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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
Amazing collection of modern fairy tales. My favourite is the titular story, “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye”, which is very beautiful. I also love The Eldest Princess. All the stories are a meditation upon storytelling and the shapes of stories as well as being interesting stories. The prose is luscious too.
I recently reread this collection of short stories and novella after seeing the trailer for the film adaptation coming out this year. I'm drawn to fairy tales, the fantastical and speculative. I remember my first reading of this collection being positive.
Now with some understanding of Orientalism, and a skepticism towards white/Western feminism i am able to enjoy Byatt's writing, academic digressions, stories within stories while also noticing things I did not see before.
Of Byatt's fairy tales, the ones that stay in my memory are "The Story of the Eldest Princess" and "Gode's Story".
The titular story or novella centres on a running theme of the collection - individual freedom, but it is hampered by its perspective. My issue with western feminism is the focus on individual success within capitalism and lazy sympathy rather than active solidarity with "non-western" women.
Marriage and culture or society has stopped the energy and potential of women to become artists, teachers, rulers. But the positioning of binaries between East and west (i mean I've done it in this review), man and woman, serves a eurocentric, capitalist and individualist conception of liberation. Islam is still shown to be repressive with veiled women likened to birds, or being subservient to their patriarchs.
Gillian, our protagonist, is a white middle class British woman. An academic whose husband has recently left her for a younger woman. She compares the freedom she has to that of her ancestors and seems happy and successful. But her body is a reminder of her mortality and femininity as she ages. Her first wish is to have a younger body. She is still bound by eurocentric and youth-centric standards of beauty, she has internalised the male gaze that sees her middle aged body as ugly. She enjoys her academic success and modern, luxury hotels, shopping and fine clothing. Her liberation and concepts of women's oppression are short sighted, with no understanding of race, class or religion. Non-european women are oppressed in a medieval way and she has managed to embrace the 20th century and the freedoms it affords her as a white middle class woman. What has caused this famine in Ethiopia? Why is it that the Turkish woman in scarves speak to Orhan but not to Gillian, why does the Pakistani man speak of the downfall of the west? What is this work doing?
The relationship between Gillian and the Djinn lacks enough exploration, the power dynamics are so skewed and her second wish being that he love her, taints whatever intimacy is shown between the two. He is her "slave".
I really enjoyed reading this book. I love stories within stories, I loved being sucked into conversation, the fantastical descriptions of the mundane and modern. But this story was limited by its orientalism and its basic bitch feminism.
Now with some understanding of Orientalism, and a skepticism towards white/Western feminism i am able to enjoy Byatt's writing, academic digressions, stories within stories while also noticing things I did not see before.
Of Byatt's fairy tales, the ones that stay in my memory are "The Story of the Eldest Princess" and "Gode's Story".
The titular story or novella centres on a running theme of the collection - individual freedom, but it is hampered by its perspective. My issue with western feminism is the focus on individual success within capitalism and lazy sympathy rather than active solidarity with "non-western" women.
Marriage and culture or society has stopped the energy and potential of women to become artists, teachers, rulers. But the positioning of binaries between East and west (i mean I've done it in this review), man and woman, serves a eurocentric, capitalist and individualist conception of liberation. Islam is still shown to be repressive with veiled women likened to birds, or being subservient to their patriarchs.
Gillian, our protagonist, is a white middle class British woman. An academic whose husband has recently left her for a younger woman. She compares the freedom she has to that of her ancestors and seems happy and successful. But her body is a reminder of her mortality and femininity as she ages. Her first wish is to have a younger body. She is still bound by eurocentric and youth-centric standards of beauty, she has internalised the male gaze that sees her middle aged body as ugly. She enjoys her academic success and modern, luxury hotels, shopping and fine clothing. Her liberation and concepts of women's oppression are short sighted, with no understanding of race, class or religion. Non-european women are oppressed in a medieval way and she has managed to embrace the 20th century and the freedoms it affords her as a white middle class woman. What has caused this famine in Ethiopia? Why is it that the Turkish woman in scarves speak to Orhan but not to Gillian, why does the Pakistani man speak of the downfall of the west? What is this work doing?
The relationship between Gillian and the Djinn lacks enough exploration, the power dynamics are so skewed and her second wish being that he love her, taints whatever intimacy is shown between the two. He is her "slave".
I really enjoyed reading this book. I love stories within stories, I loved being sucked into conversation, the fantastical descriptions of the mundane and modern. But this story was limited by its orientalism and its basic bitch feminism.
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Very good, but the final story, which take up 2/3 of the books seems about 80 pages too long.
A book with four short stories and one novella. I wasn't a huge fan of the novella; I thought the first half was filled mostly with extraneous details and caused the whole of it to drag. I liked the short stories a lot though. My two favorites were The Glass Coffin and The Eldest Princess. The first because it had to do with choosing adventure over security, an enchanted castle, and a glass skeleton key that sparked like a rainbow. The second because it showed the oldest of three daughters creating her own destiny instead of following the path chosen for her. I would definitely recommend checking out Byatt's short stories.
This book moved up my library list after I saw the trailer for the film ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ based on the title story. (It stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba!)
The first four stories are fairy tales ; sleeping beauties, dragons, princesses, quests, etc, some dark elements with magical writing that pulled me in from the start.
