tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60348552459009646022024-03-05T11:02:24.660-05:00Spinning Straw Into Goldfiction, fairy tales, and imagination: a fairy tale writing communityChristiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-37731146455291151022018-10-30T16:59:00.002-04:002018-10-30T17:06:28.168-04:00If you do one thing this Halloween, watch Over the Garden Wall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was seven years old I threw my first Halloween party.<br />
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It was me, my friend Jenny, and my immediate family, who were there by default. I made a pin-the-tail-on-the-black-cat game. We bobbed for apples and then dipped them in caramel.<br />
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The year before, at the age of 6, instead of trying to form words in my daily journal at school, I drew ghosts, tombstones, haunted houses, jack-o-lanterns, spider webs, and witches, all throughout the month of October. I couldn't write and I could barely read. But<b> the archetypes of Halloween possessed my pages</b>. Barely over five years earth-side and the symbols of the season resonated to my roots, like memories from a past life.<br />
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Indeed <b>it is a kind of shared cultural memory</b>: the burning autumn trees and pumpkin lanterns and hay rides. It is a Halloween that exists on a different level of reality; it is a country that touches, or is a county within, Fairyland. Its denizens and theirs commingle.<br />
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When I saw <i><a href="https://www.tor.com/2017/12/15/over-the-garden-wall-a-sweet-strange-journey-into-the-unknown/" target="_blank">Over the Garden Wall</a></i>, I recognised it immediately. Here was my Halloween. The invisible but palpable dream Halloween of my childhood, which sometimes crosses the threshold from its land into ours. Crossroads, liminal seasons, leylines draw it, same attracting same. <b>This animated series is a profound and insightful work of art made with reverence and levity, at once a homage and a carrying on of the tradition of the Halloween of memory, the cultures, and peoples, and the traditions</b> that have joined joined <a href="http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf" target="_blank">the soup</a>; of the land of loose boundaries, of death and life, and what fairy tales mean.<br />
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I could write reams and reams about this series and how it earns its place in the canon of traditional fairy tales. How it draws from the Grimms, and Americana, and the existential questions people ask themselves late at night when the fire dies down and the stars remain. The superb acting talent absorbed into the story. The reminiscent animation style, the humor, the character growth and arcs, the shared human antagonist--so embedded in the subconscious that we know him intimately, though we ever only see him fully for less than a second.<br />
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But I don't have time for that now. I have lanterns to light and icons to dress and dead to pray for and anticipate. So I'll just say this: if you do one thing this Halloween, watch <i>Over the Garden Wall</i>.<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-28977807885018797792017-06-19T18:30:00.000-04:002017-06-19T18:37:46.207-04:00I Want Out of the Woods<h3>
A Review of <i>Into the Woods</i></h3>
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Admittedly, I know nothing of the musical <i>Into the Woods</i> besides a heavily edited high school performance seen well over a decade ago. It didn't make an impression then either. The premise of the story, an intertwining of plots and characters from several fairy tales (Grimm originals, to boot), seemed promising. That and the the all-star cast line-up enticed me to click play while I was browsing Netflix one evening.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.impawards.com/2014/posters/into_the_woods_ver12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.impawards.com/2014/posters/into_the_woods_ver12.jpg" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="566" height="400" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.impawards.com/2014/into_the_woods_ver12.html" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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<b>The beginning is the best part of the whole film. It only goes downhill from there. The way the stories wove together were, well...passable. And that's the best I can say about it.</b><br />
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I liked the setup, placing the baker and his wife into the Rapunzel tale. The expectation of things coming together, especially the opening song, had my attention. Emily Blunt performs very well as the Baker's Wife, combining musical dialogue with humor. I'm fond of James Corden and pleased with his casting. Little Red Riding Hood's introduction as the glutton is cute as well. Interesting parallels there between her and the wolf.<br />
