| American Fairy Tales |
[Feb. 27th, 2007|12:09 pm] |
American Fairy Tales: From Rip Van Winkle to the Rootabaga Stories (ed. by Neil Philip)
This is a collection of a century's worth of American fairy tales, from 1819 to about 1923, arranged in a rough chronological order. It examines a subgenre, the existence of which many people would deny for a long time. And yet here they are, original fairy tales by American writers, which use American themes, settings, and terminology.
I love this. This is necessary. Some of the tales are interesting in and of themselves, some have new themes and conflicts, and some use traditional European themes but adapt them to the new land. Translatio is always important, in any age and place.
Spoilers and random commentary ahead.
1. Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
This is the most famous one of them all.
A young slacker, Rip Van Winkle, who is generally friendly and helpful but does not get much work done (on his own farm), is driven one day out of his house by his wife, and spends the night in the forest. (Henry Hudson and his dwarves were involved, and drinking. Do not drink with dwarves!) The next day, he wakes up to find that 20 years has passed while he was asleep, and that he has been transformed into an old slacker. He makes his way down to the village, and after initial confusion, finds his place in life.
Moral of the story: Matrimony is evil? No, Mr. Irving. How about - Do not marry a harridan that is wholly incompatible with your personality and ambition in life so that she makes your life hell.
Also: Your children are a form of limited immortality. And even if you wake up one morning to find that 20 (or 200, or 500) years have passed since last night, do not despair. Human nature remains essentially the same, and you'll probably be able to find a niche for yourself even after The Technological Singularity and Robot UprisingThe American Revolution. (c.f. also Fry in Futurama).
2. Feathertop by Nathaniel Hawthorne (famous for The Scarlet Letter and The House Of Seven Gables). This tale was later dramatized, in 1908, into The Scarecrow by Percy MacKaye, then later made into an opera, and even later, an animated movie by the Warner Bros.
A scarecrow is animated into life by a proper (Pratchett would have been proud) New England witch, with the help of her eldritch tobacco pipe inscribed with prancing demons and fired by little tiny coals from Hell (incidentally, I want one of those), on which he must constantly keep puffing or else disassemble. And not just brought to life -- a serious glamour is put onto him, to make him appear a fabulous and worldly gentleman. This scarecrow, named Feathertop, is then sent off into the world, to find a girl for himself (hey, his life is short. Might as well skip to the important bit) -- more specifically, to find Miss Polly Gookin, daughter of a corrupt judge in a neighboring town. The judge gives in despite trepidations, and the flighty Polly is completely enchanted with this handsome and rich stranger, and all seems well in romance land (remember the pipe? That would have made for some amazing sex scenes and married life in general, because Feathertop can never stop smoking, day or night), when a disaster occurs.
I loved the language and the characters, in this one. Hawthorne is not famous for nothing.
Moral of the story: Some judges are corrupt, and you can use their shady pasts to blackmail them. But not for money or influence (in this particular case) or anything like that, no, when you're a proper Witch, you do it for your own cackling amusement -- you blackmail them into giving their daughter to the straw golem you whipped up on a whim. Because you have style like that. Also, if you are a demonically animated but kind-hearted construct made of sticks, straw and old clothes, do NOT look into mirrors lest they reveal you for the ensorcelled illusory thing you are and make you lose all hope in yourself. Similarly, do not let your beloved see you in said mirror. Just avoid mirrors alltogether.
3. The Rich Man's House by Horace E. Scudder (an editor and "man of letters". Admirer and pen-pal of Hans Christian Andersen).
A rich man is obsessed with tricking out his house, so he adds statues, fountains, sculptured trees and bushes, knicknacks from his travels abroad, and other house-bling. He then invites everybody to a grand party at his house (the better to appreciate it, in its new and improved state), and there's music and fireworks. Everybody is impressed. A pair of lovers, making out in the bushes, is unimpressed. Two chickens are extremely impressed, but a passing crane snubs them and points out that he's seen better. The End.
Moral of the story: ... You got me, here. I don't actually know what the moral is; Scudder's closeness to, and admiration for, H.C. Andersen is telling -- this reminded me very much of an Andersen tale. But with even less plot, and not even a heavy-handed moral at the end. Unless it's something like... don't be provincial in your admiration? Because there are worldly storks out there who will sneer at you?
4. What They Did Not Do On The Birthday Of Jacob Abbott B., familiarly called "Snibbuggledyboozledom", by M.S.B.
A very brief description of all the ways in which a city did not celebrate the birthday of a little boy called Snibbuggledyboozledom (that is, almost nobody in the city knew or noticed).
