A Work in Progress

A Few Bookstore Finds

I've had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket for a couple of months now and decided it was time to have a little bookstore splurge.  I found a number of wonderful treats, an unexpected surprise or two and a couple of downright bargains.  What more can a person ask for on a Friday afternoon since I even took a few hours off work in order to book shop. 

For once I actually came with a list (only found one book) and a couple of coupons (both of which I was able to use, one being a free coffee in B&N's café).  I made some very thoughtful selections, put a few books back added one or two when I thought I was done, and in the end am quite pleased with my finds.  From top to bottom:

A Raisin in the Sun by Loraine Hansberry -- I have long wanted to read this and I want to read a few plays in general this year (and hopefully can find a filmed stage production to watch after reading).  This was "a radically new representation of black life, resolutely authentic, fiercely unsentimental, and unflinching in its vision of what happens to people whose dreams are constantly deferred."

The 100 Best Poems of All Time edited by Leslie Pockell -- Now this is one of the surprises.  When do I ever buy poetry?!  Since it is National Poetry Month right now (and I think I need to do this on April 27, too!) I thought I should celebrate in some way.  Faced with shelves and shelves of poetry collections and not knowing where to start (I was reaching for Robert Frost but as I already have a collection of his work on my shelves I thought it better to try and expand my horizons a little), I opted for an anthology.  Of course now that I think about it--classic poetry . . .  I wonder if I should have chosen a contemporary anthology.  You know how it goes--classic can mean Classic and also mean challenging and I don't want to be put off by my first foray into poetry.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World edited by Maria Tatar -- This is my other surprise.  Right next to poetry is the section with mythology and fairy tales.  My eye was caught by this title.  It's essentially a collection of fairy tales from around the world--mostly short tales/short stories.  Different cultural riffs on the same theme.  I'm quite thrilled with this find.

The Supreme Macaroni Company by Adriana Trigiani -- This is one of my bargain books--they have a great selection of remaindered books.  How can you pass up a novel that is a third the price and in pristine condition?  I have read a couple of her novels and enjoyed them and I love Italian-American (or just Italian!) sagas.  This story moves from the "cobblestone streets of Greenwich Village to lush New Orleans to Italy and back again."

Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh -- My other bargain book.  To be honest I am pretty sure I read this one, but it would have been a library book and I would like to revisit the story.  It's the setting that draws me in--1940s . . . "Bakerton is a community of company houses and fireman's parades.  Its neighborhoods include Little Italy, Swede-town, and Polish Hill."  The story follows the Novak family.  Haigh wrote a collection of short stories about Bakerton, and I believe I saw remaindered copies of it as well and now wish I would have bought that, too.  (A reason to go back, I guess).

Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown -- I remember looking at this when it first came out in hardcover (yay, for once I waited to buy it since it now in paperback, and I bet I would not have read it yet had I bought it then).  Ah, another novel with a Paris setting, so this might get a big bump and I might read it this month, too.  This is a novel with two storylines--one contemporary and the other a diary about one woman's experiences in Jazz Age Paris. 

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya -- The lone book from my list that I found on their shelves.  It is a coming of age memoir about the author's girlhood in Stalinist Russia.  She had a very bohemian upbringing and I am curiously fascinated by life behind in the Iron Curtain in general.

Loads of goodies.  I want to read them all rightnowofcourse.  But I will try and resist.  Well, the poetry will absolutely be slipped into my reading pile.  And who knows what else I will be inspired to start reading.  Now I need an afternoon (or three) off in order to just read! 

Did you have a bookish weekend, too?

Snow White: A Graphic Novel, Matt Phelan

I didn't go looking for Snow White, but she managed to find me, and I am glad she did.  Matt Phelan's Snow White: A Graphic Novel crossed my desk at the library a day or so ago and after taking a quick browse at it I knew I had to bring it home with me to enjoy at leisure before sending it on its way back to the library stacks.

What a treat this is.  If you are into graphic novels, fairy tales (especially retellings thereof), juvenile literature or just gorgeous artwork, then you have to go find this one.  It is a delightful read, but more so a visual feast for the eyes.  Let me give you a little peek and tempt you with something just a little different.

This is the tried and true story of Snow White, but with a different spin on the setting and a slightly different twist to the story.  It has all the elements of the fairy tale, but Phelan drops Snow White, rather Samantha White (known to those who love her as Snow) into Depression era Manhattan with perfect noir-ish illustrations.  Phelan uses sepia-washes with just a hint of color for the most dramatic moments to tell a slightly grittier, darker story (though really Snow White is pretty dark all things considered).

The evil (and very jealous stepmother) comes in the form of a beautiful, sinewy Ziegfied Follies star.  She has managed to catch and marry Snow's dad, a successful business man always watching the ticker tape to keep track of his business dealings.  How fitting that it is the ticker tape (a heartless voice of all that is bad about capitalism) that pushes the "Queen of the Follies" into doing her wicked deeds.

The seven are little men who come to Snow's aid, yet are cynical ragamuffins who live on the streets and come from the school of hard knocks.  They aren't willing to tell her their names, so bitter are their experiences.

And yes, there is a red red red apple.  And out of goodness Snow takes it from the old woman.

She falls into a deep sleep and is entombed in a glass coffin. 