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As the movie played on, <b>I felt a gaping lack of attachment to the characters</b>--other than Mr. and Mrs. Baker: infertility is a profound struggle that touches far too many. And Emily Blunt carried that for me. The princes bored me to tears. Rapunzel was a nobody; Cinderella was, as the witch says, merely "nice;" and the children are downright annoying. Is the head-slapping relationship between Jack and his mother supposed to be endearing? <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/into-the-woods-anna-kendrick2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/into-the-woods-anna-kendrick2.jpg" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://collider.com/into-the-woods-song-anna-kendrick/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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Meryl Streep's character is meant to express moral ambiguity, I get it, but there should have been some sort of tie-in between the bakers' infertility and her kidnapping the baker's sister to be her adoptive daughter. What we get is tiresome sung-exposition. Insert the Willy Wonka Gene Wilder meme here: <i>Tell me again about the complex parent-child relationship that plays out in complex ways and is complex!!!!</i> The witch having never previously expressed a desire for a child and the total lack of screen time between her and her "daughter" killed the effectiveness of any would-be emotional impact. We could have done with a little character development.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder717/62110717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="311" src="https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder717/62110717.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://memegenerator.net/instance/62110717/willy-wonka-tell-me-again" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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In the end, the characters all work together and all get their wishes.<br />
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<b><i>But</i>--this musical wants to slap it into our heads as surely as Jack's mother--<i>you should be careful what you wish fo</i>r.</b> After the curtains close on the traditional endings, there is still another dragging hour of movie left; during which, in-between trying to avoid the wrath of a giantess, they all come together to be communally unsatisfied. A theme that feels heavy-handed and forced, desperate to join the lineup of postmodernist deconstructed fairy tales. The deaths are stupid and pointless. The ending utterly anti-climactic. <b><i>Into the Woods</i> tries be profound and it's <i>just not</i>.</b> Somehow, that is worse than if they'd decided to say "sod it all!" and just make something fun and ridiculous.<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Woods#cite_note-60" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> reports that the play's<br />
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basic insight ... is at heart, most fairy tales are about the loving yet embattled relationship between parents and children. Almost everything that goes wrong — which is to say, almost everything that can — arises from a failure of parental or filial duty, despite the best intentions.</blockquote>
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Nothing that the original stories didn't already do, and do better.<br />
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<b><i>What did you think of this film? How does it compare to the musical? Did I miss something essential that would have otherwise earmarked this a landmark production?</i></b><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-47082249735394651852016-06-26T11:02:00.000-04:002016-06-26T11:02:01.063-04:00Krampusnacht Two<i>Enchanted Conversation</i>, the <a href="http://www.fairytalemagazine.com/?m=1" target="_blank">fairy tale magazine</a>, and <a href="http://www.worldweaverpress.com/" target="_blank">World Weaver Press</a> are soliciting stories for a second Krampus-themed publication. The submission period is open until August 15th, so if you missed your chance for the last collection or are having some midsummer cravings for writing about winter, <a href="http://www.fairytalemagazine.com/p/you-know-jolly-old-elf-of-christmas.html?m=1" target="_blank">dive in</a>.<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-25166057907211743312016-04-19T11:31:00.000-04:002016-04-19T11:31:35.751-04:00Sirens from World Weaver PressHi, readers! Look what showed up in my inbox the other day. A new release, check it out!<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><i>Sirens are beautiful, dangerous, and musical, whether they come from the sea or the sky. Greek sirens were described as part-bird, part-woman, and Roman sirens more like mermaids, but both had a voice that could captivate and destroy the strongest man. The pages of this book contain the stories of the Sirens of old, but also allow for modern re-imaginings, plucking the sirens out of their natural elements and placing them at a high school football game, or in wartime London, or even into outer space.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><i>Featuring stories by Kelly Sandoval, Amanda Kespohl, L.S. Johnson, Pat Flewwelling, Gabriel F. Cuellar, Randall G. Arnold, Micheal Leonberger, V. F. LeSann, Tamsin Showbrook, Simon Kewin, Cat McDonald, Sandra Wickham, K.T. Ivanrest, Adam L. Bealby, Eliza Chan, and Tabitha Lord, these siren songs will both exemplify and defy your expectations.</i></span> </blockquote>
