You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
My Recommendation: It was a quick read and it’s freely available to anyone who wants to read it (on Amazon, Open Media and Project Gutenberg). I’m glad I read the Lucy Crane translation with Walter Crane illustrations, it was fascinating to see what they focused on and how they chose to highlight the works.
My Response: I haven’t written about it yet, but I will in the near future, but I signed up for my first Coursera course! It is called Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World and so far I’m enjoying it. Household Stories was our first reading and looking at Goodreads, EVERYONE who reads the Lucy Crane/Wlater Crane version seems to have taken that same Coursera course! I’m seriously looking forward to the other books and stories we’ll read for the course and this was a great start.
What I found most interesting about the collection was the obsession with food and with fallen females. Every story was somehow related to food (needing food, wanting food, having too much food, etc.) or dealt with a female character (human or anthropomorphic) who caused troubles for other characters (the adulteress Mrs. Fox and the numerous wicked step-mothers among others).
Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.
My Response: I haven’t written about it yet, but I will in the near future, but I signed up for my first Coursera course! It is called Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World and so far I’m enjoying it. Household Stories was our first reading and looking at Goodreads, EVERYONE who reads the Lucy Crane/Wlater Crane version seems to have taken that same Coursera course! I’m seriously looking forward to the other books and stories we’ll read for the course and this was a great start.
What I found most interesting about the collection was the obsession with food and with fallen females. Every story was somehow related to food (needing food, wanting food, having too much food, etc.) or dealt with a female character (human or anthropomorphic) who caused troubles for other characters (the adulteress Mrs. Fox and the numerous wicked step-mothers among others).
Continue reading on my book blog at geoffwhaley.com.
The most important thing these tales can do is make you step out of the narrow monovision that fashion and news perpetuate as the only way to live. These tales are often random. They are completely open to magic, violence, unfairness, and heroism. They come from a time when people's lives were much simpler, but their minds were in some ways more complex. If you are a thinking person, these tales will make you laugh and wonder, and you will want to have them on hand to refer to again and again.
Grimm's tales are more grim than some adults may remember - with extravagant deaths and punishments. But, still very fun to read to kids, and talk about. I still remember reading this myself as a little one.
This collection of tales is world renowned and for good reason. The tales themselves read very much like an oral telling passed down through generations and the amount collected is impressive. However, the Grimm brothers realized that this was a very rough copy as they have edited and published many many more versions. I really wanted to read the original stories that were told to the Grimms before they infused much of their influence. That being said, there were quite a few stories that repeated one another, which makes sense as a collection of tales from around the country, but didn't make for a very fast paced or intriguing read. My biggest problems with this book probably could have been solved by reading the physical copy rather than listening to the audio version. I recognized/enjoyed some classics but was actually rather appalled by some of the lesser known stories. Most of the stories were fantastical and filled with extraordinary magic, but unfortunately laced with backwards ideas about general roles, class distinctions, and character that just hindered my appreciation.
dark
medium-paced
my becoming-a-genius project, part 15!
the background:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
in this case, i'm out of collected stories and really want to read some fairytales but this has 150 stories in it and i will NOT be reading the same book for 5 months so...5 stories a day it is. insert sunglasses emoji. i also won't be individually rating them, because they're like 3 sentences long.
PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
PROJECT 5: HOW LONG 'TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH? BY N.K. JEMISIN
PROJECT 6: THE SHORT STORIES OF OSCAR WILDE BY OSCAR WILDE
PROJECT 7: THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK BY ANDREW LANG
PROJECT 8: GRAND UNION: STORIES BY ZADIE SMITH
PROJECT 9: THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL BY ROALD DAHL
PROJECT 10: LOVE AND FREINDSHIP BY JANE AUSTEN
PROJECT 11: HOMESICK FOR ANOTHER WORLD BY OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
PROJECT 12: BAD FEMINIST BY ROXANE GAY
PROJECT 12.5: DIFFICULT WOMEN BY ROXANE GAY
PROJECT 13: THE SHORT NOVELS OF JOHN STEINBECK
PROJECT 14: FIRST PERSON SINGULAR BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
PROJECT 15: THE ORIGINAL FOLK AND FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM
STORY 1: THE FROG KING, OR IRON HENRY
personally i'd rather be called the frog king. sounds cooler.