If you want to know if and how she wakes up and whether there is a handsome prince or whether they all live happily ever after . . .  I'm not going to tell you.  You are going to have to pick up the book yourself.  It is easily read in a sitting, but the illustrations are worth lingering over.  They tell as much (if not more) of the story as the words do.

This was a very happy find (I was hoping to complement my reading with perhaps some sort of short story or essay about the fairy tale, but I have not had any luck finding something that will match nicely-any suggestions would be welcome).  You can find out more about Matt Phelan at his website (check out the book trailer for this while you're there).  His studio-shed is pretty enviable, too.  It's easy to see how the environment would be inspiring for his work.  Now I am going to have to see what else by library owns by him.

This was just what I needed at the moment and it has put me back into a graphic novel/comic book reading mode.  I already have pulled something else out to read next!

Angela Carter's Fairy Tales, Part 2

It didn't dawn on me until after I had been reading that Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales that I wrote about last weekend was only compiled by her and that the actual fairy tales have been handed down over time by anonymous storytellers.  The impetus to (finally) pick up the book in the first place was to read her work, but I'll tell you about my weekend reading anyway (in a way I am reading her work since she selected these stories specifically, right).  If you want to read more about Angela Carter's work let me direct you to Caroline's posts here and here and you can check out a list of links to more posts about her work here.

This is a massive and varied compendium of tales and how does one choose what to read?  My normal method is to just begin at the beginning and work my way through, but as I know I will only be randomly dipping into this collection over time, I decided to start with the section "Good Girls and Where it Gets Them", which I was fully expecting to be a--it gets them nowhere good.  Fairy tales are so often dark and even violent, and it is only in the world of Disney that happily ever afters seem to be the norm, but maybe I haven't read enough to judge? 

My favorite so far is a Norwegian tale called "East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon".  What a good story and a satisfying one, too.  And I have heard that tag line without ever knowing the story behind it and now I do.  It begins:

"Once upon a time there was a poor husbandman who had so many children that he hadn't much of either food or clothing to give them.  Pretty children they all were, but the prettiest was the youngest daughter, who was so lovely there was no end to her loveliness."

I guess you would call this archetypal?  It's a recurring theme in stories.  Once upon a time . . . a beautiful child a family with too many children and not enough money to provide for them all.  I bet you can almost guess what is going to happen next?  Maybe not the specifics, but . . .

It's fall and outside is cold and blustery, the weather is rough and wild and cruelly dark.  The family sits around the fire, no doubt reflecting on what a nasty winter they have before them when there is a knock on the door.  It is a great white bear who asks the father to give up his youngest daughter.  In exchange he will give them so much wealth that they will never want for anything ever again.  The daughter says no outright but the father asks her to take a night and think it over and give her answer after a little reflection.

Well, this would solve all the family's problems so she agrees and goes off with the bear.  She sits upon his back and they journey for many days, a hard long journey and arrive at a castle--all gold and silver with many, many rooms.  She eats and then, so sleepy, asks to sleep.  Her bed is made up with silken pillows and gold fringe and it looks as though she will live in a luxurious home.  At night the bear comes to her, but in the form of a man.  The catch is she is not allowed to see him.  he comes in darkness and they spend the night together and he must leave before first light.  This goes on for a while.  As thrilling as his visits might be, she is lonely and bored during the day hours.  When he asks what will make her happy she says to go and visit her mother and father.

He acquiesces, but there is a catch.  There is always a catch, isn't there?  The bear tells her she may visit, he will take her, but she must not go alone to her mother and talk about her life in the castle.  All conversations must be done in front of the whole family, no secrets revealed or it will bring bad luck on both of them.  Of course she says she wouldn't dare, but you do know what is going to happen, don't you?

Yes, she spills the proverbial beans and bad luck will be coming there way.  First, however, thanks to her mothers advice (maybe you might call it meddling?) she snuck a peek at the bear in his man's form.  She had hidden away a little tallow candle.  The thing was she only needed to be careful not to drop even a drop of the wax and he would never know.  Wax is dropped, he wakes up, but not before she sees him in all his beautiful glory.  The white bear is a handsome prince and she has fallen in love.  Only to have him wrested away from her now.  You see he had a terrible spell cast on him that made him into the bear and now he must marry (a rather unattractive) princess "with a nose three ells long".  It's not a happy prospect for the prince as you know he was enamored by the lovely young woman.  Instead he is whisked off in anticipation of this betrothal.

What can she do?  She's muddled it all.  She asks him where is he going, can she go, too?  No.  If she can seek him out, but the only information she has is that the princess's castle is east o' the sun and west o' the moon.  No one seems to know where that is exactly.  It's almost a quest that she goes on in search of the prince.  She encounters an old hag who lets her take her horse and gives her (the always symbolic) golden apple, and tells her to ride to the next neighbor who might be able to help her out.  Well, with each new hag she acquires a number of accouterments that will help her break the spell and get her prince.  I won't give away the ending but I had to chuckle that in order to break the spell, washing the wax out of the shirt was the trick to break the bad magic.  Hmm.  The woman for the prince is the woman who can get the cleanest shirt. 