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<i><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Sirens </span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">will be available in trade paperback and ebook via </span><a href="http://amzn.to/1SL5nv3" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Amazon.com</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, Barnesandnoble.com, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Books-a-Million,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> </span><a href="https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/sirens-9" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Kobo</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, </span><a href="http://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p108/Sirens.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">World Weaver Press</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, iBookstore, IndieBound and </span><a href="https://www.omnilit.com/product-sirens-2018116-234.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">OmniLit</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, and for wholesale through Ingram. </span></i> </blockquote>
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-73619346459988660612016-04-08T01:28:00.000-04:002016-04-08T11:00:43.384-04:00Snow Queen and the Huntsman?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>I'm both intrigued by and worried about the upcoming <i>Huntsman: Winter's War</i>.</b> <a href="http://www.spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-grim-review-of-snow-white-and.html" target="_blank">I have a soft spot in my thorny heart for <i>Snow White and the Huntsman</i></a>. Besides being a gorgeous film, there were some vivid fairy tale archetypes and themes that hit my sweet spot: the waste land, the white stag, Ravenna as a crow queen and beauty as a weapon, etc. It looks like this film is going to continue in that direction of powerful imagery, but I'm still hesitant to get my hopes too high. At this point it's more of a general, nondescript feeling than a handful of solid reasons.<br />
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<b>It's strange that the huntsman-part of the first film was made the series anchor.</b> At the end of <i>SWATH</i>, it felt like it was setting up for a sequel that would follow Snow, with a <i>Snow White and the ____</i> title. Ravenna was dead. Okay, so they resurrected her. I'll suspend disbelief. But this is both a before and after with the supposedly defeated queen. (Though I adored Charlize Theron's performance--that alone is worth watching!)<br />
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The adoption and expansion of the role of Hemsworth's huntsman will forever change our perception of the first film, and I don't like movies that do that. I think it's sloppy story-telling, it changes the already-powerful and satisfyingly vague backstory of Ravenna in the first film. I understand that they couldn't get Kristen Stewart back for a sequel, but they're creatives . . . they could have figured something out. (For that matter, how about Emily Blunt in the role of Snow White? She's a much better actress than Stewart.)<br />
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<b>We've already had one <a href="http://www.spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2014/02/missing-heart-of-fairy-tale.html" target="_blank">Snow Queen disaster with Disney's <i>Frozen</i></a>. </b>Andersen's tale is my favorite, and I don't take kindly to loose or artless interpretations. Emily Blunt's character could be done very well or not. Though there is a symmetry in making the villain from <i>Snow White</i> and the <i>Snow Queen</i> related. Come to think of it, wouldn't a better title have been <i>Snow Queen and the Huntsman</i>?<br />
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There's lots more that I'm wondering at; some of which make sense, I suppose, for entertainment purposes, but which doesn't please my demanding since of aesthetic! <b><i>I'm all over the map on this one, so enough from me. What do you think?</i></b><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-16854115493063903642016-02-12T11:56:00.004-05:002016-02-21T18:57:58.254-05:00Spindle as Sleight-of-Hand: A Book Review<h3>
<i>The Sleeper and the Spindle</i> by Neil Gaiman</h3>
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<b>This is my second attempt at reading Neil Gaiman's work.</b> I started, got half-way through, and then sort of trickled off from reading <i>Stardust</i>. I got a bit further with the movie version but with ultimately the same fate.<br />