Great title.
Moral of the story: That Americans can write proper Nonsense stories as well as the English. (So said the afterword to the story). Also, that writing anonymously (e.g. under the pseudonym M.S.B.) in children's magazines so that nobody discovers who you are, rules.
5. The Bee-Man of Orn by Frank Richard Stockton (a writer of "Modern Tales about Modern Fairies". He is most famous for his short story The Lady or the Tiger from a collection of the same name, also wrote The Floating Prince & Other Fairy Tales).
An apprentice sorcerer discovers an old bee-keeper in the forest (either self-sufficient and content, or poor and friendless, depending on how you look at it), and becomes convinced that the old man was somehow transformed from what he was. Both beekeeper and sorcerer decide to redress this -- it's eventually found out that he's been transformed into an old man from... a baby. He is ensorcelled back to this original state, but grows up to be the same beekeeper anyways.
Moral of the story: Nature, not nurture. If you want to change how your life turned out, it is not enough to reset your life to infanthood and have the kind woman whom you just saved raise you as her own child. If you're genetically predisposed to grow up to be an antisocial poverty-ridden beekeeper, you'll turn out exactly the same the second time around. Consider radical gene therapy instead.
Also, if you are seriously low on energy (depressed, suffer from mono, general malaise in life), consider seeking treatment by going down into a labyrinthine cave full of hideous monsters. It worked for the Languid Youth in this story, and it might work for you!
6. The Apple of Contentment by Howard Pyle (famous for The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood).
A thoroughly American Cinderella story, where our girl uses clever and hard-headed bargaining tactics on a fairy in distress, and excellent Copyright Protection, to score a magical apple tree that everybody in the world wants, but only she can pick apples from. With a bit of faith and self-assurance, she triumphs over her scheming mother and lazy sisters, and wins the Prince (and in this case, explicitly does live happily ever after).
Moral of the story: Find your identity. Find something that's uniquely yours, a core of contentment and self-sufficiency, that does not depend on your circumstances. Find your poise, your grace, and hold on to it. Once you do... the world will yearn for you. It will come and eat apples shyly out of your hand. And Princes will find you incredibly attractive, they will recognize that something inside of you, and will want to keep it very close to them.
Also, proper DRM (er.. Magical RM in this case), when used for good, is a thing of beauty. Unlike Alladin, you should make sure that the wondrous item that you win over is keyed only to your [DNA, voice, spirit] -- you are the only one who can use it and reap benefits from it, nor can you lose it because it just shows up at your new place of residence.
7. Rosy's Journey by Louisa May Alcott (famous for Little Women. Also, incidentally, a daughter of utopian philosopher and Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Walcott)
A young girl's mother dies, and she sets out, across the sea, desert, and mountains, to find her father. Along the way, she rescues various animals, and in proper fairy tale fashion, they help her get past impassable obstacles. Except, it's not actually them, it's their powerful friends that the animals enlist in helping Rosy. And, wait! After they've done that, they each return and help her and her father a second time, by enlisting even more animals to their cause. Cue happy ending.
I did not like this story. The mythic, storytelling symmetry was broken, for me, by the animals having to come and bail her out twice (but not three times, like the Wolf in Ivan's story).
Moral of the story: Help out everyone, as you go along in life. Do not expect for them to then command to your aid whales, and armies of beavers, but nevertheless it'll probably do you good in the long run. Also, when you find the biggest lump of gold ever? Expect your thug miner friends to come and shank you. You don't need a friendly fly to warn you of this.
8. The Glass Dog, by L. Frank Baum (who wrote another book called American Fairy Tales, and also The Wizard of Oz. But you know this. It is I who am the last person in America who has not read the Oz books. Except that I did read them in their original KlingonRussian versions.)
Class tensions! Cranky wizards living in apartment houses, who hate interruptions, and who disdain money (Plato, here we go! This is the way to keep your Golden elite class from accumulating temporal power -- make them religiously disdain money, and only be able to barter)! The problems inherent with artificially created silicate guardians not being keyed to their master's voice/identity/whatever (see Tale #6), and thus are easily stolen! Gold-digger husbands going after spoiled rich wives! Shallow people getting what they deserve!
Now this is an American fairy tale. It is unapologetically so, for which Baum got a lot of flack at the time of its writing. Set in the streets of Chicago, celebrating the present and its unique problems (like spending your last dime in the world to make that last phonecall that might save you) while acknowledging the lasting power of traditional fairy tale archetypes (cranky unreliable sorcerous persons? check. poor men seeking to win princesses? check.), it is a beautiful work. My hat's off to the granddaddy of urban fantasy.