For all that, this was a great story and I enjoyed reading it very much.  I do wish Angela carter had written about each and every fairy tale.  I can read my own meaning into it, but I would be pleased to hear her take on it all.  But as she said in the introduction each tale takes on new meaning with each teller and each reader since we each bring something new and different to it. 

I'll enjoy revisiting this book.  I was hoping to read some of Angela Carter's short stories (I pulled out my copy of Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories) and have started reading (a rather longish) one called "The Snow Pavilion", but as my post has already gone to the lengthy side, (and I hate to rush my reading unnecessarily) I'll tell you about it next weekend.  I'll be back to my regular short story reading then and have some catching up to do with my New Yorker stories, too.

Angela Carter's Fairy Tales, Part 1

Angela Carter was a prolific writer and dabbled in many literary arenas.  To say dabbled isn't really correct, though, as I think she was a true proficient in everything she touched on.  If there is someone I could wish for as a teacher, it would be Angela Carter (just reading her, though, is educational).  Over the weekend I set aside my regular short story reading routine in favor of Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales which she edited for Virago.  This luscious book (isn't the cover art beautiful?) is actually a reworking of two earlier editions that she was completing shortly before her death in 1992.

"The manuscript of the second collection lay on her bed.  'I'm just finishing this off for the girls' she said.  Her loyalty to us was boundless.  When we first heard she was ill, we told her not to worry, we had published The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, that was enough.  But no, Angela claimed it was just the project for an ailing writer to pursue.  And so she worked on the book until a few weeks before her death." (Lennie Goodings, Virago).

After her death Virago grouped the fairy tales she had collected under the headings she had chosen and used the introduction used in the first collection.  Reading that alone was so interesting and informative I thought I would share a bit of what I learned here today, although there was so much to take in I'm not even sure where to begin.

Maybe it's best to start with a definition?  Carter writes that while this is a collection of fairy tales you won't find any fairies within the pages of this collection.  ". . . the term 'fairy tale' is a figure of speech and we use it loosely, to describe the great mass of infinitely various narrative that was, once upon a time and still is, sometimes, passed on and disseminated by word of mouth--stories without known originators that can be remade again and again by every person who tells them, the perennially refreshed entertainment of the poor."  Since fairy tales have for most of human history been spoken and not read the act of writing them down changes them at the same time it preserves them.  They are anonymous and genderless (we might know the name of the person who ultimately wrote it down but never the person who made it up in the first place).  The stories we have today are bits and pieces of stories that came before. 

Carter refers to these storytellers as female since in the European tradition it is usually a woman telling the stories--

". . . 'Mother Goose' in English, 'Ma Mère l'Oie' in French, an old woman sitting by the fireside, spinning--literally 'spinning a yarn' . . . "

I love plays on words and had not thought of a woman literally spinning yarn, and 'the spinning of a yarn' (or telling of a tale).  Another play on words, or the meaning behind the phrase for which I had not given much thought--the word 'tale' being synonymous for 'lie' or 'falsehood' and not just also meaning a story. 

"'The tale is over; I can't lie any more'--thus do Russian narrators conclude their stories."

No worries, though, the story may be made up of lies, but the storyteller isn't setting out to deceive rather to entertain.  Carter notes that while the fairy tales are "dedicated to the pleasure principle", there is always more than meets the eye (and isn't that almost always the truth in literature--more there swimming beneath the surface).  The collection Angela Carter has put together is meant for pleasure and each has only one thing in common--they all center on a female protagonist.  She might be clever, brave, silly, good, cruel, sinister or unfortunate but she is always center stage and larger than life.  She didn't put the collection together to show we women are all the same underneath it all (she didn't believe that anyway).  Carter never has a problem with offering a critical eye on any topic, does she?

(I knew I was going to like this collection, and what Carter writes below elicited a 'knowing' chuckle out of me).

"Considering that numerically, women have always existed in this world in at least as great numbers as men and bear at least in equal part in the transmission of oral culture, they occupy center stage less often than you might think."

Actually I know that to be true . . . at least in other aspects of literature.

The fairy tales (and there are more than a hundred in thirteen different categories) come from all over the world and exist in many different versions (and I like the idea that the person telling the tale can change the meaning so subtly--or maybe not so subtly--just because they are telling it--just as the listener brings her own experience to the storytelling, too), but Carter has not tinkered with any of them and tried to choose tales that had not been 'improved upon' by their collectors or which have been 'rendered literary'.  The only shortcoming she notes is that she confined the material to that which was available in English (knowing her shortcomings as a linguist--though I think she would have done a most impressive job nonetheless).

I've barely skimmed the surface of what she says when it comes to fairy tales, their history and meaning.  If you like fairy tales, or short stories, I think this will be a good collection to read from as well as a good one to own.  If you were here now and were interested I think I would just press the book into you hands and tell you to sit and read the intro, too.  But now comes the fun part, the main attraction.  Which section to read first?  Should I read randomly or an entire section or start at the first story and go from there?  I think whatever path I choose to follow I am in for a treat.

"The fairy tale is user-friendly; it always comes with an answer to that question ['What happened then?'].  The fairy tale has needed to be user-friendly in order to survive.  It survives today because it has transformed itself into a medium of gossip, anecdote, rumor; it remains hand-crafted, even in a period when television disseminates the mythologies of advanced industrialized countries throughout the world, wherever there are TV sets and the just to make them flicker."

