![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
It's almost September! = It's almost October! = It's Almost NaNoWriMo!!
If “Past is Prologue,” then “Cultural Classics are Foreshadowing.” And as a life-long lover of fairy tales, I’m sad to say that the shine has gone off the Grimm Bros. for me, since realizing that the reason they collected (and marketed) those tales in the first place was to “prove” an ancient heritage, White-Supremacist, National identity.
It’s like one of those favorite scenes from the beginning of a movie or novel -- a little vignette, a dalliance in a story, that makes me smile -- only to have that scene be paid off at the climax in a way that is deeply tragic. When I go back to that story, that little scene will never have the same charm for me, ever again. I may even have to skip that scene entirely.
During my freshman year of college, I took a survey course on fairy tales and fantasy. And the professor for that course (one of my all time favorite teachers, and the teacher I chose as my advisor for the independent study course I designed, my senior year), took the Grimm Fairy Tales at face value as the closest thing to the preserved, pure form of the Ancient, Oral, Tradition. And I followed his lead, treating the stories with care, not daring to change the details, even as I retold them with my own turns of phrase.-- treating them like archeological finds from a distant past.
Then (it was either in grad school, at my university’s library -- or a few years later, at my [new-to-me] local city library), I came across Jack Zipes’ book The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forest to the Modern World (1989). and that was my first introduction to the brothers’ shared political motivations behind their folklore-”collecting” work. And that took the lid off my creative interpretations of the stories. After all, if they retold the stories with a political agenda, then so could I -- I was just continuing in their footsteps.
And since then, thanks to the Internet, and Google Translate, I have access to more versions of the stories than I ever did, in that survey class, back in my freshman year. Not only can I compare different English translations of the original German versions, I can also compare different versions that the Brothers Grimm themselves, put out, between 1812 and 1853. I can reverse engineer their filters, so to speak, and see how their political biases and agendas became refined.
If the 20th Century history that unfolded after they left this mortal realm had turned out differently, my feelings for their stories would also, no doubt, be different than they are. As they no doubt would be if 21st Century History were unfolding differently than it is.
But -- I take comfort in the fact that they did not invent their tales. And their retelling of the stories are only the “Definitive” versions if we let them be.
And even if (when) their interpretation poisoned the roots of the tree from which we’ve been picking apples for 200 years, if I take the seeds from one of those apples, and plant it in fresh ground, and water it from a fresh spring, then something good may grow from it.
Right?
Right?
It’s like one of those favorite scenes from the beginning of a movie or novel -- a little vignette, a dalliance in a story, that makes me smile -- only to have that scene be paid off at the climax in a way that is deeply tragic. When I go back to that story, that little scene will never have the same charm for me, ever again. I may even have to skip that scene entirely.
During my freshman year of college, I took a survey course on fairy tales and fantasy. And the professor for that course (one of my all time favorite teachers, and the teacher I chose as my advisor for the independent study course I designed, my senior year), took the Grimm Fairy Tales at face value as the closest thing to the preserved, pure form of the Ancient, Oral, Tradition. And I followed his lead, treating the stories with care, not daring to change the details, even as I retold them with my own turns of phrase.-- treating them like archeological finds from a distant past.
Then (it was either in grad school, at my university’s library -- or a few years later, at my [new-to-me] local city library), I came across Jack Zipes’ book The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forest to the Modern World (1989). and that was my first introduction to the brothers’ shared political motivations behind their folklore-”collecting” work. And that took the lid off my creative interpretations of the stories. After all, if they retold the stories with a political agenda, then so could I -- I was just continuing in their footsteps.
And since then, thanks to the Internet, and Google Translate, I have access to more versions of the stories than I ever did, in that survey class, back in my freshman year. Not only can I compare different English translations of the original German versions, I can also compare different versions that the Brothers Grimm themselves, put out, between 1812 and 1853. I can reverse engineer their filters, so to speak, and see how their political biases and agendas became refined.
If the 20th Century history that unfolded after they left this mortal realm had turned out differently, my feelings for their stories would also, no doubt, be different than they are. As they no doubt would be if 21st Century History were unfolding differently than it is.
But -- I take comfort in the fact that they did not invent their tales. And their retelling of the stories are only the “Definitive” versions if we let them be.
And even if (when) their interpretation poisoned the roots of the tree from which we’ve been picking apples for 200 years, if I take the seeds from one of those apples, and plant it in fresh ground, and water it from a fresh spring, then something good may grow from it.
Right?
Right?
no subject
Which is slightly hilarious, since a not insignificant number of those tales are, if not entirely, at least nearly universal. You can find versions of Cinderella and Snow White all over the world.
Also, you reminded me of some of my own dust-gathering plunnies. And Ana Mardoll is putting together an anthology of more fairy-tale-style fairy tales starring queer characters that I think might also include disabled characters? And he's hoping to have it published in December? So anyway, both he and I are clearly on Team It Can Be Done.
no subject
Exactly!
That fairy tale survey course I mentioned was organized (at least, according to the professor's unquestioning assumptions) to show the progression from Oral Tradition (supposedly represented by the Grimm Tales), where the stories are older than any one author (whose name we'll never know, which the Brothers Grimm stories don't really count, because they were heavily rewritten and massaged) through a literary tradition where a named author (who proudly put his name to the stories), inspired by the oral tradition (and for that, we read Hans Christian Andersen) -- which is the type of stories Ana Mardoll is collecting, and which I most like to write -- and ending the course with the novel of The Neverending Story, where the book, itself, is the driving object (In the print novel, which is lost in the movie(s), each chapter begins with a letter in Alphabetical Order).
My professor, however fond of him as I was, was very much "Team Book," and was slightly afraid of the oral tradition as susceptible to Madness and Chaos.
Anyway, back in 2005, I briefly tried my hand at writing custom "fairy tales" on commission, for people's special occasions: if the person commissioning me would give me details or themes they wanted in their story, I'd construct a tale around that (turns out, I don't have the stamina or organization to consistently keep up with that).
One of my first clients was a young man with cerebral palsy whose mother and grandfather kept him at home "to protect him" in much the same way your head-canon "Cinderella" is. So, anyway, his mother commissioned me to write him a story for his 21st birthday, and I went over to his house to talk with him about it, and see what he wanted. He told me, point blank, that Disability doesn't belong in fairy tales. And at the time, I knew exactly what he meant, because "Stories-written-for-Disabled-People" are too often patronizing, and make the story about the disability, and not about the characters, or adventure, or the magic.
But as time went on, that niggled at me more and more. Because stories that have survived through the oral tradition feature all the sorts of people who exist. And disabled people have always existed. It's now my hypothesis that all those stories about "Wish-born" children -- where an elderly, childless, woman or couple wishes for a child, "even if they're ____," and they get their wish answered literally (such as: "Hans my Hedgehog," "Thumbthick" etc.), actually represent kids born with developmental disabilities (such as C.P.); Thumbthick's are the awesome kind, who figure out acommodations, and follow his lead. Hans-mein-Igel's parents suck massively.
"Dust-collecting plunnies" ... You mean: "Dust Plunnies"? ;-)
(The Story I Ended Up Writing for Him is here, posted under a subscription lock.)