2: THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE CAT AND MOUSE
ben and jerry!
wait. tom and jerry is the cat and mouse. ben and jerry is the ice cream. i am a fool.
3: THE VIRGIN MARY'S CHILD
the virgin mary plays a real rumpelstiltskin role in this one.
4: GOOD BOWLING AND CARD PLAYING
sounds like my kinda night!
minus what turns out to be a beating-cats-to-death part. can't win em all.
5: THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN KIDS
kids as in goats. what a twist.
6: THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE BLINDWORM
me standing next to my pretty friends.
just kidding. i'm pretty and i don't have friends :)
7: THE STOLEN PENNIES
ghost story!!!!!!!
8: THE HAND WITH THE KNIFE
gotta love the stories that are no moral, just suffering.
9: THE TWELVE BROTHERS
evil mother-in-law. a classic.
10: RIFFRAFF
great word.
11: LITTLE BROTHER AND LITTLE SISTER
so many kings hunting in so many forests and finding so many beautiful maidens to be dazzled by.
12: RAPUNZEL
in this version, the prince climbs up rapunzel's hair to get her pregnant.
more realistic.
13: THE THREE LITTLE MEN IN THE FOREST
this is almost exactly the same as little brother and little sister. and not just because they both have little in the title.
14: NASTY FLAX SPINNING
the moral of this story is that only ugly people should have to work.
15: HANSEL AND GRETEL
i know this gingerbread house is about to make me so hungry.
yuuuum. roof made of cake.
16: HERR FIX-IT-UP
this book is fond of the phrase "a thousand million," which makes me fond of it.
17: THE WHITE SNAKE
gotta love when back to back stories are exactly the same.
18: THE JOURNEY OF THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN
this one has an alternate ending to itself right in the text. life hack.
19: THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE
the first sentence of this includes both the phrase "once upon a time" and the equally beloved and oft-used "lived in a piss pot."
20: A STORY ABOUT A BRAVE TAILOR
a more straightforward title than "the brave little tailor."
it's the same, though, except it ends with "[The rest of this story is missing.]" another ending hack!
21: CINDERELLA
heavy hitter alert!
22: HOW SOME CHILDREN PLAYED AT SLAUGHTERING
there are 5 characters in this story and the body count of this story is 5.
23: THE LITTLE MOUSE, THE LITTLE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE
i've said it before and i'll say it again: tag yourself.
24: MOTHER HOLLE
this describes someone as "like the Cinderella of the house." meta.
25: THE THREE RAVENS
a lamer east of the sun, west of the moon.
26: LITTLE RED CAP
in this version the wolf is described as gobbling up the "fat chunks" of little red. disturbing in and of itself.
27: DEATH AND THE GOOSE BOY
so many chances to tag yourself, so little time.
28: THE SINGING BONE
why are any murders unsolved? just make the bones into mouthpieces for your instruments and they'll tell you what happened?
29: THE DEVIL WITH THE THREE GOLDEN HAIRS
gotta love when all the heroism is done by an uncredited woman.
30: LITTLE LOUSE AND LITTLE FLEA
read that as "louise" the first 3 times.
31: MAIDEN WITHOUT HANDS
pretty good album name.
32: CLEVER HANS
this ends by saying God protect us from geese. and it's right to say it.
33: PUSS IN BOOTS
shrek fans activate.
34: HANS'S TRINA
"Hans's Trina was lazy and didn't want to do any work." and who can blame her?
35: THE SPARROW AND HIS FOUR CHILDREN
this is about a group of birds who like...REALLY love god.
36: THE LITTLE MAGIC TABLE, THE GOLDEN DONKEY, AND THE CLUB IN THE SACK
what more do you need in this life?
