Signal-Boosting for myself: New "Plato's Nightmare" post

[capri0mni]

It's taken longer than I expected to write, but my next entry is up in my blog -- the first full telling of a Grimms tale:

The tale of Thumbling: Making your way through a world that doesn't fit.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Very cool deconstruction! I want more! Excellent! Spam yourself on disability.dreamwidth.org!

[capri0mni]

Ooh, thanks for the tip! And... And: I suppose if I go there and say: "Tell me stories! Tell me stories from outside Western European tradion!" people would do that -- Yes?

I took a course in Fairy Tales in college -- supposedly tracing the evolultion from "oral storytelling" (reprsented by Grimms'*), to "literary in the style of oral" (H.C. Anderson), to self-consciously written, where the physical book, itself, was a factor in the story (The Neverending Story by Michael Ende). Very clever, if simplistic organization of material. But really, we never got further south or east than Germany, so.... My folktale knowledge is rather lopsided.

*Actually, the Grimms were just as self-consciously literary as anyone. They didn't write the stories, but they did rewrite and polish with an eye toward political activism. So -- their image as faithful recorders of an authentic folk tradition is a bit skewed.

[jesse_the_k]

I hope they would. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fairy tale comm somewhere.

Bros Grimm were political? How could I have been so surrounded by those stories growing up and not known this? Do you have a handy link to point me at?

[capri0mni]

Well, here's a link to a quick chronology of their life, which mentions their political activities in passing: Grimm Brothers' home page: Chronology. The main source where I first found this information, however, was a book from the library, years ago... I'll edit this post with the title when I remember it.

Anyway, long story short: they started their academic career following in the footsteps of their father, studying law. Studying the roots of ancient German law led them (especially the elder, Jacob) to study the roots of the German language. In the course of this, they found, and fell in love with, collections of native myths and stories. Meanwhile, there were attempted political uprisings against the King of Hannover, which J and W joined -- and lost their jobs over.

After a while, they gave up teaching to devote themselves to their own work in folktales. Basically, with each edition of their collection, they polished them up in order to appeal to, and persuade, the middle class merchants to the value of their cause -- and to hint, hint, suggest that the values of their particular movement have their roots way back in German history.

As to why you had not known this, and why the college professor teaching my fairy tale course had not known this is (I think) because the English translations we know best came to us from the Victorians, who romanticised the idea of the "pure" life of the "common folk." Also, the Brothers, themselves, wanted to come across as unbiased.

[jesse_the_k]

Wow!

Just, wow.

[capri0mni]

And so many think geeks lead boring lives... *Smirk*

[meloukhia]

Catching up on my reading and had to drop by to say how much I loved this, both your storytelling and the analysis. This text is really ripe for exploration; one thing that struck me, reading the scene where he tells his father to sell him, is the history of disabled people as sideshow attractions and a chilling interview I read with a man who talked about 'hitting the orphanage' when they got to a new town to see which of the occupants they could buy, 'until the ACLU got upset and made us stop.'

[capri0mni]

I'll keep the horror of that at bay by making a joke: "Gosh-Darn that ACLU -- and their pesky dog, too!"

Of course, the other undercurrent of the story is the subject of class and privilege, in that the parson (who is supposed to have taken a vow of poverty, and embody charity toward all citizens of the town) has the richest house with iron bars on the windows. And it occurred to me, this morning, why Thumbling was only safe in speaking up when he was inside the belly of a wolf -- If the parson had found him, he probably would have returned him to the carnival hucksters, since that would be the "moral" thing to do (abide by your agreements, and so forth).