Oh, I do love a good story, and it doesn't matter who first told it.  I'll be back later in the week to share a few of the stories I'll be reading in the coming days.  I have had this collection on my pile for a while now, always looking at it longingly, so thanks to Caroline for giving me a good reason to pick it up now and start reading.

Heidi's Alp by Christina Hardyment

I've forgotten how much I like reading travel narratives.  I have two very full shelves full of them and probably could fill another with more books of travel adventures that I've got spread out in other places.  Written in 1987 and one of a series of travel books published by Atlantic Monthly, Christina Hardyment's Heidi's Alp: One Family's Search for Storybook Europe combined a  number of really interesting elements.  It's not just a straightforward narrative about the family's travel adventures (and sometimes misadventures), but the focus is on literary Europe, in particular children's literature--a few classics as well as folk and fairy tales.  There's also a fair bit of history and social history and even pop culture included, as it wasn't meant to be all study and no play. 

Inspired by Toad's adventures in The Wind in the Willows, which she had been reading to her younger daughters, Hardyment decided that her own life had become one of routine and monotony and a little family adventure was called for. 

"Four daughters aged between five and twelve: eighteen years of lunchboxes and swimming money, lost textbooks and missed music lessons.  What had happened to my old dreams, of exploring Trebizond like Rose Macaulay, excavating in Anatolia like Freya Stark, daring the desert in memory of Lady Hester Stanhope?  Was a family a ball and chain for life?"

Once arrangements had been made with the childrens' schools, since they would be leaving before the end of the academic year, they found a suitable means of transportation.  In this case a motorhome was borrowed from friends, which the family dubbed "Bertha".  In the first leg of their journey they were joined by a friend and her baby, and the latter half Hardyment's husband shared driving and navigating responsibilities.  I was reminded of Patrick Leigh Fermor's earlier adventures, which he wrote about in A Time of Gifts, as the Hardyments also set off, too, from the Hook of Holland.

"We had one other travelling companion.  By April I had done enough research to be reasonably well-informed on the obscurer aspects of the books and authors we were to pursue.  One writer above all the rest had emerged as vivid, urgent, and demanding.  At first I didn't even particularly like him, but like a doppelgänger he kept turning up at my shoulder in the most unlikely places, always with a question.  Ugly, unsettled, an embarrassment to many of his friends and yet the most obsessively read and reread of all European storytellers, Hand Christian Andersen haunted me as effectively as 'The Travelling Companion' of his own macabre story."

Much of their journey loosely follows Andersen's own life, writings and his own travels through Europe.  If you've ever wondered what inspires an author to write the stories they do, the Hardyments visit the places and see first hand the cities or villages, the landscapes and even the homes and always with book in hand.  Did you know that Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates was actually written by American Mary Mapes Dodge, who hadn't even been to Holland before writing the book?  She checked facts with Dutch friends living in New York. 

There's lots about Hans Christian Andersen, poor unattractive man that he was, whose mother was barely literate and highly superstitious.  She, however, instilled in him the idea that whatever he wanted to be in life was entirely acceptable.  This was probably pretty progressive thinking for the early 19th century.  The family followed him from Denmark (with sidetrips to Legoland and the Tivoli Gardens) to Germany exploring his many fairy tales along the way.

An entire chapter is devoted to the historical basis of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which reminded me, too, of Jeremias Gotthelf's The Black Spider.  It's best to pay off your debts lest something awful befalls you if you don't.  Were those children really spirited away and just what was the real reason why?  The Hardyments follow the Fairy Tale Road in Germany (and even in the 80s much of it, including a sidetrip to Neuschwanstein Castle, was something of a tourist trap), learn about Pinocchio in Italy, Heidi's Alp in Switzerland and Babar in France. 

This is such a charming read and Hardyment manages to thread everything together seamlessly.  It's obvious that she did her homework either along the way or after as she writes not just about what she sees but what the literature and tales mean.  It's those bits that I really appreciated as they reinforced or shed light on my own fairy tale reading last fall.  Hardyment shared a wonderful quote from Italo Calvino, which makes me want to find and read his Italian Folktales.

"These folk tales are a catalogue of the potential destinies of men and women, especially for the stage in life when destiny is formed, that is, yought, beginning with birth, which itself often foreshadows the future; then the departure from home, and finally, through the trials of growing up, the attainment of maturity and the proof of one's humanity."

I don't know when I'll get back to reading fairy tales, but I know how important they are in the scheme of things since so much hinges on those stories.  It's quite nice to think how it's all interconnected and this was such a pleasurable way to think about it.  I'd be curious to know where the family is now, since their travels are a quarter century past.  Their journey even took them behind the Iron Curtain and into East Germany.  So much has changed but the stories remain a part of our culture.

This is the second book from my list of books to read this year (the other being Alice McDermott's At Weddings and Wakes).  I had to mention that as I'm so pleased with myself for staying on track for once.  I have tentatively picked Chaim Potok's Davita's Harp for my next read, but I've not yet started it and have to decide if that's really what I'm in the mood for at the moment.

**Christina Hardyment is still writing books, and you can check out her website here!  Heidi's Alp is published under the title The Canary-Coloured Cart in the UK.