37: THE TABLECLOTH, THE KNAPSACK, THE CANNON HAT, AND THE HORN
sensing a theme here...
38: MRS. FOX
fingers crossed she's fantastic.
39: THE ELVES
this is three stories, just about the kind of stuff that elves get up to.
40: THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM
this is about a princess who watches her grandmother's murder and then carries her chopped-off finger for 24 hours for threat reasons. it's good.
41: HERR KORBES
the classic story of a group of animals and inanimate objects who take a trip to visit some dude and then kill him because he was kinda late.
42: THE GODFATHER
coppola, explain!
43: THE STRANGE FEAST
this has: two sausages who are best friends; a violent sausage who is a "blood sausage"; the most important character referred to as "someone - I don't know who it was." a goddamn masterpiece.
44: GODFATHER DEATH
if you guessed that this would slightly more badass but deeply similar to the godfather, you'd be right.
45: THE WANDERING OF THUMBLING, THE TAILOR'S SON
thumbelina is cooler.
46: FITCHER'S BIRD
screaming that this bluebeard-type story contains the transition phrase "Back at his place,"
47: THE JUNIPER TREE
this is about a mom who gets so excited to have a baby that she spontaneously dies, and then a stepmother who accidentally kills said baby and then frames her kid for the murder, and dines on a soup made of the body and flavored by the tears of the framed killer.
48: OLD SULTAN
sultan is a dog's name. bet you didn't see that one coming.
49: THE SIX SWANS
if there's one thing fairytales love almost as much as kings finding hot girls in the woods, it's 6 brothers turning into birds.
50: BRIAR ROSE
classic check!
51: THE FOUNDLING
every story should end like this: "They were very happy, and if they haven't died, they're still alive."
52: KING THRUSHBEARD
i always think that women are right and men are wrong, and this story (in which the punishment for a girl making a joke about a man's chin is years of poverty, mockery, starvation, and suffering) only proves i'm right.
53: LITTLE SNOW WHITE
the first story i felt obligated to tweet about.
54: SIMPLE HANS
crazy how some things never change. like we still determine paternity by giving a kid a lemon and sending him to church and whoever he hands it to is his dad.
55: RUMPELSTILTSKIN
my favorite creepy little goblin creature <3
56: SWEETHEART ROLAND
maybe it's just me, but i think if a guy turns his girlfriend into a rock and forgets about her he shouldn't get to marry her.
57: THE GOLDEN BIRD
one single golden feather was worth more than this bozo's whole kingdom. sounds like a real sh*thole.
58: LOYAL GODFATHER SPARROW
gotta admire a story that's like 60% death threats.
59: PRINCE SWAN
this is #1 with a bullet in the Most Confusing rankings.
60: THE GOLDEN EGG
this is a "fragment," which is a nice way of saying it's short and doesn't have an ending.
61: THE TAILOR WHO SOON BECAME RICH
eat the tailor.
62: BLUEBEARD
bluebeard!!! i love this freak!
63: THE GOLDEN CHILDREN
turn your name into a fairytale title! just start with "THE GOLDEN" and put any word at all after that.
64: THE SIMPLETON
finally, some representation.
65: ALL FUR
"I am nothing and am good for nothing except for having boots thrown at my head."
new catchphrase alert.
66: HURLEBURLEBUTZ
if anyone's looking for name ideas.
67: THE KING WITH THE LION
if you're allowed to wish for anything you want, a pretty badass option is "11 clones."
68: THE SUMMER AND THE WINTER GARDEN
this is literally, exactly, top to bottom beauty and the beast.
69: JORINDA AND JORINGEL
we are rich in potential baby names.
70: OKERLO
i cannot do this one, which includes cannibals and screwball comedy and conveniently placed 7 mile boots that only walk 1 mile and hairdos made of butter, justice.
71: PRINCESS MOUSESKIN
the baby name jokes are too easy.
72: THE PEAR REFUSED TO FALL
this is...the worst song of all time.
