Random thoughts
Wed, Apr. 9th, 2003 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI probably should be doing more work today, especially seeing as how the paper due on Friday look like a lot of work. But, after having turned in the chapter yesterday, I just don't feel like doing anything.
So instead I will spam LJ.
I started rereading Robin McKinley's Rose Daughter yesterday and was immediately sucked back into the world. I don't know why, but I just have this thing for fairy tales -- the originals, the multiple versions, the modern rewrites and variations, all of it. Something about the repetition especially resonates with me, I guess. I have the same hankering for myths and legends; used to hunt them up all the time as a kid. I also read most of the fairy tales I know now back then, including all the variants that were usually censored by the Victorian publishers. Somehow, as a kid, it never struck me that the Prince impregnating Sleeping Beauty in her sleep was a strange thing.
I think this is why I'm so attracted to fantasy, and much less so to sci-fi. After voraciously reading all the myths I could, I wanted to find something else that felt like them. And finally, someone handed me Tolkein in sixth grade, and I was hooked. Now the epic fantasy doesn't intrigue me as much, because sometimes I feel as though they've gotten away from that fairy tale quality that I adore. Luckily, I found Robin McKinley, Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow's fairy tales for adults series (Snow White, Blood Red, etc.), and a whole other fantasy world. There's always this sense of familiarity to all the fairy tales because they all follow some sort of archetype, and for the older ones, at least, there's this haunting sense of horror and fear hovering. I also love the cadence some of them have, the almost ritualistic language that's used for a specific purpose and invoked with "Once upon a time." It gives a sense that there's a charted course that the story will take, a lack of immediacy and a feeling that the author is only retelling a very old tale that the audience already knows. So even if I've never read the book or the tale, there is a sense that I've been there before, that this is a land that is not wholly unfamiliar.
And while I love the rewrites that take the old stories to a new place in new ways, something just can't replace the actual language of them. Neil Gaiman doesn't usually rewrite fairy tales (although his "Snow, Glass, and Apples" is gorgeous and haunting), but I always feel as though he captures the voice of fairy tales, in Sandman, with the stories told at World's End and the story of Nada, obviously in Stardust, and in the small snippets of gods in American Gods. I also love Robin McKinley, although hers are much more comfortable than Neil's; her books are the books I read on rainy days or when I want to feel at home, no matter where I am. I think this is why I've been venturing further and further into the YA territory, where people like Diana Wynne Jones (Fire and Hemlock!!), Meredith Ann Pierce and Donna Jo Napoli have continued to do this.
Something about them all has a dreamy, not too hard quality that can frighten me and charm me in a way that more "realistic" quest fantasies like Robert Jordan can't (although I have many, many, many other issues with Jordan).
So instead I will spam LJ.
I started rereading Robin McKinley's Rose Daughter yesterday and was immediately sucked back into the world. I don't know why, but I just have this thing for fairy tales -- the originals, the multiple versions, the modern rewrites and variations, all of it. Something about the repetition especially resonates with me, I guess. I have the same hankering for myths and legends; used to hunt them up all the time as a kid. I also read most of the fairy tales I know now back then, including all the variants that were usually censored by the Victorian publishers. Somehow, as a kid, it never struck me that the Prince impregnating Sleeping Beauty in her sleep was a strange thing.
I think this is why I'm so attracted to fantasy, and much less so to sci-fi. After voraciously reading all the myths I could, I wanted to find something else that felt like them. And finally, someone handed me Tolkein in sixth grade, and I was hooked. Now the epic fantasy doesn't intrigue me as much, because sometimes I feel as though they've gotten away from that fairy tale quality that I adore. Luckily, I found Robin McKinley, Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow's fairy tales for adults series (Snow White, Blood Red, etc.), and a whole other fantasy world. There's always this sense of familiarity to all the fairy tales because they all follow some sort of archetype, and for the older ones, at least, there's this haunting sense of horror and fear hovering. I also love the cadence some of them have, the almost ritualistic language that's used for a specific purpose and invoked with "Once upon a time." It gives a sense that there's a charted course that the story will take, a lack of immediacy and a feeling that the author is only retelling a very old tale that the audience already knows. So even if I've never read the book or the tale, there is a sense that I've been there before, that this is a land that is not wholly unfamiliar.
And while I love the rewrites that take the old stories to a new place in new ways, something just can't replace the actual language of them. Neil Gaiman doesn't usually rewrite fairy tales (although his "Snow, Glass, and Apples" is gorgeous and haunting), but I always feel as though he captures the voice of fairy tales, in Sandman, with the stories told at World's End and the story of Nada, obviously in Stardust, and in the small snippets of gods in American Gods. I also love Robin McKinley, although hers are much more comfortable than Neil's; her books are the books I read on rainy days or when I want to feel at home, no matter where I am. I think this is why I've been venturing further and further into the YA territory, where people like Diana Wynne Jones (Fire and Hemlock!!), Meredith Ann Pierce and Donna Jo Napoli have continued to do this.
Something about them all has a dreamy, not too hard quality that can frighten me and charm me in a way that more "realistic" quest fantasies like Robert Jordan can't (although I have many, many, many other issues with Jordan).
Tags:
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 9th, 2003 05:01 pm (UTC)Oooh, me too. I love comparing how the story looks as a classic fairy tale and how it changes when it's retold... it makes the characters huge and grand and human at the same time.
And I {heart} Robin McKinley. Have you read Spindle's End?
(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 9th, 2003 07:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Apr. 9th, 2003 07:51 pm (UTC)Me too! It's the most recent book of hers I've read; I really haven't had a lot of time to read for myself lately, and I wasn't going to get it until I read the first paragraph about the magic settling over the country like dust, and I had to have it, it was just such a brilliant way to set it up.
McKinley's first paragraphs usually do kick ass; the orange juice spiel in The Blue Sword comes to mind right away, I thought that was great.
I haven't read everything of hers yet, so I'm excited to hunt everything down, knowing it'll kick ass.
(no subject)
Thu, Apr. 10th, 2003 12:09 am (UTC)One of my favorites of hers is the more obscure Outlaws of Sherwood, especially since I read it after Jennifer Robertson's Lady of the Forest, in which I hated Robin, hated Marian, and desperately wanted the Sheriff of Nottingham to win. You know it's bad when that happens. I love Robin McKinley's Robin and Marian and all the other characters that come in!
(no subject)
Thu, Apr. 10th, 2003 06:41 pm (UTC)Haha, Lady of the Forest sounds awful, but The Outlaws of Sherwood is a wonderful take on the Robin Hood story. Mmmm, I love the Robin/Marian archery twist.
(no subject)
Sun, Apr. 13th, 2003 11:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Mon, Apr. 14th, 2003 11:57 pm (UTC)