E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker & Mouse King

E.T. A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and Mouse King (Nussnacker und Mauskönig translated by Joachim Neugroschel) is a really charming story, perhaps a smidgeon dark, but a perfect holiday read.  I thought I knew the story but was surprised by how much it varied from my recollection of having seen the ballet years ago.  I think this is one of those stories that has made its way into popular imagination and has taken on a life of its own quite apart from the original tale.  There's much more to the story and a certain poetic license was taken with the ballet.  Hoffmann published it in 1816, but it is Alexandre Dumas' 1845 retelling of it that Tchaikovsky's ballet is based on.

Hoffmann's Nutcracker is a story within a story, or perhaps better described as a story that is many-layered with fantastical elements.  It's quite magical and comes alive through the imagination of one young girl, Marie Stahlbaum, who along with her family is celebrating Christmas Eve.  The children, Marie and her brother Fritz and sister Luise, are anticipating the arrival of their godfather, Herr Drosselmeier.  Known for his extravagant gifts, Drosselmeier is an artistic man and a clockmaker who can fix anything mechanical.  His gifts, however, are so exquisite that they get locked away on the top shelf of a glass cabinet for fear of breaking them.  Drosselmeier presents them with a beautiful and intricate castle with tiny people taking up residence in its rooms.  The children soon tire of it, however, not being very practical as a child's toy.

Marie's attention is caught by an "excellent little man, who stood there, quiet and modest, as if calmly awaiting his turn".  The Nutcracker.  The children soon begin dropping nuts into his mouth to crack them open, but Fritz mishandles him and the nutcracker's teeth begin breaking.  Tenderhearted Marie takes him in her arms and wraps the poor Nutcracker in her handkerchief.  When their parents announce bedtime, Marie begs to be allowed to stay up just a little longer with the Nutcracker, and this is where the adventure begins.   

As the clock chimes midnight there is a scurrying behind the walls and a whispering.

"Soon the room reverberated with trot, trot, and hop, hop, brighter and denser squads of mice were galloping to and fro and they finally lined up in rank and file, the way Fritz stationed his soldiers before a battle."

So the Mouse King with his fearful seven heads and troops of mice marches straight for Marie who staggers back and breaks the glass door of the cabinet cutting her arm.  The Nutcracker raises his sword and comes to her rescue, the other dolls and toy soldiers in the cabinet are not far behind.  But after a fierce and valient battle they're overwhelmed and just before the Mouse King strikes the Nutcracker, Marie flings her shoe at him and then faints, saving the Nutcracker.

When she awakes Marie is safe in her bed with her arm bandaged and her parents convinced that the fantastical story Marie tells is simply a dream.  Godfather Drosselmeier comes bringing with him a restored Nutcracker.  He has fixed his teeth and made him good as new, and then goes on to tell the story of Princess Pirlipat and how Nutcrackers have come to look the way they do.   

Princess Pirlipat, the victim of a spell cast on her by Frau Mouserink (the mouse queen) after an argument over royal bacon (the mice having eaten too much of it that was intended for the King and his guests), was once a beautiful child but now has a deformed head and twisted body--looking much like a Nutcracker.  The only way to cure her is for her to eat a rare Krakatuk nut.  The catch is the nut must be given to her by a man who had never been shaved nor had ever worn boots.  The King sends two of his courtiers off to find the nut, which takes them many years to unearth.  When the nut is presented to the princess and her beauty once again restored, the King offers her hand in marriage to the young man.  Unfortunately  he trips over Frau Mouserink who casts a spell on him (still seeking revenge)--the same as she cast on the princess.  But faced with such ugliness the princess refuses to marry the young man.

Godfather Drosselmeier tells this story of Princess Pirlipat over the course of several nights as Marie is resting and recuperating.  Marie, not being as shallow as Princess Pirlipat, is much more loyal to the poor Nutcracker.  In the night the Mouse King comes to her, threatening Nutcracker and each successive night she gives something up to him--her marzipan, her sweets, her dolls--in return for the Mouse King not hurting Nutcracker.  Soon there will be nothing left to give, so despairs Marie.  Finally Marie goes to Fritz, who offers Nutcracker a sword from his toy Hussars to battle Mouse King one final time.

I won't reveal the ending, though you may already be familiar with the story of the Nutcracker and Mouse King.  It's much happier than my previous forays into German fairy tales.  My only disappointment with this book is that I have the movie tie-in edition, which does not have the introduction.  I know there is more to this story than excitement and adventure, of which there is plenty!  I'm now reading Dumas's version, The Tale of the Nutcracker, which is included in my Penguin copy.  I'm curious to see how the two compare, and then later today I'll get to see the story performed live.  I've added E.T.A. Hoffmann to my list of authors whose work I want to explore.  The book is a keeper, the story quite entertaining (how fun it would be to read aloud to children) and I look forward to revisiting the story again.  

The Tale of the Honest Casper & Fair Annie

Clemens Brentano's "The Tale of the Honest Casper and Fair Annie" is a dark broody tale (the Wikipedia calls it charming, but my definition and theirs must not be the same), almost closer to a regular short story than a fairy tale.  Actually it has more elements of a folk tale than anything else I've read so far in this collection.  The four stories in Romantic Fairy Tales are meant to follow the development of the genre from "Weimar Classicism to the final years of the later Romantic school".  They cover the years 1795 to 1817 and of the four this last feels the least like a traditional (am using the term loosely here) fairy tale.  Coming towards the end of the period it foreshadows the coming realist tone according to the editor's introduction.

