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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
I love when, unexpectedly, I stumble upon writing I become quickly enamored by. Michael Cunningham's "A Wild Swan" is a series of familiar folk and fairy-tales re-imagined into modern day short stories. The kind that are funny and sad and thoughtful. Right up my alley. But it's the very first chapter, a prologue really, that got me. My favorite bits?
"Most of us can be counted on to manage our own undoings. Vengeful entities seek only to devastate the rarest, the ones who have somehow been granted not only bower and trumpet but comeliness that startles the birds in the trees, coupled with grace, generosity, and charm so effortless as to seem like ordinary human qualities.
Who wouldn’t want to fuck these people up? Which of us does not understand, in our own less presentable depths, the demons and wizards compelled to persecute human mutations clearly meant, by deities thinking only of their own entertainment, to make almost everyone feel even lonelier and homelier, more awkward, more doubtful and blamed, than we actually are?
Please ask yourself. If you could cast a spell on the ludicrously handsome athlete and the lingerie model he loves, or on the wedded movie stars whose combined DNA is likely to produce children of another species entirely---would you? Does their aura or happiness and prosperity, their infinite promise, irritate you, even a little? Does it occasionally make you angry?"
If not, blessings on you.
If so, however, there are incantations and ancient songs, there are words to be spoken at midnight, during certain phases of the moon, beside bottomless lakes hidden deep in the woods, or in secret underground chamber, or at any point where three roads meet.
"Most of us can be counted on to manage our own undoings. Vengeful entities seek only to devastate the rarest, the ones who have somehow been granted not only bower and trumpet but comeliness that startles the birds in the trees, coupled with grace, generosity, and charm so effortless as to seem like ordinary human qualities.
Who wouldn’t want to fuck these people up? Which of us does not understand, in our own less presentable depths, the demons and wizards compelled to persecute human mutations clearly meant, by deities thinking only of their own entertainment, to make almost everyone feel even lonelier and homelier, more awkward, more doubtful and blamed, than we actually are?
Please ask yourself. If you could cast a spell on the ludicrously handsome athlete and the lingerie model he loves, or on the wedded movie stars whose combined DNA is likely to produce children of another species entirely---would you? Does their aura or happiness and prosperity, their infinite promise, irritate you, even a little? Does it occasionally make you angry?"
If not, blessings on you.
If so, however, there are incantations and ancient songs, there are words to be spoken at midnight, during certain phases of the moon, beside bottomless lakes hidden deep in the woods, or in secret underground chamber, or at any point where three roads meet.
fast-paced
I spotted this slim book while browsing the 'new' shelves of the library one evening. I feel drawn to retellings of fairy tales, though so many end up disappointing me. Because I enjoy Cunningham's writing, I didn't think twice about checking out this book.
I wasn't excited about any of the stories until I got to the seventh (out of eleven), the story titled "Little Man" ([b:Rumpelstiltskin|280240|Rumpelstiltskin|Paul O. Zelinsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388253409s/280240.jpg|271837]), easily my favorite, which has a perfect reason to use second-person narration. With it, Cunningham does one of the things I feel a retelling 'should' do: i.e., get inside the head of a character we haven't heard from before. Its ending, one fairly long paragraph, was so exquisite, drawing our attention to how someone like him in 'real life' could turn into the person he has become, that I read it several times.
The next story, "Steadfast; Tin", is another that used a twisting of the genre effectively, bringing the story into relevance to a modern-day couple, while cleverly filling in the reader who might not be familiar with the HC Andersen tale of [b:The Steadfast Tin Soldier|3503365|The Steadfast Tin Soldier|Hans Christian Andersen|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1255961741s/3503365.jpg|2146970]. The story after that, "Beasts", frustrated me with its standard 'retelling' of "Beauty and the Beast", until I arrived at the ending and the reason for it all became clear: I had been as seduced as Beauty was.
I should also mention "A Monkey's Paw", a very good story: I've just never been a fan of the original by [a:W.W. Jacobs|57721|W.W. Jacobs|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1241620985p2/57721.jpg] whose title contains the definite article.
The illustrations by [a:Yuko Shimizu|3957285|Yuko Shimizu|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1440431829p2/3957285.jpg] are ethereal and disturbing; and I guess because I'm not a visual person, I didn't realize, till I later looked at her website, that I've encountered her work before.
Probably more of a 3.5 stars kind of book, but I've rounded up, because I can't stop thinking of that paragraph.
I wasn't excited about any of the stories until I got to the seventh (out of eleven), the story titled "Little Man" ([b:Rumpelstiltskin|280240|Rumpelstiltskin|Paul O. Zelinsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388253409s/280240.jpg|271837]), easily my favorite, which has a perfect reason to use second-person narration. With it, Cunningham does one of the things I feel a retelling 'should' do: i.e., get inside the head of a character we haven't heard from before. Its ending, one fairly long paragraph, was so exquisite, drawing our attention to how someone like him in 'real life' could turn into the person he has become, that I read it several times.
The next story, "Steadfast; Tin", is another that used a twisting of the genre effectively, bringing the story into relevance to a modern-day couple, while cleverly filling in the reader who might not be familiar with the HC Andersen tale of [b:The Steadfast Tin Soldier|3503365|The Steadfast Tin Soldier|Hans Christian Andersen|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1255961741s/3503365.jpg|2146970]. The story after that, "Beasts", frustrated me with its standard 'retelling' of "Beauty and the Beast", until I arrived at the ending and the reason for it all became clear: I had been as seduced as Beauty was.
I should also mention "A Monkey's Paw", a very good story: I've just never been a fan of the original by [a:W.W. Jacobs|57721|W.W. Jacobs|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1241620985p2/57721.jpg] whose title contains the definite article.
The illustrations by [a:Yuko Shimizu|3957285|Yuko Shimizu|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1440431829p2/3957285.jpg] are ethereal and disturbing; and I guess because I'm not a visual person, I didn't realize, till I later looked at her website, that I've encountered her work before.
Probably more of a 3.5 stars kind of book, but I've rounded up, because I can't stop thinking of that paragraph.
Nice humanization of fairy tales, injecting them with some modern reality. This may make them far less uplifting but also more relatable.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I read this as a book club book. It's not bad, it basically fairy tales stripped of all their magic and take place in a more realistic universe. My favorite part of this entire novel were the illustrations, I would like for Michael Cunningham to remake this book as a graphic novel using those illustrations.