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A review by bernicillin
The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales by Vasily Eroshenko
dark
informative
Many thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I've always been fond of fairy tales, especially those that stray from the Western canon to surface the anxieties and the joys of other cultures. Browsing for a collection to satisfy this particular inclination, Eroshenko's The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales stood out, despite the author being relatively unknown to me at the time, because it boasted of East Asian stories from a Ukrainian writer. The conflation intrigued me. I went into it knowing nothing but the bare bones of what I was getting into, and didn't even think to try and make sense of how I was going to engage with it.
Vasily Eroshenko (or Vasyl Yeroshenko, the introduction kindly supplies, as it is pronounced in Ukrainian) was a colorful figure: left blind after a childhood illness, proponent of Esperanto, at turns beloved and turned away by the countries he'd called home for being too much or too little of a political darling. His writing is infused with the life he lived, his politics coded into dialogue. This collection of fairy tales, translated by Adam Kuplowsky, are rich with his views on disability, society, and humanity. The first, in particular, is an unforgiving lens: he is all too aware of how humans are capable of such cruelty, both to each other and to the world we live in. That is to say, most—if not all—of these stories lean heavy, the way fairy tales do. Props must be given to Kuplowsky, whose translation retains not only the rhythm and the cadence of a fairy tale but also its distinct Asian-ness. (A caveat: I'm only slightly more familiar with Japanese literature, which the first half of this collection focuses on, and can only speak to that specific narrative accent. Levels of translation exist here, but I do feel that the translator has more or less remained loyal to the spirit of the work.) These are easy to read at a technical level, which seems intentional: in the introduction, the form is an ideological apparatus, meant for children new to the workings of the world.
In particular, I was drawn to how Eroshenko writes of disability in this fairy tale universe. Stories like "The Paper Lantern," "Little Pine," and, "For the Sake of Mankind"—though they vary in tone—testify to how the world treats people living with disabilities. From the lack of accessibility at a systemic level, to the way they are treated as something less than human, these stories, told in this way, are a biting critique of things we—as able-bodied folk—take for granted.
The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales, a collection translated to English for the first time, is a very strong work, both as a work of translation, but also in general. At the most basic level, its stories are entertaining and thought-provoking. It has heart. It works for children and adults alike. In that sense alone, it has succeeded in bringing Eroshenko to greater readership and public debate.
As a personal aside, I do think that some stories work better than others. For example, "For the Sake of Mankind" (mentioned above) and "The Death of the Canary" have stayed with me since I read them. The inclusion of "Easter," too, was a very welcome addition. The others, I checked off the reading list and not thought of since. I recognize this is my own personal taste, but that said, this isn't a collection that everyone will get into, despite any overarching interest in fairy tales. This is better recommended to those with more of a general interest in broadening their reading. My rating, then, is more a reflection of the strength of the collection as a whole, including all supplementary texts and the translation work.
I've always been fond of fairy tales, especially those that stray from the Western canon to surface the anxieties and the joys of other cultures. Browsing for a collection to satisfy this particular inclination, Eroshenko's The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales stood out, despite the author being relatively unknown to me at the time, because it boasted of East Asian stories from a Ukrainian writer. The conflation intrigued me. I went into it knowing nothing but the bare bones of what I was getting into, and didn't even think to try and make sense of how I was going to engage with it.
Vasily Eroshenko (or Vasyl Yeroshenko, the introduction kindly supplies, as it is pronounced in Ukrainian) was a colorful figure: left blind after a childhood illness, proponent of Esperanto, at turns beloved and turned away by the countries he'd called home for being too much or too little of a political darling. His writing is infused with the life he lived, his politics coded into dialogue. This collection of fairy tales, translated by Adam Kuplowsky, are rich with his views on disability, society, and humanity. The first, in particular, is an unforgiving lens: he is all too aware of how humans are capable of such cruelty, both to each other and to the world we live in. That is to say, most—if not all—of these stories lean heavy, the way fairy tales do. Props must be given to Kuplowsky, whose translation retains not only the rhythm and the cadence of a fairy tale but also its distinct Asian-ness. (A caveat: I'm only slightly more familiar with Japanese literature, which the first half of this collection focuses on, and can only speak to that specific narrative accent. Levels of translation exist here, but I do feel that the translator has more or less remained loyal to the spirit of the work.) These are easy to read at a technical level, which seems intentional: in the introduction, the form is an ideological apparatus, meant for children new to the workings of the world.
In particular, I was drawn to how Eroshenko writes of disability in this fairy tale universe. Stories like "The Paper Lantern," "Little Pine," and, "For the Sake of Mankind"—though they vary in tone—testify to how the world treats people living with disabilities. From the lack of accessibility at a systemic level, to the way they are treated as something less than human, these stories, told in this way, are a biting critique of things we—as able-bodied folk—take for granted.
The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales, a collection translated to English for the first time, is a very strong work, both as a work of translation, but also in general. At the most basic level, its stories are entertaining and thought-provoking. It has heart. It works for children and adults alike. In that sense alone, it has succeeded in bringing Eroshenko to greater readership and public debate.
As a personal aside, I do think that some stories work better than others. For example, "For the Sake of Mankind" (mentioned above) and "The Death of the Canary" have stayed with me since I read them. The inclusion of "Easter," too, was a very welcome addition. The others, I checked off the reading list and not thought of since. I recognize this is my own personal taste, but that said, this isn't a collection that everyone will get into, despite any overarching interest in fairy tales. This is better recommended to those with more of a general interest in broadening their reading. My rating, then, is more a reflection of the strength of the collection as a whole, including all supplementary texts and the translation work.