(Possible spoilers to follow).

Published in 1817 the story has a contemporary setting.  Casper is a soldier who prides himself in his honor.  As a matter of fact honor is rife in this story and each character adheres to it in the extreme--choosing an honorable death over disgrace.  Despite the tragic ending, however, I suppose this is a story that could be read as one with ultimately a 'happy' ending since the last wishes of Casper and Annie are granted.  Once again the story is full of symbolism and has a religious edge to it, which mirrors the concerns of the author who by this time had returned to the Catholic faith after an unsettled youth.

The story has an unnamed narrator.  He's both an observer as well as a participant in the action.  One day he comes across an old woman sitting on the steps of the Duke's residence where she worked as a maid when she was a young woman.  She wishes to petition the Duke to have her grandson, Casper, and her godchild, Annie, buried next to each other.  One has chosen to commit suicide rather than live dishonorably and the other has committed a crime so heinous that the only option is to submit to the executioner's sword.  No, not a happy story this one. 

Returning home from France Casper cuts his journey short to give his horse a rest and puts up at an inn for the night.  He's awakened by two men who have come to rob him, or rather rob the inn--as there was a secret cache of money in the room.  They only manage to steal his horse and saddlebags, but Casper catches them in the stable only to discover the men are his father and stepbrother.  He does his duty by turning them in for their thievery, but his honor is lost--not only has he betrayed his family but he's related to common thieves.  Casper was set to marry Annie, but he cannot allow her to marry the son of a thief.  As for Annie, she had been seduced and dishonored by a wealthy man who had promised to marry her but then left her while Casper was away in France.  In her despair she murdered her own child.  Is it an act of honor that she refuses to name her seducer?  But she accepts her punishment.  And now the grandmother tells their story in hopes that the narrator can help her have them buried together.

There's lots of references to honorable actions and what follows dishonor.  Lots about faith and God.  And a few odd bits as well. 

"An order has gone out to all the courts that only those who commit suicide through melancholy should have an honorable burial.  Those who kill themselves out of desperation are to be sent instead to the anatomical institute, and the sheriff told me that he must send Casper there because he admitted himself to being desperate."

And poor Annie is witnesses the executioner's sword moving on its own, and then later the severed head of a hunter bites her dress.  To be honest the story is a little unnerving and slightly bizarre at times.  I'm sure I missed the symbolism, and the story is complex in the way it's presented, so I went back over it several times but I'am sure I've missed the point of the story. 

As a matter of fact this was a challenging collection of fairy tales to work through--not really what I was expecting when I set out to read the book, but I'm glad I stuck it out.  It was interesting to read the different stories and be exposed to German Romanticism.  Hopefully the next book I choose from the period will be easier going now that I've had a taste of the literature if even on a small scale.  I'm definitely in need of something a little brighter and happier now (and perhaps more straightforward).  I had planned on reading Peter Handke next, but Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal which came recommended by Tom very conveniently arrived in the mail yesterday.  Stifter, and Austrian author, lived from 1805-1868, so he came after the Romantics (maybe a good thing...).  It also sounds like a perfect holiday read. 

"Seemingly the simplest of stories--a passing anecdote of village life--Rock Crystal opens up into a tale of almost unendurable suspense.  This jewel-like novella by the writer that Thomas Mann praised as 'one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature' is among the most unusual, moving, and memorable of Christmas stories."

Has anyone read it?  I'm trying to wrap up the last of my reads for Caroline and Lizzy's German Literature month, though I suspect I'll still be writing about them into December.  I've finished three books so far and hope to get through a further two more, but of course will keep reading as much literature in translation as I can.

Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

I had no idea when I started reading Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué that it's one of the more famous German fairy tales and was quite popular in the nineteenth century.  It was published in 1811.  Apparently it was one often found on children's bookshelves and you can even read a child's illustrated version of it on Project Gutenberg.  Keep in mind, however, it is a retelling.  The version found in Romantic Fairy Tales, which I read, can also be found on Project Gutenberg though the translations vary slightly. 

The story is quite ethereal and very much in the vein of what I expect when thinking of a traditional fairy tale.  It's the story of a water spirit or nymph who wishes for a soul, which can only be granted when she falls in love and that love is reciprocated.  There are strings attached of course, and any missteps will have repercussions, so yes, this is a sad story, too.  I have never read Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (though I generally know what the story is about), but I read that the stories are similar.  As a gage for its popularity, references to Undine appeared in works by Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Yonge.  It was adapted to the opera by E.T.A. Hoffmann and later Tchaikovsky.  And it has inspired art works, ballets, and even films.  I had no idea.

"This powerful tale owes its inspiration to a number of sources including Fouqué's own private love life.  Literary influences are clearly the medieval ballad and the world of medieval legend.  Huldbrand is the archetypal benevolent knight and the world he inhabits typifies the idealized Germanic Middle Ages so central to the Romantic understanding of Germanic culture."

