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

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

I'd love to read it with you, even better if we can get more folks on board. Take care and have fun on your trip!

I guess my biggest problem with this is that it is largely irrelevant to the original. And Godfather D. was actually more interesting in the original, despite having no backstory. Maguire shoulda just told his own story, imo, tbh.

Ok, so, I plowed through it. The place, Hiddensee, is both real and a sort of a metaphor I guess. Maguire sure likes to show off his erudition, vocabulary, and purple prose... to the point where I didn't always understand exactly what was going on. I wish I could've cared more about Dirk, but I just didn't. The story got interesting to me when he got old and we caught up to Hoffmann's events; before that it was pretty boring to me. And the end is rather abrupt with plenty of loose threads. I'm not a fan of the original text or the ballet, and still I liked this less. Sorry.

Please tell me it's going to become more Engaging and/or Satisfying. I'm about to give up, as he becomes an apprentice to a paper merchant. I just don't care about him or anyone else yet. Seems like an awful long setup. What you've said in the spoilers above doesn't matter to me either. (sorry)

I've read this a dozen times since I was a teenager. I love that the backstory gets longer through the editions - if you're interested, try reading a copy of the first edition and then comparing it to the most recent. (I'll have to check if there's anything newer than the one I bought as an adult.)

The movie is actually pretty great. But the book is even better, in ways that just don't translate to the screen. I recommend that you try to read the book first, or at least try to forget the movie as you read.

Thank you for the link, Gem. That's a good discussion! I'll have to look for The Serapion Brethren Volume I.

I just found another that looks excellent, while looking for more about Baba Yaga:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths...

Of course the easiest thing to do is use Google to search the whole web for the tags you know, but that can lead to some pretty strange sites, too.

And taking the time to do some browsing on a few trusted sites is illuminating & fun!

Ouch. I hope your mother recovers as smoothly as possible, Lisa.

And I hope we all have a healthy, successful, and Happy New Year!

I just got back from a road trip to see my mom. On the way I came across gingerbread style Oreo cookies. Now I do love me some gingerbread, and gingersnaps, but I seem to have trouble finding or making them. I hope these are still in the grocery next time I shop!

I'm def. looking forward to reading Hiddensee!

Huh. I don't remember matching dresses at all.

I know that a lot of times stories are abridged 'silently' or discreetly. For example, children's stories written in Europe will have a reference to something that a puritanical American will see as too naughty, and a whole chapter will be cut, and the only way to know about it is to read the story in both languages. I believe the primary example my GR friend named was Pippi Longstocking.

It's difficult, that's true.

While looking for the classification system, I found this website which looks interesting:

https://fairy-folk-tale.fandom.com/wi...

And of course there's what may be the most famous and thorough:

https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/

I know that there's a classification system for folk/ fairy/ wonder tales, too. I've not explored it yet, have you?

Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index

One of many places to see more is: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~urban/Proj...

Alison Lurie's collection is mostly stories, but I recall an introduction and/or commentary. She is a scholar, after all, so she has things to say. She also wrote Boys and Girls Forever: Children's Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter which is more non-fiction.

And I hope that non-fiction will be the focus of this thread. However, good anthologies with annotations are worth sharing, too.

I'd like to talk about The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales by Alison Lurie, the website Sur la Lune, Jack Zipes, etc.

Please do always let parents decide. Book banning is becoming an absolutely terrible problem, parents deciding what children who are not even their own should read. Honestly, I'm glad they're reading. Video games and social media are at least as 'mature content' and usually more mindless.

Lisa, thank you for the heads up. And thank goodness for goodreads, because we can learn so much about books right here, with so many features to help us.

Sure, I'd be glad to get a thread started for 'critical' and 'meta' works. Just let me know which folder, or if you want it to be a folder of its own. I can say a few things to lead it off, and post whenever I have something worth saying or asking ... but I don't know that I could keep it fully active (depends on others' interest of course).

One girl, age seven, a slightly older brother. But also a much older daughter, probably of marriageable age, easy to overlook as she doesn't do much.