Most of those I've picked up have been lackluster and didn't grab me. It could be the 'cover' syndrome. Some new band comes out with a wonderful rendition of an old favorite but because the old favorite is so ingrained, it just doesn't sound right. But, I'm not sure that is it, since fairy tales are told in so many different ways and by so many different people, I think it is just a matter of too simplistic a storyline. Fairy tales are meant to be simplistic - they are morality tales - short and sweet and to the punchline quickly. They are like knock knock jokes - you can't really make them meatier to make them better. Simple is good.

Now, take the same moral and twist it all around with new characters and settings and there you may have a winner, as long as it is told well. I would think that a great deal of today's fantasy could fall into this.

 

[chrispenycate]

Mercedes Lackey (who generally I like) is retelling a mass of fairy stories in her "Elemental Masters" series. I consider them among the least successful of her works; possibly because we know in advance how the story is going to end (unless I'm telling the fairy story to kids, but that's another kettle of witch)
Now, opera, or ballet- the basic story (though it might well have started its existence as a fairy story) is generally so diffuse that the author is starting on an only slightly second hand canvas;I remember a "Magic Flute" (MZB? I'm not certain) and a "Swan Lake", both of which the embroidery got heavier than the original cloth (that's not even a mixed metaphore)

Still, fairy tales from a culture I don't know? Perhaps. Or extremely different versions (I remember a very erotic, almost pornographic "Snow White and the seven humanoids of less than average height" which was - interesting, if not something one would want to recommend for the YA market.

 

[nixie]

Juliette Marillier's[unsure of spelling without checking] Daughter of the Forest is based on a fairy tale.Seven brothers changed into swans.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I should have thought of Marillier, nixie; I'm glad you mentioned her. She has more than one series out -- does anyone know if any of the others are based on fairy tales or fairy tale motifs?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should perhaps mention that I'm supposed to take part in a BayCon panel on this very subject (hence my questions), and the more information I carry in with me the better chance I'll have of holding up my end of the conversation.

chris, I know I've run across more than one version of Snow White that verged (or tipped right over into) the pornographic. There seems to be something about those seven dwarves that inspires any number of writers with ... unsavory possibilities. But I'm pretty sure I don't want to be the one to bring that up during the panel. As soon as someone does, the whole discussion is sure to go off on a tangent, and I'd rather not be responsible for hijacking the topic in that particular direction.

dwndrgn, I think I agree with you to the extent that my favorite adaptations have tended to be short stories or (fairly short) YA novels, rather than lengthy novelizations.

 

[Adasunshine]

My partner thoroughly recommends someone called Angela Carter. The book is called The Bloody Chamber and it is a collection of re-written fairy tales although some would say that she's taken the tales back to their roots!

Here is a link to the wikipedia site...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloody_Chamber

Hope this helps!

xx

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, the Angela Carter stories are excellent. Two of them are based on Beauty and the Beast, and the one that gives the anthology its name is a retelling of Bluebeard.

I don't know about taking the stories back to their roots, though, since as I recall she modernizes most of the tales.

 

[Adasunshine]

I think my partner meant that in the sense that she's retelling the tales in a darker fashion and disspelling the "happily ever afters".

Personally, I've yet to read any of her works besides "The man who loved a double-bass", it's on my list and in my pile so I should get round to it sometime in the next couple of years!!!! I am looking forward to it though.

xx

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, it's fashionable these days to think that making the stories darker makes them more "authentic," but that's not necessarily true. For instance, if you look at successive editions of the collections by the Grimms, you find that some of the stories picked up gruesome details that were not there in the first versions that came directly from their sources.

Some stories do get softened down, particularly when they are adapted for children, but there is plenty of reason to believe that there has been just as much tampering in the other direction, over the years, as folk and fairy tales were adapted for more "literary" readers. So many stories were first collected in the 19th century, and the Victorians had quite a taste for gory fairy tales -- maybe because it allowed them an outlet they didn't permit themselves otherwise. In realistic contemporary settings, they didn't wish to offend anyone or appear coarse, but in fantasy and horror they could really let their hair down.

Anyway, an adaptation is an adaptation, and however worthy it may be as a work of fiction in its own right -- and the Angela Carter stories are definitely worth reading in that sense -- in terms of authenticity it's almost inevitably going to tell us more about the period in which it was written down than about the oral traditions from which it originally came.

 

[the_faery_queen]

i love angela carter magic toyshop was one of my fav gfilms as a kid and the book is good too!

i am having wicked brought for me for my birthday. ok its not a retelling exactly, but its a story from another pov (so it kinda counts)

im not sure how i feel abotu it exactly. i hate it when people change greek myths to suit themselves (troy) because i think it ruins the element to give it some fake sort of ending. i do prefer things that have a new spin on them tho, like the wicked idea. but as i am not that attatched to our modern fairy tales (except the little mermaid because i did read that in the original) i don't care if they are mssed about with. i'd prefer them if they were darker. i hate all the happy endings!

 

[littlemissattitude]

Does anyone have any favorites (not mentioned above) that they could recommend?

Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card. It's a really cool modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty that jumps between the present and the past and mixes in the Baba Yaga legends as well. Very well written, in my opinion, and lots of fun.

