Friday 8 February 2013

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm by Philip Pullman

I requested this book from Netgalley purely because I love Philip Pullman.  I like fairy tales well enough but I'm not someone who grew up with them or who adores them.  To be honest, most of my exposure to them comes from Disney films, which are most certainly not true to the originals!   But Philip Pullman is another matter; I was captivated by the His Dark Materials trilogy as a teenager and very impressed by The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ a few years ago (my review).  So I had high hopes for the writing quality in this collection, which retells fifty stories from the originals by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

One of the parts I actually enjoyed the most about this book was the introduction.  As I said, I'm not that familiar with the history of fairy tales so I was interested to read about the attempts to create a German 'nationalism' at the time and how the collection of tales could feed into that.  I always imagine the source of fairy tales to be poor people living in the forests so it was also interesting to realise that most tales came from the middle classes.  There's a decent analysis of the pace of fairy tales and how this can only be achieved at the expense of creating three dimensional characters.  In fact, you could question whether the characters are conscious beings at all.  The introduction was just the right length and importantly, made it clear that Pullman wasn't trying to put a twist on the tales - they are straight-forward re-tellings.

I enjoyed the actual tales a lot more than I expected to.  Pullman does a great job of creating an overarching atmosphere or setting that links all the stories.  There's plenty of ominous forests, tricky magical beings, men named Hans and evil step-mothers.  The writing was as good as I anticipated, simple but with just the right amount of irony to bring a touch of humour to the collection ("Well, what else did you expect?  That's just the sort of thing that happens in this world.").  Interestingly enough, it wasn't always the popular tales (Cinderella, Rumplestiltksin etc.,) that I enjoyed the most, part of the fun was discovering new to me tales such as the second part of the Elves, where a girl spends what she thinks of as three days in the mountain with the elves, only to discover it was actually seven years.  At the end of each story, there's a brief commentary by Pullman with information about the source and some analysis.  I found these too short to be really informative.

The only other book I can compare this collection to is Arabian Nights.  Whilst I very much enjoyed the tales and thought that Pullman did a great job on the retellings, the stories themselves didn't compare to Arabian Nights. They feel too familiar.  But that's not a criticism of this edition at all, just a personal preference - I'm the sort of person who will always choose the unfamiliar over the familiar.

I'm glad I requested and read this volume of fairy tales and I've got some interesting titles for my reading list from the introduction (particularly Maria Tatar).  If you like fairy tales, you'll enjoy this collection.

Source: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
First Published: November 2012
Score: 4 out of 5

17 comments:

  1. I copy a hardback copy of this for Christmas as I am a fan of fairy stories especially the ones that aren't all that common. I think I will read my copy sooner rather than later now!

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    1. Hope you enjoy it, Mel. I've seen the hardback editions in the shops and it's certainly a good looking book.

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  2. HALLO Sam!
    Philip Pullman is just...wow. His book "The Golden Compass" absolutely blew me away, and I was in elementary school when I read it. You've reminded me now that I should love to go re-read it again. I keep forgetting that as an author, he has other works! I'm compelled to read them all :) His writing is brilliant, and this one sounds absolutely amazing. Thanks for the honest review! (I would like for the annotations to be informative too, I'm sorry to hear that they're short and not helpful!)

    Happy reading!
    -Kirthi

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    1. I'm glad you loved Northern Lights as much as I did! Did you read the whole trilogy? The ending of the final book is so sad.

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  3. Pullman is an author I managed to miss out on, and I keep forgetting to track down His Dark Materials - which everyone I know has told me I MUST read because I'd really love them... I just bought a huge annotated Grimms for Db for his birthday - he does love fairy tales and old legends, so when I saw it, I grabbed it. Might just have to go suss this one out too now...!

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    1. I'm biased but I think you would like His Dark Materials - they're excellent stories but with lots to think about too. If I was going to read the original Grimms, I like the sound of an annotated edition.

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  4. This sounds worthwhile. We had an old collection of fairy tales in our house when I was growing up and I remember reading some of them, but I was too young to appreciate them except for the old favorites. I'd love to see what I think of them now.

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    1. Whilst I grew up in a house of readers and was a total bookworm myself, I don't remember actually reading fairy tales. Which seems bizarre?
      It would be interesting to see if your opinions have changed since childhood.

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  5. What great timing! I bought the complete fairy tales of the brothers Grimm last month, and I was thinking that I'd like to read a retelling once I was finished. You saved me the research. :D

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    1. That is perfect timing! I've heard good things about the Angela Carter interpretations too, I'm going to check them out over the next few months.

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  6. I really like retellings of fairytales, but it's hard for me to read more than a couple in a row. I've been working on one anthology for more than a year now. Maybe if I ever finish it. I'll give this one a try!

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    1. The ordering of the stories in this collection was very well thought out, they didn't seem to blur into each other at all, like I've experienced with other collections. Good luck with your anthology :)

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  7. Whenever I think of fairy tales I always think of Angela Carter. Her Book of Fairy Tales is filled with unfamiliar tales from all over the world. And, of course, The Bloody Chamber is just amazing! I keep looking at this whenever I go into a bookshop and I suspect it's time I just got cracking and purchased it.

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    1. I must read Angela Carter soon! My husband read it when he was studying theology at university and I remember thinking then that I wanted to read The Bloody Chamber for myself, but for some reason I just never picked it up.

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  8. I may have to get this title for the introduction alone. I, like you, love the history of fairy tales.

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    1. It was a great introduction considering the length, but it's not essay-material.

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  9. This post just reminded me that I have this on my Kindle since I downloaded it from NetGalley before Christmas. Oops. I was really excited about it, but then 50,000 other books happened and you know how it is...

    The introduction sounds interesting as well. Maybe I'll make an effort to get round to it!

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