Book: While Beauty Slept

(Image from C/W Mars Catalog)

     **SPOILER ALERT: reading will spoil the book**

In comparison to Boy,Snow, Bird that I reviewed previously, While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell is a much better example of a fairy tale retelling!  Despite being set in a world without magic, it still creatively contains all of the most important, recognizable elements of the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty.  The evil witch, the sleeping curse, charming princes, and true love all make an appearance, even if they do not look the same or have the exact same significance as in the traditional story.  But just as with The Snow Child, this story is about so much more than just the fairy tale: it gives a relatively fair and balanced look at some of the challenges that women faced in medieval society (even if it is an entirely fictional world).

While Beauty Slept is definitely a feminist’s take on the traditional tale, since all of the female characters are in charge of their own decisions for the most part.  They still have to adhere to some societal expectations of their rank, but they are largely depicted as being wilful people with ambitions and minds of their own.  The modern notion that women are fully capable of inheriting the throne of a kingdom is a central theme that drives the main conflict.  When King Ranolf breaks with tradition and declares his only daughter, Rose, his rightful heir instead of his brother, the next male in line for the throne, he stirs his brother’s resentment, as well as dissent among some of his subjects, which eventually leads to war.  It is also what drives Millicent’s jealousy, since if her father, King Ranolf’s grandfather, had recognized women as capable of ruling alone, she would have been queen, as the oldest of her siblings.  Millicent’s jealousy and thirst for power, especially after having been banished from the kingdom, is what leads her to cast a “curse” on the baby Rose at her christening, which hangs over the royal family for a long time.

The main character, Elise, ends up being the real hero for Princess Rose as well, since a different kind of love, that of friendship and loyalty between women, is highlighted as being more important than romantic relationships.  For me, one of the best parts of this story, is how it does not vilify Elise for choosing to put her duty to the Queen and Rose as their servant and friend above the decision to marry her true love, who refuses to take a position at the castle so that Elise can keep her job.  Since neither Elise nor Marcus is willing to give up their profession to be together, they both decide that they cannot be married and have to live with the consequences of that decision.  But rather than having Elise be alone and miserable for the rest of her life, the story shows that Elise takes real pleasure in her job and is eventually able to make a politically advantageous and happy marriage, even if there is little real love in the union.  This story provides one of the most fair and balanced representations of love and marriage, how they are intertwined but also play different roles in different women’s lives.  Some of the female characters are praised for being able to make a love match while other characters are praised for making a political match, since whatever the reason, it is shown as being the best thing for that woman to do, and few if any of the characters are shown as ending up in a miserable situation. 

The way that most of the characters get their happy ending is actually quite impressive, if perhaps a little trite.  I do not want to spoil it too much, but I was surprised and happy at how well things worked out, since it really brought all of the fairy tale elements together to make the story that much more cohesive.  The way that the story ends is also what really saved this book for me because I had been caught off guard by how much the story dwelled on Elise’s life and relationships, rather than Rose and the curse.  It read much more like a romance novel for so long that I almost did not finish, but the ending is so good that it helped me enjoy the book so much more.

Overall, While Beauty Slept is another good example of how a fairy tale can be adapted to a different message while still retaining enough elements to be recognizable.  The fact that this story is used to demonstrate how female friendship can triumph in place of romantic love also gives it a very modern feel, despite being set in a fictional medieval kingdom.  It is both a clever adaptation of a fairy tale and an interesting story about women, so it should appeal to a broad audience of readers.

Blackwell, E. C. (2014) While Beauty Slept. New York; G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Book: Boy, Snow, Bird

(Image from C/W Mars catalog)

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi is not at all a fairy tale adaptation, despite that being its given subject heading.  It is certainly strongly inspired by the fairytale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and its central point about the dangers of obsessing over appearances, but it contains zero details or plot points from the fairytale, since having a wicked stepmother is hardly exclusive to the tale of Snow White.  The central message of the book is not even really about beauty and the violent consequences of the single-minded pursuit of it.  Instead, the story uses the symbolism of mirrors and absent or changed reflections to examine the deceptive nature of appearances and their importance to how we perceive ourselves and each other, especially in relation to race.

     **SPOILER ALERT: reading farther may spoil the book**

The reason I say that this book is not an adaptation of Snow White is because a large number of the important fairy tale characters and plots are missing.  As far as I can tell, there are no seven dwarves, certainly no princes, and no attempts on Snow’s life.  The praise for Oyeyemi’s other works that appear on the back cover of this book imply that this should be a gothic, haunting tale.  However, given the number of times that the wicked stepmother tries to outright murder Snow White in the original tale, including sending her out into the woods with a huntsman who has orders to cut out Snow’s heart, there is surprisingly little threat of violence from Boy, the stepmother.  The only truly gruesome part of the story comes from the Rat Catcher and the awful descriptions of how he treats both the rats and Boy.  Of course there are a few other disconcerting elements, visions in the mirrors, conversations with spiders and such, but nothing near the terrifying details of the original Snow White.

The only element of magic realism in the story, which is what helps it feel a little bit more like it is related to the fairy tale, is the mirrors.  The suspiciously absent or altered reflections that the characters see of themselves or others cannot really be explained, since they could either be a result of a trick of the light, or the consequence of magic.  I really like that aspect because it gives the story a bit more depth.  Toward the end of the book, though, there is suddenly introduced the likelihood that an actual spell is at fault for Boy’s mother’s transformation into her father.  Unfortunately, that particular plot point is actually not addressed or discussed in any sort of detail, despite it being a potentially vital key to our understanding of exactly how the mirrors really factor in to the perceived images of the three main women.  It heavily implies that there is some sort of curse that afflicts the women of Boy’s family in regard to their reflections, since it occurs in three generations, but really is not given any depth or credence.

If this book had not been advertised as an adaptation of Snow White, I am not sure that I really would have been able to recognize it as such.  I think that it was much more just inspired by the fairy tale, so that Oyeyemi uses the trope of the stepmother that banishes her stepdaughter and mirrors that sometimes tell the truth about appearances, to explore race relations in mid-twentieth century Massachusetts.  I probably would have liked the book more without having been told that it is a fairy tale adaption, because then I would not have had specific expectations, namely that there would be more readily recognizable characters and plot elements.  Even if the plot were twisted on its head and the characters did not react the same way to similar situations from the fairy tale, it still would have been more enjoyable as an adaptation, because that is what I love so much about them; the cleverness and ingenuity authors use to bring new life to an old tale.  That is not to say that I don’t appreciate what Oyeyemi did with her story, I really like the elements that she did incorporate, but my expectations for a fairy tale adaptation were not met, which probably got in the way of me fully appreciating what happened in this book.

Managing expectations is something that is key to enjoying stories, especially when it comes to fairy tales and myths.  Marketing books is very important of course, but it is equally important not to mislead readers, in my opinion.  It is part of the reason why genres are so often discussed and “magic realism” was invented in the first place.  In this case, I think that labeling Boy, Snow, Bird as a fairy tale adaptation does a disservice to the work.  I am still intrigued enough by Oyeyemi’s ability to reimagine fairy tale elements in our “real” world, and thus will most likely read some of her other books as well, but now I will have much different expectations of her stories.  

Oyeyemi, H. (2014). Boy, Snow, Bird. New York; Riverhead Books.