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manwithanagenda's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
In 'The Tale of Tales' Princess Zosa is cursed to marry only Tadeo, the Prince of Round-Field, who is enchanted to sleep forever unless a woman fills a pitcher with tears in three days. Zosa falls alseep before the end of the third day and the remainder of the vessel is filled by a Moorish slave girl who takes the Prince for her own.
In folk-tale fashion Zosa, with magical help, infects the now pregnant Queen with "a burning desire to hear tales". Fifty tales are to to be told over five days by ten sharp-tongued old women. Zosa plans to use these tales to show Tadeo his wife's treachery and win him for herself.
Giambattista Basile collected these folk tales in southern Italy in the early 17th century. Most of them are the earliest known versions of these tales, including 'Rapunzel', 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Puss in Boots'. While many of these stories ring familiar, they are overwhelmed with rape, greed, murder, theft and diarrhea. These stories make the original 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' look like a picnic, hot iron dancing shoes and all.
It took me over a year to finish this, mostly because the style of fairy tales can get monotonous and because this edition is loaded with academic and translator notes pointing out word play that didn't translate and unpicking the cultural references of 400 years ago. Most of the humor involves poop, but everything else needed explanation.
These is such a wealth of information here. The baroque court of Naples and thriving artistic community comes alive with the high use of metaphor - the sun and the moon are personified in at least sixty different ways, sweeping away stars, depositing daylight, etc. - and the reactions and commentary of the 'Tales' audience. The stories themselves reveal a complicated world where people live and die at the whims of royalty, and monsters are often your neighbors.
Reflecting a very specific place in the Europe of 400 years ago, there is no cultural sensitivity here. At most there is occasional sympathy given to the impoverished. From story to story families can forgive each other or murder each other without the moral being affected. A king will do many things to please his queen, murdering her to marry the next thing is acceptable. Ogres are Others and, even when they are helpful or completely justified in their anger, no one bats an eye at murdering them. Our villain, the Moorish slave girl turned Queen, is a loathsome caricature but the reader flinches when reading of her ultimate fate.
These are not for the faint of heart, but anyone interested in the evolution of the story in the European tradition or in cultural history should give these stories a go.
In folk-tale fashion Zosa, with magical help, infects the now pregnant Queen with "a burning desire to hear tales". Fifty tales are to to be told over five days by ten sharp-tongued old women. Zosa plans to use these tales to show Tadeo his wife's treachery and win him for herself.
Giambattista Basile collected these folk tales in southern Italy in the early 17th century. Most of them are the earliest known versions of these tales, including 'Rapunzel', 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Puss in Boots'. While many of these stories ring familiar, they are overwhelmed with rape, greed, murder, theft and diarrhea. These stories make the original 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' look like a picnic, hot iron dancing shoes and all.
It took me over a year to finish this, mostly because the style of fairy tales can get monotonous and because this edition is loaded with academic and translator notes pointing out word play that didn't translate and unpicking the cultural references of 400 years ago. Most of the humor involves poop, but everything else needed explanation.
These is such a wealth of information here. The baroque court of Naples and thriving artistic community comes alive with the high use of metaphor - the sun and the moon are personified in at least sixty different ways, sweeping away stars, depositing daylight, etc. - and the reactions and commentary of the 'Tales' audience. The stories themselves reveal a complicated world where people live and die at the whims of royalty, and monsters are often your neighbors.
Reflecting a very specific place in the Europe of 400 years ago, there is no cultural sensitivity here. At most there is occasional sympathy given to the impoverished. From story to story families can forgive each other or murder each other without the moral being affected. A king will do many things to please his queen, murdering her to marry the next thing is acceptable. Ogres are Others and, even when they are helpful or completely justified in their anger, no one bats an eye at murdering them. Our villain, the Moorish slave girl turned Queen, is a loathsome caricature but the reader flinches when reading of her ultimate fate.
These are not for the faint of heart, but anyone interested in the evolution of the story in the European tradition or in cultural history should give these stories a go.
doomkittiekhan's review against another edition
4.0
Whoa. Another side of the fairytale genre I was not familiar with. A fascinating read if you are interested in fairytales beyond the worlds of Lang, Andersen, and Grimm. Lots of giants that eat broccoli!
psychprofreads's review against another edition
4.0
"Dice ch'era na vota..."
And so begins these tales by one of the greatest -- if not THE greatest -- spinners of fairy tales the world over. Basile's genius, of course, is evidenced in his ability to take this form, so often assumed to be childish, and deliver it with profundity (even as the old hag lifts her skirt and shows us all the woodsy areas!)
Basile teaches the power of the fairy tale -- do not underestimate it -- for its complexity and delivery, as he ingeniously crafts them here, produce a heavy hitting force.
The edition I have -- Penguin Classic, 2007 -- was translated expertly by Nancy Canepa whose inclusion of detailed historical footnotes provides context and depth to this work.
Beyond all of this, I have learned so many creative new ways to insult people that I can't wait for the opportunity to make use of. ("You worthless thing, you dope, shithead, bed pisser, leaping goat, diaper ass, hangman's noose, bastard mule! Just look, even fleas can cough now! Go on, may paralysis seize you, may your mother get bad news, may you not live to see the first of May! May you be thrust by a Catalan lance or torn apart by ropes (so that no blood will be wasted), may you suffer a thousand ills and then some with winds in your sails! May your seed be lost! Scoundrel, beggar, son of a taxed woman, rogue!") Damn. Just damn.
And so begins these tales by one of the greatest -- if not THE greatest -- spinners of fairy tales the world over. Basile's genius, of course, is evidenced in his ability to take this form, so often assumed to be childish, and deliver it with profundity (even as the old hag lifts her skirt and shows us all the woodsy areas!)
Basile teaches the power of the fairy tale -- do not underestimate it -- for its complexity and delivery, as he ingeniously crafts them here, produce a heavy hitting force.
The edition I have -- Penguin Classic, 2007 -- was translated expertly by Nancy Canepa whose inclusion of detailed historical footnotes provides context and depth to this work.
Beyond all of this, I have learned so many creative new ways to insult people that I can't wait for the opportunity to make use of. ("You worthless thing, you dope, shithead, bed pisser, leaping goat, diaper ass, hangman's noose, bastard mule! Just look, even fleas can cough now! Go on, may paralysis seize you, may your mother get bad news, may you not live to see the first of May! May you be thrust by a Catalan lance or torn apart by ropes (so that no blood will be wasted), may you suffer a thousand ills and then some with winds in your sails! May your seed be lost! Scoundrel, beggar, son of a taxed woman, rogue!") Damn. Just damn.
imogenn's review
3.0
Really interesting to read all of these tales in one place - so many are very familiar (you'll find versions of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Cupid & Psyche etc.), others were completely new to me. I enjoyed the mixture of eastern and western influences, and the language, which is extravagantly metaphorical and also often quite bawdy. There's a fair bit of casual racism and antisemitism, though, which I found quite off-putting. Worth reading, although it's pretty long!
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