The title story is novella length and it’s main character, Gillian is a narratologist (she studies stories), middle aged, grown up children, and alone after her husband has left her. She is in Turkey for a conference and it’s a while before the djinn enters the tale. Many references to Arabian Nights (of course) but lots of other references to more modern writing and classics. There’s lots of dialogue as the djinn and Gillian discuss wishes and mortality, life and love, myth and reality. Very enjoyable (I hope the film is good).
The first four stories are fairy tales ; sleeping beauties, dragons, princesses, quests, etc, some dark elements with magical writing that pulled me in from the start.
The title story is novella length and it’s main character, Gillian is a narratologist (she studies stories), middle aged, grown up children, and alone after her husband has left her. She is in Turkey for a conference and it’s a while before the djinn enters the tale. Many references to Arabian Nights (of course) but lots of other references to more modern writing and classics. There’s lots of dialogue as the djinn and Gillian discuss wishes and mortality, life and love, myth and reality. Very enjoyable (I hope the film is good).
This volume has 5 stories: first 2 I didn't read anymore as they were inserted in Possession (and although I don't remember exactly how to grade them, I remember what they were about), a short story about the deeds of an elder sister from a family with 3 daughters, a short story about the breath of a dragon and a story occupying more than half of the volume (The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye).
The story from the title is amazingly good. It is only one story but it contains several other stories. Remember the Arabian Nights? Not only does this story have its structure somehow, but it also borrowed its charm. Our hero gets to make wishes in a modern world and they are granted. Her wishes are not for prosperity or happy forever-afters, but for solving issues that she has to deal with in the modern world. Byatt confronts old and modern with great literary ability, magic and real, Western ideas with Eastern ideas. She talks about fate and choice, about predestination and freedom, about the existence of uncanninness in our daily lives whether we accept it or not.
This last story is a modern fairy tale and in the meantime a thorough analysis of classic fairy tales. Byatt tries to make a sense of "happy-ever-afters" as modern man cannot stop at that anymore: that "happy-ever-after" is just a moment in time after which comes another:
Turkey as seen through Byatt's eyes is a land of magic: her descriptions of Topkapi and the Grand Bazaar, as well as the stories told to accompany random objects seen within, and the stories from the Djinn earlier releases from bottles he was imprisoned in contribute to create a wonderful realm where all stories come alive. I wish I had read this story first and then see Istanbul...maybe I would have seen it with different eyes!
If this story alone had made the whole volume of stories, I would have given it 5 stars, but it doesn't. So, I will only praise it in words and say that together with Stone Woman (a story from another volume written by Byatt) are way better than Possession (and I gave this one 5 stars). Hats off to Dame Byatt!
The story from the title is amazingly good. It is only one story but it contains several other stories. Remember the Arabian Nights? Not only does this story have its structure somehow, but it also borrowed its charm. Our hero gets to make wishes in a modern world and they are granted. Her wishes are not for prosperity or happy forever-afters, but for solving issues that she has to deal with in the modern world. Byatt confronts old and modern with great literary ability, magic and real, Western ideas with Eastern ideas. She talks about fate and choice, about predestination and freedom, about the existence of uncanninness in our daily lives whether we accept it or not.
The emotion we feel in fairy-tales when the characters are granted their wishes is a strange one. We feel the possible leap of freedom - I can have what I want - and the perverse certainty that this will change nothing; that Fate is fixed.
This last story is a modern fairy tale and in the meantime a thorough analysis of classic fairy tales. Byatt tries to make a sense of "happy-ever-afters" as modern man cannot stop at that anymore: that "happy-ever-after" is just a moment in time after which comes another:
In fairy tales, said Gilian, those wishes that are granted and are not malign, or twisted towards destruction, tend to lead to a condition of beautiful stasis, more like a work of art than the drama of Fate. It is as though the fortunate has stepped off the hard road into an unchanging landscape where it is always spring and no winds blow. Alladin's genie gives him a beautiful palace, and as long as this palace is subject to Fate, various magicians move it violently around the landscape, build it up and cause it to vanish. But at the end, it goes into stasis: into the pseudo-eternity of happy-ever-after. When we imagine happy-ever-after we imagine works of art: a family photograph on a sunny day, a Gainsborough lady and her children in an English meadow under a tree, an enchanted castle in a snowstorm of feather in a glass dome.
Turkey as seen through Byatt's eyes is a land of magic: her descriptions of Topkapi and the Grand Bazaar, as well as the stories told to accompany random objects seen within, and the stories from the Djinn earlier releases from bottles he was imprisoned in contribute to create a wonderful realm where all stories come alive. I wish I had read this story first and then see Istanbul...maybe I would have seen it with different eyes!
If this story alone had made the whole volume of stories, I would have given it 5 stars, but it doesn't. So, I will only praise it in words and say that together with Stone Woman (a story from another volume written by Byatt) are way better than Possession (and I gave this one 5 stars). Hats off to Dame Byatt!
Loved the four opening stories, but the first ~40 pages of the titular story were drab and almost made me stop reading. Once the background info is out of the way though, it's an easy read.
This is such a beautiful book. I love that it steps away from traditional fairy tales while at the same time embracing certain aspects of them to retell them in glorious new ways. Told in a wonderfully visual manner. I can't recommend these short stories, especially the last one, enough.
informative
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Great writing & interesting stories, however the layering of stories didn't have any cohestivity & made the book easy to put down