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asiegel 's review for:
A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
by Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham uses the most beautiful language and imagery in this retelling of fairytales. Each of his stories are less a linear tale or journey than a story of what the characters felt during these stories. It is almost a series of instructions on how to live life, or an observance of how lives are usually lived: we do not go through life looking at it like a story, we go looking at it with every range of emotion. Cunningham has captured this way of living in each story.
I will say some retellings were unexpected. The one that caught my attention most was his retelling of Beauty and the Beast, titled "Beasts". In this we find that the human form of the beast is more terrifying than the beast itself. I find that an extremely insightful look into human psychology. For Beauty, the tame life is no life for her, and she finds herself more wanted when she is with the beast. But when the beast sheds his skin, he sheds his decency and his caution, and it is implied that Beauty has gone from the safe to the completely unsafe version of her world. There is no saying which is the better world, there is only that she has gone from one to the other. And, like most transcendences, there is little chance of turning back.
I will say some retellings were unexpected. The one that caught my attention most was his retelling of Beauty and the Beast, titled "Beasts". In this we find that the human form of the beast is more terrifying than the beast itself. I find that an extremely insightful look into human psychology. For Beauty, the tame life is no life for her, and she finds herself more wanted when she is with the beast. But when the beast sheds his skin, he sheds his decency and his caution, and it is implied that Beauty has gone from the safe to the completely unsafe version of her world. There is no saying which is the better world, there is only that she has gone from one to the other. And, like most transcendences, there is little chance of turning back.