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I mention this in full disclosure, in case my first impression unfairly colored the second.<br />
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<b>I'm fascinated with spinning, so one look at the title of this book and I had to read it.</b> I was also drawn by the atmospheric black, white, and gold illustrations, drawing tangents with alchemy. Though Chris Riddell's style is less "pretty" than I (personally) like, its quiet irreverence goes well with the sardonic narration, and its intricacy reflects the tangles of thorns, thickets, and themes of the source fairy tales.<br />
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<b>In brief summary</b>, a sort of Snow White, now queen, is reported to by three of her dwarfs. A sleeping sickness is spreading throughout the next door kingdom. She decides she must go, leaving on the eve of her marriage donning armor and sword rather than a wedding gown. The dwarfs lead her under the mountain ranges that no one can climb over, to the cursed kingdom, where they are advanced upon by zombie-like sleepers, until they reach the thorn-covered castle. The queen burns the roses and thorns, they ascend the highest tower, find a cranky old woman and a beautiful sleeper. The queen (Snow White) knows what to do . . . but when the kissed sleeper wakes, it turns out she was the witch, who used the spindle (no spinning wheel in this version) to steal the life and sleep from the princess, now aged and senile, and from the surrounding kingdom. The queen refuses the offer to work for the beautiful witch, gives the spindle back to the old princess; the old princess stabs the youthful witch, undoing the sleeping spell on all the land, but not restoring the lost youth of herself. Rather than returning home to the inevitable wedding, the queen and her dwarfs turn away toward unknown lands and further adventures.<br />
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<b>I was intrigued by several elements in the story, such as</b> the nature of the spell over the sleeping civilians, who appeared to speak out loud the slumbering princess's dreams; the impassibility of the mountain range; the fact that only the spiders were un-sleeping (later rendered less mysterious by the mention of moths and maggots); that the spindle alone was the culprit of enchantment; the <i>Snow White and the Huntsman</i> type heroine, who makes me curious to know the version of her own tale. <br />
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<b>Despite its potential--namely, its expert selection of fairy tale archetypes--<i>The Sleeper and the Spindle</i> lacks impact. The telling is bland and slow; the narrator's asides feel forced; motivations were obscure, yet somehow it lacked mystery. </b><br />
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Then there is this irksome plot hole: why is the old princess able to kill the youthful witch at the end but not before then? We are told that the witch's spell prevented her from harm, but how has it suddenly stopped working? Even the witch seems confused by this, muttering, "It was only a scratch," as she crumbles to ashes.<br />
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Another plot hole: why wasn't the princess's youth returned along with her people's wakefulness? These things are not explained, and not in the <i>what-did-Bluebeard's-first-wife-do-to-get-killed</i> kind of way.<br />
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I knew the sleeping beauty and the old woman were reversed roles, probably because I expected this sort of plot twist from the outset. The woman-rescuing-woman element has grown trite, becoming the kind of thing one expects from a post-modernist fairy story. <b>At the end, I felt cheated: what interested in this story was mere sleight-of-hand, distracting from the fact that there really wasn't <i>much </i>happening.</b><br />
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There <i>was </i>a moment of fairy tale maturity, like a strong, high note in the story, when the queen withstands "temptation" to serve the young and beautiful witch because she has "learned to feel her own feelings." When did that happen? And how? Wouldn't it have been so much more powerful to express that tangibly, rather than in narration, in some visible sign, some outward rejection manifesting itself physically in reality? What experience in the original story caused this revelation? <br />
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I want to read <i>that </i>story.<br />
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<b><i>The Sleeper and the Spindle</i> gives the impression of trying a bit too hard; and in the end, though it <i>is </i>entertaining, it is neither very new nor captivating.</b><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-73765673113208613132015-10-03T06:02:00.002-04:002015-10-03T06:02:47.187-04:00Good Things Come in Sevens: A Book Review<h3>
<i>Seven Tales</i> by G.C. McRae</h3>
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My days are pretty much spoken for, what with an autistic four-year-old and an eight-month-old baby. So it couldn't be a better time for a collection of short and enjoyable reads, to snatch up whenever I am able to collect a handful of minutes; thankfully, G.C. McRae kindly delivered!<br />
