I furrowed my brow and slapped my forehead hard. I somehow soldiered on to find that Children’s and Household Tales offers value to the modern thoughtful reader.
I sat in increasingly hard chairs as I moved through tales tortured ten thousand ways. It became clear the book is a collection, not a single work. It’s not curation’s job to ferret out redundancy or ensure continuity of any kind. On the plus side, this storyteller was reminded how manipulating simple and even single elements can alter the strength, poignancy and often the whole point of stories.
It’s said there are only so many stories and most have been told. This notion is as burdensome as it is true for the modern day storyteller. Yet the canons can both inspire and strengthen work through associations, be they references or allusions. A peculiar strength comes into play when a writer creates life with good old bones.
We regularly encounter a great many retellings without being aware of it. Familiarity with historic (if not always original) sources strengthens our understanding and experience of the reading we do. When I read Margaret Atwood’s 1993 novel The Robber Bride, I missed a whole level of meaning—principally, the false bride motif—not having first read The Robber Bridegroom. That realization today totally bums me out. (Given the size of the canons, I quickly choose to forgive myself.)
It’s downright satisfying knowing what’s being retold. I enjoy learning a storyline I encounter is a retelling of an old gothic story and not a rape of some 1950s film plot.
The Grimm tales quietly percolate in my mind. They will now inform not just my reading, but, I suspect, also my writing. I don’t imagine ever re-reading the collection, but I can see myself joyfully pulling the book off my shelf to revisit a resonating tale or two or three.
I sat in increasingly hard chairs as I moved through tales tortured ten thousand ways. It became clear the book is a collection, not a single work. It’s not curation’s job to ferret out redundancy or ensure continuity of any kind. On the plus side, this storyteller was reminded how manipulating simple and even single elements can alter the strength, poignancy and often the whole point of stories.
It’s said there are only so many stories and most have been told. This notion is as burdensome as it is true for the modern day storyteller. Yet the canons can both inspire and strengthen work through associations, be they references or allusions. A peculiar strength comes into play when a writer creates life with good old bones.
We regularly encounter a great many retellings without being aware of it. Familiarity with historic (if not always original) sources strengthens our understanding and experience of the reading we do. When I read Margaret Atwood’s 1993 novel The Robber Bride, I missed a whole level of meaning—principally, the false bride motif—not having first read The Robber Bridegroom. That realization today totally bums me out. (Given the size of the canons, I quickly choose to forgive myself.)
It’s downright satisfying knowing what’s being retold. I enjoy learning a storyline I encounter is a retelling of an old gothic story and not a rape of some 1950s film plot.
The Grimm tales quietly percolate in my mind. They will now inform not just my reading, but, I suspect, also my writing. I don’t imagine ever re-reading the collection, but I can see myself joyfully pulling the book off my shelf to revisit a resonating tale or two or three.