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oneoflifeslollopers 's review for:
Grimm Tales: For Young and Old
by Philip Pullman
All we need is the word “Once…” and we’re off:
Almost everyone in the Western world grew up with tales like Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderellaand Hansel and Gretel and know that whatever watered down version of it they’ve heard, be it Disney or a picture book, is based on Grimm’s collection of Fairy Tales.
I’ve never read the original tales and I had certainly never heard of most of the ones written in Grimm Tales. In that sense, it was really interesting to dive into them and finally know what the big deal is, and I was especially intrigued by the concept of them being rewritten or annotated by Philip Pullman.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of short stories and while I found these tales interesting, it’s still hard to get used to a format where a story only takes a few pages and is often not as fleshed out or as developed as they could/should be (which Pullman himself says many times). It took me a lot longer than I was expecting to read this book because I found myself needing to stop after each story to “cleanse my palette” as such, before I could begin the next one.
Growing up, I’d believed, based on the fairy tales I’d heard, that they were all lectures on morality to teach kids not to steal, avoid mean old ladies and not talk to strangers. I was really surprised to discover then that the first quarter of the stories had no moral lesson whatsoever, in fact the bad guy, be they a thief, murderer, liar, trickster or gambler, always came out on top.
From Pullman’s notes: His (Charles Perrault) version differs from Grimm mainly in that it ends with the wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood. There is no rescue by a brave huntsman; instead, a moralistic verse warns that not all wolves are wild – some of them are smooth – talking seducers.
I was also really surprised by the number of stories that required beheading your children or wife in order to return someone to their human form. I mean, normally when a bird comes up to me and says “If you behead all three of your children, your wife will come back” I’m not taking the word of a bird who by all accounts should not even be talking. I’d atleast be asking a few follow up questions “How do you know? Are you secretly an evil witch? Are you really my wife that got transformed into a bird without my knowing?” Step mothers also have a horrible reputation; there is not a single one who does not plot to have the step children murdered and they’re not even that nice to the husbands either.
It’s hard for a storyteller to make an attractive character out of a meek and docile victim who doesn’t argue or fight back once; but then, this isn’t a novel.
The most interesting part for me was Pullmans interpretations and notes on the stories. It was fascinating to see how different countries had developed very similar stories – there were often similar Italian fables for instance – and how the stories had evolved over time. I liked seeing the parts that he’d changed, and more importantly why he felt they needed changing, and the parts that he would have liked to change to make for better storytelling.
I’m fond of this tale (The Musicians of Bremen) because of the simplicity and power of its form. When a tale is shaped so well that the line of the narrative seems to have been able to take no other path, and to have touched every important event in making for its end, one can only bow with respect for the teller.
Almost everyone in the Western world grew up with tales like Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderellaand Hansel and Gretel and know that whatever watered down version of it they’ve heard, be it Disney or a picture book, is based on Grimm’s collection of Fairy Tales.
I’ve never read the original tales and I had certainly never heard of most of the ones written in Grimm Tales. In that sense, it was really interesting to dive into them and finally know what the big deal is, and I was especially intrigued by the concept of them being rewritten or annotated by Philip Pullman.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of short stories and while I found these tales interesting, it’s still hard to get used to a format where a story only takes a few pages and is often not as fleshed out or as developed as they could/should be (which Pullman himself says many times). It took me a lot longer than I was expecting to read this book because I found myself needing to stop after each story to “cleanse my palette” as such, before I could begin the next one.
Growing up, I’d believed, based on the fairy tales I’d heard, that they were all lectures on morality to teach kids not to steal, avoid mean old ladies and not talk to strangers. I was really surprised to discover then that the first quarter of the stories had no moral lesson whatsoever, in fact the bad guy, be they a thief, murderer, liar, trickster or gambler, always came out on top.
From Pullman’s notes: His (Charles Perrault) version differs from Grimm mainly in that it ends with the wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood. There is no rescue by a brave huntsman; instead, a moralistic verse warns that not all wolves are wild – some of them are smooth – talking seducers.
I was also really surprised by the number of stories that required beheading your children or wife in order to return someone to their human form. I mean, normally when a bird comes up to me and says “If you behead all three of your children, your wife will come back” I’m not taking the word of a bird who by all accounts should not even be talking. I’d atleast be asking a few follow up questions “How do you know? Are you secretly an evil witch? Are you really my wife that got transformed into a bird without my knowing?” Step mothers also have a horrible reputation; there is not a single one who does not plot to have the step children murdered and they’re not even that nice to the husbands either.
It’s hard for a storyteller to make an attractive character out of a meek and docile victim who doesn’t argue or fight back once; but then, this isn’t a novel.
The most interesting part for me was Pullmans interpretations and notes on the stories. It was fascinating to see how different countries had developed very similar stories – there were often similar Italian fables for instance – and how the stories had evolved over time. I liked seeing the parts that he’d changed, and more importantly why he felt they needed changing, and the parts that he would have liked to change to make for better storytelling.
I’m fond of this tale (The Musicians of Bremen) because of the simplicity and power of its form. When a tale is shaped so well that the line of the narrative seems to have been able to take no other path, and to have touched every important event in making for its end, one can only bow with respect for the teller.