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You may have already read one or two of his tales, such as "The Sneaking Girl and the Other Queen," "The Dollmaker's Daughter," or "The Wishing Oak." Now these original fairy tales are published with others in a collection titled <i>Seven Tales</i>. (A simple title yet significant, like a pair of shoes or a ball of thread in a folk tale!)<br />
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Just when we'd imagined all possible fairy tales discovered, a brand new bunch proves their timelessness and immortality. First, a discovery of tales a hundred years old, only recently released to the public; and now <b>the charming collection by G.C. McRae, which remain true to fairy tale form but from the mind of a single author</b>.<br />
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The most noteworthy impression left on reading <i>Seven Tales is </i>that I didn't notice they were making an impression! It was all too easy to sink into them, following the intricate threads and the arrivals of characters old as time and common as rocks, but who spring out unexpected and un-called for, as true fairy tale people tend to do.<br />
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My favorite tale is "The Seven Sisters," in which seven princesses each pretend to be the same person in order to placate a queen who hates children, which keeps you guessing 'til the end and is pure entertainment.<br />
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<b>These tales are also refreshingly devoid of deconstruction and schools of criticism.</b> And while I know we fairy tale scholars like to go on about our theories and models, all our chatter would be for naught if the normal people hadn't (blessedly!) ignored us and just told their good tales, as McRae has done. <br />
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I read these stories out loud to my children. It seemed only appropriate.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0993918344/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0993918344&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20&linkId=KOWQ5KVZ4C7FU4XZ" target="_blank">Seven Tales</a> is published by Ingram and will be available from all major booksellers on October 7th.</i><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-56396453611627388692015-03-25T07:14:00.002-04:002015-03-25T07:14:25.821-04:00Some Cinderella ReviewsJust popping in with a few links. <b>I haven't got a chance to see the new <i>Cinderella</i> movie yet, so pending a review, here are some excellent thoughts by excellent people</b>:<br />
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<a href="http://mollymakesdo.blogspot.com/2015/03/wait-and-be-rescued-thoughts-on-heroic.html?showComment=1427281394563#c3988389317873930587" target="_blank">Wait and Be Rescued? Thoughts on Heroic Boys and Damsels in Distress</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.catholicallyear.com/2015/03/maleficent-vs-cinderella-and-heroes-we.html" target="_blank">Maleficent vs. Cinderella and the Heroes We Give Our Children</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.carrotsformichaelmas.com/2015/03/17/charity-has-power-and-how-disney-didnt-ruin-cinderella/" target="_blank">Charity Has Power and How Disney Didn't Ruin Cinderella</a></div>
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Enjoy!<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-19454745132615673142015-02-08T01:04:00.002-05:002015-02-08T01:04:54.070-05:00Very! InspiringWell, what do you know? <b>I disappear for nine months and win an award!</b> I should go MIA more often!<br />
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Gypsy from <a href="http://fairytalenewsblog.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Once Upon a Blog</a> nominated me for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award. Thanks, Gypsy! Now I'm supposed to list seven things my readers may or may not know about me.<br />
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<ol>
<li>You might have guessed at the significance of a nine month absence--that's right, <b>I had another baby!</b> It takes me all nine to ten months (still not sure how that works) to make a baby, during which time I am dead to the world because of illness, fatigue, and otherwise disinterest in a will to live. It's all worth it in the end. My second child was born on January 14, a little boy!</li>
<li>His name is Roan Reuel, and yes, Reuel is for the family name inherited and passed along to the descendants of JRR Tolkien. No, we're not related (alas!).</li>
<li>I have naturally curly hair, like a hobbit.</li>
<li><b>I once held human bones</b> that I picked out of the dirt in an excavation site beneath a church in Rome--a fraction of a skull and a vertebrae. May he (or she, or they) rest in peace!</li>
<li>My rival hobby to fairy tales and writing is photography, and I've started my own small business <a href="http://lcphotogra.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