Going back further, there are elements of the folk tale Melusine and a text by Paracelsus in Fouqué's story.  The editor, in his introduction, calls Undine the ultimate Kunstmärchen.  At this point I had to go back to the general introduction and reread.  It's an excellent and detailed introduction which covers a lot of ground (too much for me to try and sum up I'm afraid), but there are a few interesting tidbits to pass on here.  I'm even more interested as the German Romantic period in Germany was from 1795 to 1820, and Fanny Burney's Camilla was written in 1796.  Perhaps Camilla was a little too early, but I wonder if it was a transitional work into English Romanticism?  Something to think about when I start reading Burney perhaps, but I like learning how books fit together.

As for German Romanticism, it grew out of the Enlightenment (or rather was a response to it).  These works focus on the darker side (Nachtseite) of human existence.  If the Enlightenment felt "sterile" since it was all about reason and order, Romantic works depended on Nature and the Organic.  I suppose everything must have went all wobbly or blurred.  Writers threw in elements of the supernatural and there was an interest in folk culture and all things Medieval.

The other interesting bit is that what I've been reading are considered literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen, as opposed to simple Volksmärchen, folk tales told by ordinary people orally--though the two are closely related.  The literary fairy tale is more ambiguous and complex (which I've noticed in my reading) with psychological depth, and there might not be a nice clean solution or happy ending to the stories.  The four fairy tales in this collection are meant to follow the development from beginning to end.  Next week is Clemens Brentano's The Tale of Honest Casper and Fair Annie.   

Eckbert the Fair by Ludwig Tieck

Ludwig Tieck's story Eckbert the Fair in the Penguin collection, Romantic Fairy Tales, is a much more straightforward affair than last week's complex and complicated work by J.W. von Goethe.  In any case it's restored my faith in my reading abilities, which I must admit tend to waver when confronted by someone like Goethe.  Eckbert the Fair is a dark tale, rather grim in its outcome with a moral at its center.  There is also a psychological element to the story making it something more than a simple fairy tale.

Ludwig Tieck was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement according to the introduction, but his work covers a range of styles turning to realism at the end of his career.  He was also a translator of Cervantes' and Shakespeare's works.  Eckbert the Fair appeared in 1797 and is one of his best-known works.  I  read it is one of the central works of German Romanticism.  I chose the collection of fairy tales for the German Literature month with an eye towards reading fairy tales in general not out of a specific interest in German Romanticism, but now I feel like I should be trying to learn more about this era since the collection was put together with both things in mind.  I feel like I'm coming at this book at an odd angle, if that makes sense.     

This is a story within a story--my favorite kind of storyelling.  But in this story fairy tale and reality converge.  Even though Bertha, the narrator, cautions the reader not to see this as a fairy tale, it felt like one to me.  Eckbert the Fair is Bertha's husband.  The two live in happy solitude deep in the Harz Mountains.  The only sadness in their lives is the fact that God did not see fit to grant them with children, but as you'll see if you read the story that may actually have been a good thing.

Eckbert and Bertha rarely receive visitors, but Philip Walther is quite like-minded and often drops by when he's close by the castle.  One misty autumn evening Eckbert encourages Bertha to tell Philip the tale of her youth, which is "most odd".  Bertha was born in a small village, the daughter of a poor shepherd.  The family had so little money they never knew where their next meal was coming from.  Worse, Bertha's parents called her a stupid and incapable child.  She could master neither sewing nor spinning and was useless in helping on the farm.  She dreamed of someday being rich and a help to her family.

Fantasies encroach on reality, but she was bitterly unhappy in her situation.  So one day she left.  She was only a child of about eight.  She walked and walked, was terrified and hungry.  Then one day she came across an old woman dressed almost all in black.  She asked for help and was given food and was told to follow the woman.  She was quite lucky as it turned out, as the woman gave her a warm place to sleep and food enough and set her to the task of spinning which Bertha now took to easily.  So the two began to live together quite companionably. 

She was quite happy with the old woman who would often go away and would leave to her care a dog and a magical bird.  The bird not only sang pleasant songs but laid eggs that contained pearls and gems.  After about four years Bertha once again became restless.  Although she had the necessities she needed she wondered what the greater world outside was like.  When the old woman was away on one of her journeys, Bertha decided to leave.  She took the bird, and a few of the gems, but she left the dog locked inside the cottage. Once again she journeys without a set destination but finds herself back where she started--her family's village.  Now she has the wealth she dreamed of, thanks to the magical bird, but she soon finds out her parents have both died. 

But it's not all despair as she eventually meets Eckbert.  She feels guilty about having stolen the bird and abandoned the old woman, so she kills the animal thinking she will lead a happy normal life and put her past firmly behind her.  When she has recounted her story to Philip Walther, he's able to offer the name of the dog, which she had forgotten.  And now she is plunged into fear for having told her story.  What does Philip know and can he reveal her secret?  Paranoia causes Eckbert to do the unspeakable.  Both have spiraled into a sort of madness over past misdeeds.  Their once-happy lives are now filled with guilt over their actions.