73: THE CASTLE OF MURDER
if my new husband were going to move me into a place called "the castle of murder," i would simply refuse to go. no offense to this girl but i'm different.
74: JOHANNES WATERSPRING AND CASPAR WATERSPRING
gotta love a water feature-based immaculate conception.
75: THE BIRD PHOENIX
bit redundant.
76: THE CARNATION
the beautiful princess in this is named Lisa.
77: THE CARPENTER AND THE TURNER
suddenly i want to reread alice.
78: THE OLD GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON
a nice little tale of elder abuse.
79: THE WATER NIXIE
nixie goes to church!!!!!
i have been eagerly anticipating this since emma told me of it in the comments, and it lived up to my internal hype.
80: THE DEATH OF LITTLE HEN
this story is called the death of little hen, but in fact everyone who appears in this story dies.
81: THE BLACKSMITH AND THE DEVIL
if you suck so bad even hell doesn't want you, you can go to heaven.
82: THE THREE SISTERS
imagine having three daughters and managing to sell ALL of them into matrimony with a different wild animal.
83: THE POOR MAIDEN
if you give all your clothes away and live as a nudist you'll be rewarded in wealth.
84: THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
you probably love your mother in law
85: FRAGMENTS
aaaaand there's the anti-semitism.
86: THE FOX AND THE GEESE
"Then he laughed and said, 'Ho, I've come at just the right moment.'"
the background:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
in this case, i'm out of collected stories and really want to read some fairytales but this has 150 stories in it and i will NOT be reading the same book for 5 months so...5 stories a day it is. insert sunglasses emoji. i also won't be individually rating them, because they're like 3 sentences long.
PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
PROJECT 5: HOW LONG 'TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH? BY N.K. JEMISIN
PROJECT 6: THE SHORT STORIES OF OSCAR WILDE BY OSCAR WILDE
PROJECT 7: THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK BY ANDREW LANG
PROJECT 8: GRAND UNION: STORIES BY ZADIE SMITH
PROJECT 9: THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL BY ROALD DAHL
PROJECT 10: LOVE AND FREINDSHIP BY JANE AUSTEN
PROJECT 11: HOMESICK FOR ANOTHER WORLD BY OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
PROJECT 12: BAD FEMINIST BY ROXANE GAY
PROJECT 12.5: DIFFICULT WOMEN BY ROXANE GAY
PROJECT 13: THE SHORT NOVELS OF JOHN STEINBECK
PROJECT 14: FIRST PERSON SINGULAR BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
PROJECT 15: THE ORIGINAL FOLK AND FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM
STORY 1: THE FROG KING, OR IRON HENRY
personally i'd rather be called the frog king. sounds cooler.
2: THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE CAT AND MOUSE
ben and jerry!
wait. tom and jerry is the cat and mouse. ben and jerry is the ice cream. i am a fool.
3: THE VIRGIN MARY'S CHILD
the virgin mary plays a real rumpelstiltskin role in this one.
4: GOOD BOWLING AND CARD PLAYING
sounds like my kinda night!
minus what turns out to be a beating-cats-to-death part. can't win em all.
5: THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN KIDS
kids as in goats. what a twist.
6: THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE BLINDWORM
me standing next to my pretty friends.
just kidding. i'm pretty and i don't have friends :)
7: THE STOLEN PENNIES
ghost story!!!!!!!
8: THE HAND WITH THE KNIFE
gotta love the stories that are no moral, just suffering.
9: THE TWELVE BROTHERS
evil mother-in-law. a classic.
10: RIFFRAFF
great word.
11: LITTLE BROTHER AND LITTLE SISTER
so many kings hunting in so many forests and finding so many beautiful maidens to be dazzled by.
12: RAPUNZEL
in this version, the prince climbs up rapunzel's hair to get her pregnant.
more realistic.
13: THE THREE LITTLE MEN IN THE FOREST
this is almost exactly the same as little brother and little sister. and not just because they both have little in the title.
