Cheryl’s Comments (group member since Dec 04, 2022)

Cheryl’s comments from the Once Upon a Time... group.

I'll have to look for the original and for The Fire Rose (I have enjoyed some stories by Mercedes Lackey). The miscellaneous children's adaptations that I collected from my libraries are all disappointing, too much so to bother listing here.

Done. Not impressed. Sorry.

It's annoying. It's opens with somebody having been 10 years in a nightmare dungeon, but it also has Mrs. Potts and Cogsworth. So I have no consistent vibe, and so I cannot immerse.

And (view spoiler)[Belle learns that the Beast is really a prince by halfway through, so doesn't that mean she should find it easier to fall in love (hide spoiler)]?

But I'm continuing, because it has some great bits, like this line:

"... jagged thoughts tore at the inside of her mind, opening holes and letting in painful new ideas."

An elemental?

Interesting variety of covers. Mine is the first, the red. I hope to start it tonight.

I just read the picture-book Beauty and the Beast by Cynthia Rylant and can tell you-all not to bother with that one.

I did like Beastly, iirc, but I don't feel motivated to reread this YA edition that focuses on the prince, even though it's been so long I just don't remember it well enough.

And one of my favorite MG authors, Wendy Mass, did her third 'Twice Upon a Time' with this: Beauty and the Beast: The Only One Who Didn't Run Away. I gave it four stars.

I did not care for Robin McKinley's YA retelling, Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast.

I've read so many versions and adaptations of this. It's seldom that we know what/why happened to the prince to make him a beast, so it's great when we do. Although, it's generally, in what I've read, to make him learn a lesson about arrogance, or vanity, or too much focus on the superficial and/or hedonistic.

I'll look for the Craft version and read that and/or Beaumont, I think.

Well, she was fifteen, so yeah.

It does come down to the freedom to choose, I agree. And one could certainly argue that our little mermaid did make conscious, thoughtful, non-impulsive, non-imposed choices.

Btw, I read it in the collection illustrated by MinaLima. There is no translator listed. I wonder what difference other translations would make.

There is one awkwardness that I think must be original to Andersen. The grandmother is explaining death, and says that the mermen dissolve into foam after 300 years, having no graves, but then goes on to refer to 'resting easy in our graves.'

Another thing I wonder about is the lack of names in so many of Andersen's tales. There are Kay & Gerda in The Snow Queen, which is one of my favorites, but that's about it, no? Why do you think he chose not to name his characters?

I know that we feminists are supposed to disagree with the little mermaid's choice to give up so much for the sake of the prince. But when we read the original, we see that gaining an immortal soul is what is most important to her. And, spoiler, in the epilogue it is revealed that she has somehow managed to earn one. (How, exactly, I don't quite understand.)

I've seen other stories that have that Christian lesson in them, too. How a being that does not have a soul cannot cry and/or cannot love and/or suffers more, or less, than mortal humans. There's one in the Lurie anthology that we read last month, about a demon (iirc) that feels compelled to acquire a soul.

This is not one of my favorites by Andersen. I would love to see a retelling that makes more sense and fits modern sensibilities. I just have no idea what form it could take.

You gave it four stars. Try to talk me into reading it, please.

By fun do you mean light enough? The blurb makes it seem likely to be too intense.

Was she a mermaid? What does she sacrifice to be able to serve as a cabin boy?

And now I'm done reading. Here's one concluding question:

What do you look for in late 20th, 21st century tales? I do think I'd like to see an updated revision of this collection. But of all the picture-books that I read, and the short stories I've seen, I don't know if there's anything that has the classic princess/wizard/crone/Jack vibe, in the very short form seen here, that I think fit for inclusion.

The next to last story, The Porcelain Man, by Richard Jerome Kennedy, is worthy of discussion. Are we to feel sorry for him? What about the father?

I find this haunting and have read it several times, not just here but in a picture book and in a collection. But I think there's stuff that I'm missing... I would like to be able to analyze it as a scholar does.

I did track down the author's children's (all ages, really) novel, Amy's Eyes and enjoyed it twice... and recommend it if the blurb intrigues.

*The River Maid,* by Jane Yolen is another one not for sensitive children. I didn't really need it either, tbh. The same story has been done, basically, about a Selkie.

The last tale, *Old Man Potchikoo,* is by Louise Erdrich. Definitely for adults. I do not understand Trickster style tales or Chippewa [sic] mythic tropes and motifs and did not get anything out of this.

You'll just have to read The Wife's Story by Ursula K. Le Guin yourself. I can't say anything about it except that I love it.

*The Man Who Had Seen the Rope Trick* features Joan Aiken's trademark nod to the macabre, and to un-subtle characterizations (ie, the bad guys always clearly deserve what they got). I enjoyed it.

Angela Carter's The Courtship of Mr Lyon is too much just like any other Beauty and the Beast story. I don't think it's original enough to be included here.

The Princess Who Stood on Her Own Two Feet by Jeanne Desy is a bit too preachy for me, and for the era, I think. By 1982 fairy stories shouldn't have to tread this particular feminist ground, I don't think.

*Prince Amelic* by Tanith Lee and Petronella by Jay Williams are what modern fairy tales should be, imo. The young woman has a mind of her own and makes things work out the way they should. No rags-to-riches, or subservience rewarded, or insta-love....

Very much early 1970s, but then those were my formative years so I guess it's natural I'd like them :) Anyway, I think they hold up well, too.

I have definitely enjoyed other works by Williams and wish that I owned a copy of his The Practical Princess, and Other Liberating Fairy Tales. I've not been able to get into Lee's children's novels, but I know that they are very popular.

The next three were all very much too weird for me. Jewbird by Malamud doesn't read like a fairy tale but only has a talking animal, Menasah's Dream by Singer reads like some twee Victorian moral fable, and Glass Mountain by Bartholeme is satire, I think, but nasty.

GR has deleted the earlier post as self-promotion. Mods, please delete the follow-ups (this one, and the ones currently at positions 40, 45, 46). Thank you!