It's interesting how the story of Bertha's past reaches out into the present tripping her up, but isn't that always the case with morality tales.  The editor gives a further explanation that events in the tale (and I've not given away the twists as I don't want to ruin anyone else's pleasure in the reading) are symbols for "self-imposed isolation from society."  In the case of Bertha the mundane even in her idyllic situation with the old woman turned into dissatisfaction and a longing for something more in life.  Probably not a bad thing in and of itself, but the way she went about it meant her immoral actions would come back to haunt her.  The editor sums the story up thus:

"The treatment of the failings of humanity criticizes individual and collective alike--the Romantic self is found wanting in a depraved world crying out for revitalization".

This was a well-told tale, and one I enjoyed reading.  I'm curious to know how it was received.  Reading it reminded me of The Black Spider by Swiss author Jeremias Gotthelf that impressed me so much earlier this year.

Next week: Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué.

J. W. von Goethe's The Fairy Tale

If September and October were all about ghost stories, this month is going to be filled (I hope anyway) with German Literature.  I've been thinking about what I want to read this month and a few fairy tales seem a natural progression from my reading of myths and even ghost stories to some extent.  I've not read many fairy tales (much like mythology) since I was very young, so I thought a little definition might come in handy.

"a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses. The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls; youngest sons and gallant princes; ogres, giants, dragons, and trolls; wicked stepmothers and false heroes; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers, often talking horses, or foxes, or birds; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions." (via as defined by Stith Thompson and A.S. Byatt).

Romantic Fairy Tales is a collection of four stories by German authors Goethe, Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Clemens Brentano.  Since there are four Sundays to fill this month, I thought it would be convenient to read one story each weekend and work my way slowly through the book.  First up is "The Fairy Tale" (1795) by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.  Now if you're thinking that fairy tale equals easy, I've decided that's not exactly the case.  Like any other story a fairy tale can be read purely for pleasure as well as for deeper meaning than what appears on the surface.  I know that myths and fairy tales have been used and interpreted in ways well beyond my own knowledge in the areas of psychology and literature--I'd like to learn/read more about these aspects, but for the short term I'm opting for the pleasure factor with a little help from the editor's introduction for a little interpretation and historical background.  I'll add on a bit with each new story, since the introduction goes into some detail.

In the case of Goethe, this is a fairy tale doesn't quite jive with the above definition.  It's much more complicated and complex than the fairy tales I remember from childhood, or maybe I've just gotten bogged down by the explication of it.  Goethe apparently worked more in the Classical school than the  Romantic, but this story spans the two genres.  It sounds as though this story was a natural progression from one type to the other.  Plus there were all sorts of other things going on at the time--the Enlightenment was in full swing and contemporary thought and beliefs were not at all in tune with the goals of the Romantic movement.  Classicism seems to be all about lightness and Romanticism focuses on the dark and unknown which made things uncomfortable for those who weren't followers.

It's all really fascinating to read about, and hopefully as I make my way through the stories it will become more clear and make more sense.  But first Goethe's "Fairy Tale".  Reading it made me think of two things.  First, there is a serpent in the story that glides through the river which reminded me of A.S. Byatt's retelling of the Norse myth Ragnarok, though they are both very different and I expect the latter has nothing to do with the former.  And as silly as this sounds, the story reminded me of the song about the old lady who swallowed a fly.  You know how the story progresses--one thing swallowing the next.  Well, in this story it moves along in much the same way--one character or set of characters is introduced and interacts with the next with a natural sort of progression from scene to scene interlinking it all. 

It begins with two will-o'-the-wisps crossing the river with the help of a ferryman.  They're a happy-go-lucky pair and when they shake their bodies gold falls out.  But the ferryman can't accept the gold, only "fruits of the earth".  Instead he requires three cabbages, three artichokes and three large onions.  They promise to pay up later if only he'll drop them on the other side.  The ferryman dumps the "dangerous" gold in a deep chasm, which is then found by the serpent who eats it with great joy and begins to glow.  Then she swims down to an underground temple where four kings are introduced.  And so the story begins.  In the realm of the four kings is a man with a lantern and the story switches at this point to his wife who begins a journey to see the beautiful Lily.  On her way she meets a young man who has met Lily but is saddened by the fact that anyone who touches her immediately dies.  You can probably guess where this story is headed and what's going to happen to the prince.  But everything is woven together with later characters promising to pay the ferryman's price if only the initial characters will offer help in this forward journey tying it all together.

Interestingly Goethe was an adversary to the Romantic school, yet it's his work that forms the bridge between the two.  There are all sorts of mythical and classical allusions in the story, some of which are explained, but for a novice like me it was all a little over my head.  As stories go, it wasn't hard reading but heavy with meaning that I knew I wasn't getting.  It's interesting, however, to think about how the story relates to what was happening at the time it was written.  Goethe created a sort of Utopia in the story as a counter to the terror of the French Revolution.  I wonder what people thought of it at the time and who Goethe's audience was?  Other intellectuals?  The common reader?    

I don't usually like to read introductions before reading the actual story, but I think I might have to do so when I move on to Ludwig Tieck's "Eckbert the Fair".  If I was expecting something along the times of the Brothers Grimm, but I think I have gotten more than I bargained for.  I'm still going to press on and look at this book as a nice literary challenge.   

If you haven't heard about Caroline and Lizzy's German Literature Month, do go check it out.  Caroline has already given an update on what others are reading.  For something a little less challenging I am also reading Ingrid Noll's The Pharmacist.  Nothing like a good crime novel to balance things out.