14: NASTY FLAX SPINNING
the moral of this story is that only ugly people should have to work.
15: HANSEL AND GRETEL
i know this gingerbread house is about to make me so hungry.
yuuuum. roof made of cake.
16: HERR FIX-IT-UP
this book is fond of the phrase "a thousand million," which makes me fond of it.
17: THE WHITE SNAKE
gotta love when back to back stories are exactly the same.
18: THE JOURNEY OF THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN
this one has an alternate ending to itself right in the text. life hack.
19: THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE
the first sentence of this includes both the phrase "once upon a time" and the equally beloved and oft-used "lived in a piss pot."
20: A STORY ABOUT A BRAVE TAILOR
a more straightforward title than "the brave little tailor."
it's the same, though, except it ends with "[The rest of this story is missing.]" another ending hack!
21: CINDERELLA
heavy hitter alert!
22: HOW SOME CHILDREN PLAYED AT SLAUGHTERING
there are 5 characters in this story and the body count of this story is 5.
23: THE LITTLE MOUSE, THE LITTLE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE
i've said it before and i'll say it again: tag yourself.
24: MOTHER HOLLE
this describes someone as "like the Cinderella of the house." meta.
25: THE THREE RAVENS
a lamer east of the sun, west of the moon.
26: LITTLE RED CAP
in this version the wolf is described as gobbling up the "fat chunks" of little red. disturbing in and of itself.
27: DEATH AND THE GOOSE BOY
so many chances to tag yourself, so little time.
28: THE SINGING BONE
why are any murders unsolved? just make the bones into mouthpieces for your instruments and they'll tell you what happened?
29: THE DEVIL WITH THE THREE GOLDEN HAIRS
gotta love when all the heroism is done by an uncredited woman.
30: LITTLE LOUSE AND LITTLE FLEA
read that as "louise" the first 3 times.
31: MAIDEN WITHOUT HANDS
pretty good album name.
32: CLEVER HANS
this ends by saying God protect us from geese. and it's right to say it.
33: PUSS IN BOOTS
shrek fans activate.
34: HANS'S TRINA
"Hans's Trina was lazy and didn't want to do any work." and who can blame her?
35: THE SPARROW AND HIS FOUR CHILDREN
this is about a group of birds who like...REALLY love god.
36: THE LITTLE MAGIC TABLE, THE GOLDEN DONKEY, AND THE CLUB IN THE SACK
what more do you need in this life?
37: THE TABLECLOTH, THE KNAPSACK, THE CANNON HAT, AND THE HORN
sensing a theme here...
38: MRS. FOX
fingers crossed she's fantastic.
39: THE ELVES
this is three stories, just about the kind of stuff that elves get up to.
40: THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM
this is about a princess who watches her grandmother's murder and then carries her chopped-off finger for 24 hours for threat reasons. it's good.
41: HERR KORBES
the classic story of a group of animals and inanimate objects who take a trip to visit some dude and then kill him because he was kinda late.
42: THE GODFATHER
coppola, explain!
43: THE STRANGE FEAST
this has: two sausages who are best friends; a violent sausage who is a "blood sausage"; the most important character referred to as "someone - I don't know who it was." a goddamn masterpiece.
44: GODFATHER DEATH
if you guessed that this would slightly more badass but deeply similar to the godfather, you'd be right.
45: THE WANDERING OF THUMBLING, THE TAILOR'S SON
thumbelina is cooler.
46: FITCHER'S BIRD
screaming that this bluebeard-type story contains the transition phrase "Back at his place,"
47: THE JUNIPER TREE
this is about a mom who gets so excited to have a baby that she spontaneously dies, and then a stepmother who accidentally kills said baby and then frames her kid for the murder, and dines on a soup made of the body and flavored by the tears of the framed killer.
48: OLD SULTAN
sultan is a dog's name. bet you didn't see that one coming.
49: THE SIX SWANS
if there's one thing fairytales love almost as much as kings finding hot girls in the woods, it's 6 brothers turning into birds.