Moral of the story: Cultivate a religious disdain for money in your truly powerful and potentially subersive elements (wizards, brilliant engineers, etc) lest they take over everything. And also: If you want to write bold, proper, modern fairy tales rooted to their sense of place (American, Martian colonist, whatever), just bloody well do so and ignore critics. Every place deserves its stories told. And also: If you're a poor man, and luck and a tiny bit of courage lets you rope a spoiled princess into marrying you... what exactly is that going to get you? Stop doing it! And these days, as in Baum's tale but unlike older fairy tales, princesses know about harsh pre-nuptual contracts, so it's not that posh of a proposition. And if you're aware of exactly what you're doing and why, if it's still worth if for you to do that... don't whine and take what comes.
9. The Golden Windows by Laura E. Richards (famous children's book writer. Randomly: her mother wrote the words to The Battle Hymn Of The Republic.)
A short and simple story, where a boy admires a faraway farmhouse with windows made seemingly out of gold and diamonds. Later, he discovers that his own house has the same property, and the setting sun is responsible for the brilliant gemlike shine.
Moral of the story: Find the rich and the beautiful in your current environment, in your own home. Seriously. It'll make life much more pleasant.
10. The Princess Who Could Not Dance by Ruth Plumly Thompson
This is a poignant coming-of-age tale, about a young Artificial Intelligence, who, despite being instructed by the best teachers in the land, just could not achieve self awareness. After finally being released from its home, it learns that it is not enough to have abstract thoughts about the world, about thinking or self awareness. The secret is actually being embodied in the world, drawing upon the intelligence encoded in one's environment, learning from the very elements around it.
Wait, no. That can't be right. It's something about a Princess (with the best name yet, Dianidra), who did not know how to dance, and so brought great dishonor on her royal house. She tries and tries to get the abstract calculus of dancing, but it is only after running away from home that she learns how to dance, from kissing fairies, and from the river, the wind, and the sea.
Moral of the story: Don't sell out, kids. Ruth Plumly Thompson could have had a strong American fairy tale voice that was uniquely hers. As it was, she spent most of her life ghost-writing sequels to L. Frank Baum's Oz stories.
11. The Lad and Luck's House by Will Bradley
A fairly straightforward "Princess in a tower (on a glass mountain, on a boiling sea, in the middle of a marsh), great princes try to rescue her, a poor and unknown boy triumphs and marries her."
Except... He's apparently not a poor and uknown boy. He's a Prince of this kingdom! How did this happen? One moment, he's a ragged and penniless boy who rescues the Princess by luck, only to have her mistake him for a servant and ride away with the other Knights. The next, he's the Green Knight (I'm not joking, it's literally what he shows up as), who shows up in a tournament, defeats all the other knights, and the Princess is all "Oh, ok. So you're actually the prince of all of this? Sure, I'll marry you." No transition. No explanation. Not even a "I was under a curse" or "I was slumming with the commoners, incognito". Please don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of dream-logic and fairy tale logic, I don't need everything explained and justified. But this was just confusing. The story did, however, feature an interesting multi-level narrative (it started out in first person with the narrator, who then goes over to the house of two small boys, the boys are visited by a fairy and retrieve magic items from Luck's house, and only then does a fairy Lad buys these items from a witch, and goes on his adventure).
Moral of the story: When you're an evil overlord, hiding behind a marsh is not enough. If you're battling Stalin in WWII, he will simply throw thousands of people at the problem, and in a surprise move, cut down a bunch of trees, lay down a log road, and force an entire tank division through impassable swamps. Actual true story. If your opponent is a fairy knight, he will surely draw on some cheap magical item to get through the said swamp. While you're at it, check out all the other items on the Evil Overlord List.
12. How They Broke Away To Go To The Rootabaga Country by Carl Sandburg
A father and two children (where's the mother? She didn't die early in proper fashion, she just doesn't exist, and the story is phrased as if the father birthed them himself, Zeus-style) get bored with their same-old existence, sell everything, buy a one-way train ticket out West, and go to live in the fantastic Rootabaga Country.
Once again, a thoroughly American-themed story, and told in a very particular dialect. What's interesting (aside from the obvious journey West) is that theirs is a one-way ticket, unlike many European tales that involve travel but always return home.
Moral of the story: Sell everything you have and move West. By train, in style. (Yes, I'm talking to you.) (If you're already out West... then either be happy or.. Move on to Asia and further west.) |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
justbeast's journal![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
epic
feminist. and scifi'd