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A review by aoutramafalda
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye: Five Fairy Stories by A.S. Byatt
4.5
The Glass Coffin - 3.5*
Gode's Story - 3*
The Story of the Eldest Princess - 5*
Dragon's Breath - 4.5*
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye - 4*
The Story of the Eldest Princess
"'You are a born storyteller,' said the old lady. 'You had the sense to see you were caught in a story, and the sense to see that you could change it to another one. And the special wisdom to recognize that you are under a curse - which is also a blessing - which makes the story more interesting to you than the things that make it up.'"
"'But you listened to the Cockroach and stepped aside and came here, where we collect stories and spin stories and mend what we can and investigate what we can't, ad live quietly without striving to change the world. We have no story of our own here, we are free, as old women are free, who don't have to worry about princes or kingdoms, but dance alone and take an interest in the creatures.'"
Dragon's Breath
"The villagers' life in the forest became monotonous, boring even, since boredom is possible for human beings in patches of tedium between exertion and terror."
"And these tales, made from those people's wonder at their own survival, become in time, charms against boredom for their children and grandchildren, riddling hints of the true relations between peace and beauty and terror."
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye
"there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy."
"She was a merely a narratologis, a being of secondary order, whose days were spent hunched in great libraries scrying, interpreting, decoding the fairy-tales of childhood (...)."
"A live match was live, was a story in progress towards an end which had not yet come but which must, almost certainly come. And in the fact of the almost was the delight."
Gode's Story - 3*
The Story of the Eldest Princess - 5*
Dragon's Breath - 4.5*
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye - 4*
The Story of the Eldest Princess
"'You are a born storyteller,' said the old lady. 'You had the sense to see you were caught in a story, and the sense to see that you could change it to another one. And the special wisdom to recognize that you are under a curse - which is also a blessing - which makes the story more interesting to you than the things that make it up.'"
"'But you listened to the Cockroach and stepped aside and came here, where we collect stories and spin stories and mend what we can and investigate what we can't, ad live quietly without striving to change the world. We have no story of our own here, we are free, as old women are free, who don't have to worry about princes or kingdoms, but dance alone and take an interest in the creatures.'"
Dragon's Breath
"The villagers' life in the forest became monotonous, boring even, since boredom is possible for human beings in patches of tedium between exertion and terror."
"And these tales, made from those people's wonder at their own survival, become in time, charms against boredom for their children and grandchildren, riddling hints of the true relations between peace and beauty and terror."
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye
"there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy."
"She was a merely a narratologis, a being of secondary order, whose days were spent hunched in great libraries scrying, interpreting, decoding the fairy-tales of childhood (...)."
"A live match was live, was a story in progress towards an end which had not yet come but which must, almost certainly come. And in the fact of the almost was the delight."