50: BRIAR ROSE
classic check!
51: THE FOUNDLING
every story should end like this: "They were very happy, and if they haven't died, they're still alive."
52: KING THRUSHBEARD
i always think that women are right and men are wrong, and this story (in which the punishment for a girl making a joke about a man's chin is years of poverty, mockery, starvation, and suffering) only proves i'm right.
53: LITTLE SNOW WHITE
the first story i felt obligated to tweet about.
54: SIMPLE HANS
crazy how some things never change. like we still determine paternity by giving a kid a lemon and sending him to church and whoever he hands it to is his dad.
55: RUMPELSTILTSKIN
my favorite creepy little goblin creature <3
56: SWEETHEART ROLAND
maybe it's just me, but i think if a guy turns his girlfriend into a rock and forgets about her he shouldn't get to marry her.
57: THE GOLDEN BIRD
one single golden feather was worth more than this bozo's whole kingdom. sounds like a real sh*thole.
58: LOYAL GODFATHER SPARROW
gotta admire a story that's like 60% death threats.
59: PRINCE SWAN
this is #1 with a bullet in the Most Confusing rankings.
60: THE GOLDEN EGG
this is a "fragment," which is a nice way of saying it's short and doesn't have an ending.
61: THE TAILOR WHO SOON BECAME RICH
eat the tailor.
62: BLUEBEARD
bluebeard!!! i love this freak!
63: THE GOLDEN CHILDREN
turn your name into a fairytale title! just start with "THE GOLDEN" and put any word at all after that.
64: THE SIMPLETON
finally, some representation.
65: ALL FUR
"I am nothing and am good for nothing except for having boots thrown at my head."
new catchphrase alert.
66: HURLEBURLEBUTZ
if anyone's looking for name ideas.
67: THE KING WITH THE LION
if you're allowed to wish for anything you want, a pretty badass option is "11 clones."
68: THE SUMMER AND THE WINTER GARDEN
this is literally, exactly, top to bottom beauty and the beast.
69: JORINDA AND JORINGEL
we are rich in potential baby names.
70: OKERLO
i cannot do this one, which includes cannibals and screwball comedy and conveniently placed 7 mile boots that only walk 1 mile and hairdos made of butter, justice.
71: PRINCESS MOUSESKIN
the baby name jokes are too easy.
72: THE PEAR REFUSED TO FALL
this is...the worst song of all time.
73: THE CASTLE OF MURDER
if my new husband were going to move me into a place called "the castle of murder," i would simply refuse to go. no offense to this girl but i'm different.
74: JOHANNES WATERSPRING AND CASPAR WATERSPRING
gotta love a water feature-based immaculate conception.
75: THE BIRD PHOENIX
bit redundant.
76: THE CARNATION
the beautiful princess in this is named Lisa.
77: THE CARPENTER AND THE TURNER
suddenly i want to reread alice.
78: THE OLD GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON
a nice little tale of elder abuse.
79: THE WATER NIXIE
nixie goes to church!!!!!
i have been eagerly anticipating this since emma told me of it in the comments, and it lived up to my internal hype.
80: THE DEATH OF LITTLE HEN
this story is called the death of little hen, but in fact everyone who appears in this story dies.
81: THE BLACKSMITH AND THE DEVIL
if you suck so bad even hell doesn't want you, you can go to heaven.
82: THE THREE SISTERS
imagine having three daughters and managing to sell ALL of them into matrimony with a different wild animal.
83: THE POOR MAIDEN
if you give all your clothes away and live as a nudist you'll be rewarded in wealth.
84: THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
you probably love your mother in law
85: FRAGMENTS
aaaaand there's the anti-semitism.
86: THE FOX AND THE GEESE
"Then he laughed and said, 'Ho, I've come at just the right moment.'"
Sometimes, you just have to hand it to people based on sheer innovation alone.