 

[Rosemary]

So far the ones that I have read, Juliette Marillier's 'Daughter of the Forest',
Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip and Ombrie In Shadow (which seemed like an adaption at the time) by the same author, have been a great dissapointment for me.

I think I compare these adaptions with the original stories too much and possibly don't appreciate the ways these author's have rewritten them.

 

[Denie Alconn]

My partner thoroughly recommends someone called Angela Carter. The book is called The Bloody Chamber and it is a collection of re-written fairy tales although some would say that she's taken the tales back to their roots!

Here is a link to the wikipedia site...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bloody_Chamber

Hope this helps!

xx

I need to check it out, really love reading fairy tales, especially Bulgarian ones.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm not usually a big fan of Card, but that book does sound intriguing littlemiss. Baba Yaga has been a favorite of mine ever since I read a story about her in a children's magazine when I was ... hmmm, maybe seven or eight. Hard to resist any story with her in it.

Rosemary, I didn't care for Winter Rose the first time I read it either -- I was too busy comparing it with the original. But when I read the book again a few years later I thought it was beautiful. Ombria in Shadow I loved on the first reading -- but if it's based on any other story ... that went right over my head, I never thought of it as anything but an original work out of McKillip's own imagination. What story did you think she was adapting?

Speaking of Baba Yaga, she's definitely the inspiration for the witch in McKillip's "Forests of Serre." I can't think of any other fairy tales she's done. (Unless something else went right over my head. Depressing if true.)

Denie, I don't believe I've ever read any Bulgarian fairy tales, unless there are some in the Andrew Lang books. Are there any English-language translations I should be looking out for.

 

[Carolyn Hill]

I very much liked both of Robin McKinley's Beauty and the Beast retellings: Beauty and Rose Daughter.

I, too, enjoyed McKinley's retellings of the "Beauty and the Beast," liking the second a bit better than the first.

But I was disappointed by her Spindle's End. I don't remember precisely what disappointed me about the book (I think I'm suppressing the reading experience). My vague recollection is that the plot seemed a bit plodding and disjointed.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I'm not usually a big fan of Card, but that book does sound intriguing littlemiss. Baba Yaga has been a favorite of mine ever since I read a story about her in a children's magazine when I was ... hmmm, maybe seven or eight. Hard to resist any story with her in it.

I had a book of Russian fairy tales when I was very young (seems like it was The Snow Queen and Other Tales or something like that) that had a story with Baba Yaga in it. I was always fascinated by her house with chicken legs, but I suspect that had something to do with the ongoing antagonism between my grandma's chickens and myself. They would pick and peck at me every time I had to go out with her and collect their eggs.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, the house with the chicken legs always appealed to me. In fact, I wouldn't mind having one just like it even now. I love the little vine-covered cottage with the hobbity interior that I use for an office, but Baba Yaga's house would suit me even better.

 

[GOLLUM]

I should have thought of Marillier, nixie; I'm glad you mentioned her. She has more than one series out -- does anyone know if any of the others are based on fairy tales or fairy tale motifs?

Interestingly enough Julliet whilst not consciously attempting to write a story in Book 1 Daughter Of The Forest to resemble that of a Brother Grimm's collected tale certainly sees parrallels as she herself admits. The latter two books of the trilogy appear to have grown more out of a development of her own characters and their circumstances rather than a conscious decision to further rework any existing fairly tale. As Julliet herself says:

Interestingly, although this novel (Daughter Of The Forest) has the same basic story framework as the Grimms' tale, "The Six Swans", the other two books in the trilogy are separate stories which grew out of my absorption in the family at Sevenwaters and their personal and cultural dilemmas.


I've read both her novels Wolfskin and Foxmask and there's very distinctive elements of the Icelandic sagas here with a study into the ancient Picts and the effect a Viking invasion would precipitate upon their culture.

Her latest Bridei trilogy apparently explores pre-Celtic Scotland in a greater level of depth than Wolfskin or Foxmask was able to manage although I've not read Book 1 The Dark Mirror myself yet.

Not sure if this is what you were after Teresa but what little light I'm able to shed upon the matter.

 

[Jay]

I will second (third, whatever) Angelar Carter. Her short stories are wonderful. The most obvious one that jumps out at me is Tepper's Beauty.

If interested, I know of (as in I haven't read as I don't read Mckiernan) that Mckiernan has released One Upon a Winter's Night, and Once Upon a Summer Day that retell classic fairytales (East of the Sun, West of the Moon and Sleeping Beauty, respectively) which was followed by Once Upon an Autumn Eve and Once Upon a Spring Morn (forthcoming).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't usually read McKiernan either, Jay, but since East of the Sun is such a favorite of mine I thought I would give Once Upon a Winter's Night a chance to change my mind. Suffice to say that it didn't. I knew about Once Upon a Summer Day, but not about the others, so thanks for mentioning them.

Well darn it ... if McKiernan is doing a whole series of fairy tales I should probably take a look at them -- not actually read the books, because I'm not that dedicated a panelist, but at least skim through them and see what he does to adapt the story lines so that I have something to contribute if his books come into the discussion. And then, while I'm at the library, I should probably pick up some of the Lackey books that chris mentioned, for the same reason.

Too many authors that I don't particularly care for seem to be writing these things! (But I suppose if all my favorite authors were doing it, I'd already have read the books and I wouldn't need to be asking for suggestions.)