For example, the buttered popcorn jellybean may be disgusting on a level previously undiscovered by man, bringing together an unholy combination of unexpected texture and profoundly unpleasant taste in a way that should be reserved solely for punishing our society’s most reprehensible criminals, but don’t you have to acknowledge the sheer evil genius of those whimsical folks at the Jelly Belly corporation for making history?
Same goes for this book, which manages to make some of the most fantastic tales of all time straight-up boring.
This is hands down the worst and most tragic translation of the Grimm tales I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of those glorified gentrifiers.
Where is the SPARK. Where is the FUN. Where is the OVERWROUGHT LANGUAGE and the REPETITIVE DESCRIPTIONS OF PRETTY GIRLS and the ADVENTURE.
This book sucks, but you kind of have to give it props just for managing to take something like “guy who doesn’t know what fear is gets up to hilarious hijinks in a haunted house and is handed a princess for it” or “girl highkey needs to get laid and so she accidentally discovers her husband is a bear and then it’s like oh sh*t we have to save this guy from the world’s ugliest woman”...and making it boring.
It is so unimpressive that it actually comes full circle and is impressive again.
Bottom line: Read literally any volume of fairy tales other than this one.
-------------
the brothers grimm want what andrew lang has!!!
review to come / 2 stars
-------------
going to be offline for a couple days. i'm trying to learn how to shudder and this king guy said if i stay in a haunted castle for three nights i can marry his daughter
For example, the buttered popcorn jellybean may be disgusting on a level previously undiscovered by man, bringing together an unholy combination of unexpected texture and profoundly unpleasant taste in a way that should be reserved solely for punishing our society’s most reprehensible criminals, but don’t you have to acknowledge the sheer evil genius of those whimsical folks at the Jelly Belly corporation for making history?
Same goes for this book, which manages to make some of the most fantastic tales of all time straight-up boring.
This is hands down the worst and most tragic translation of the Grimm tales I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of those glorified gentrifiers.
Where is the SPARK. Where is the FUN. Where is the OVERWROUGHT LANGUAGE and the REPETITIVE DESCRIPTIONS OF PRETTY GIRLS and the ADVENTURE.
This book sucks, but you kind of have to give it props just for managing to take something like “guy who doesn’t know what fear is gets up to hilarious hijinks in a haunted house and is handed a princess for it” or “girl highkey needs to get laid and so she accidentally discovers her husband is a bear and then it’s like oh sh*t we have to save this guy from the world’s ugliest woman”...and making it boring.
It is so unimpressive that it actually comes full circle and is impressive again.
Bottom line: Read literally any volume of fairy tales other than this one.
-------------
the brothers grimm want what andrew lang has!!!
review to come / 2 stars
-------------
going to be offline for a couple days. i'm trying to learn how to shudder and this king guy said if i stay in a haunted castle for three nights i can marry his daughter
The fairy tales were boring or just didn't make sense. The writing (may be due to translation) was not very interesting
So dang weird!
Hundreds (or more, sure felt like it) stories. Many that sound eerily familiar, like every Disney movie ever.
The majority of stories went the same way. -This person did the opposite of what they were told and then died. An animal went where they shouldn’t have gone and then tragically fell down dead. An inanimate object was in the wrong place at the wrong time but lived until the day it died. The end.- Despite so much death, I was still entertained. I would laugh or wtf out loud often.
What the bunnies and I learned is: If you want to live happily ever after just be nice to every dwarf you see and don’t ever hurt an animal. Unless it ate your grandma.
Hundreds (or more, sure felt like it) stories. Many that sound eerily familiar, like every Disney movie ever.
The majority of stories went the same way. -This person did the opposite of what they were told and then died. An animal went where they shouldn’t have gone and then tragically fell down dead. An inanimate object was in the wrong place at the wrong time but lived until the day it died. The end.- Despite so much death, I was still entertained. I would laugh or wtf out loud often.
What the bunnies and I learned is: If you want to live happily ever after just be nice to every dwarf you see and don’t ever hurt an animal. Unless it ate your grandma.