<li>I'm a loyal Catholic. Astute readers might have picked up on this already.</li>
<li>My older son (4 years old) has Autism. I'm just bumbling among and figuring things out, but if you want to talk or have any resources to share, I'm here.</li>
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Now I'm supposed to <b>nominate other bloggers for the Award</b>, of which there is absolutely no obligation for them to participate. I nominate:<br />
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<ul>
<li><b>A.L. Loveday</b> of <a href="http://alloveday.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Honey-Coloured View</a></li>
<li><b>Masha</b> of <a href="http://cyganeria-masha.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cyganeria</a></li>
<li><b>Jenna</b> of <a href="http://www.jennasthilaire.com/" target="_blank">A Light Inside</a></li>
<li><b>Anna</b> of <a href="http://annailonamussmann.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Don't Forget the Avocados</a></li>
<li><b>Kelly</b> of <a href="http://www.themiddlepage.net/" target="_blank">The Middle Page</a></li>
</ul>
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I hope this is the beginning of a more regular posting schedule in 2015. Thanks for sticking with me!<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-74712606478537186932014-06-12T20:32:00.002-04:002014-06-12T20:39:40.725-04:00Bored to Death<h3>
A Review of Disney's <i>Maleficent</i></h3>
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The first thing I do after watching a movie is to head over to Rotten Tomatoes to peruse the film reviews by proper critics. The second thing I do, if it is a fairy tale movie, is to hit up all my fairy tale blog peeps for a more balanced perspective. Sadly, my colleagues have been rather silent on the matter, with a few exceptions, so I suppose I ought to help get the ball rolling.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://moviesofhollywood.com/10-stunning-new-maleficent-movie-wallpapers-photos-featuring-angelina-jolie/.html" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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Before we go on, let us first note: <b><i>Here there be spoilers.</i></b><br />
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<b>We've been hearing about <i>Maleficent</i> for years, but in the end my experience of the film can be summed up in one word: bored.</b> I don't know if I'm the best judge of entertainment, since I have a peculiar and finicky taste, but from the opening voice-over to the ending credits, I found little to hold my attention. If it had not been for the pretty costuming and talented actresses, I might have lost interest entirely. It was just all very tepid, underneath the fancy CG. <b>I didn't feel there was much at stake.</b> Maleficent lost her wings, and her love, but she was good and happy before she met Stefan and during his absence. If she could walk into the castle to curse a baby, surely she could have retrieved her wings while she was at it. Even the curse is tamed to a sleep-like death, without a desperate, last minute intervention from a good fairy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Mom, is that you?", <a href="http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20796480,00.html" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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<b>The supporting characters are boiled down to their lowest common denominators, becoming tedious distractions rather than tools to help the story along. </b>Certainly not characters in their own rights, with complexities and inner goings-on.<b> </b><br />
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Stefan is a kind of caricature born out of the necessity for a villain, and his motivation is weak. The filmmakers need to give us a little bit more to work with if they want us to meet them in the middle; it's hard enough to believe that a kind boy, who would throw away his iron ring because it hurt a magical creature he only just met, would then become so heartlessly ambitious so as to turn around and try to kill the same creature, someone he cared for enough to have spent time growing up with her. <br />
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The pet raven is given a speaking voice by occasionally taking the form of a human but still doesn't have much to say. <br />
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In the end, Maleficent and Aurora alone are given room for growth and exploration, while the other characters and plot developments move around like props. But even poor Aurora's character is charming and bland. Her greatest moment is when she speaks out to the witch hiding in the shadows and does not recoil from her. Not much of a monumental and memorable game-changer. <br />
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For me, the most engaging moment of the whole movie was when Maleficent stands over the sleeping Aurora and wills her curse undone, only to have it thrown back in her face. And I credit all that to Ms. Jolie's powerful acting. (Also done well in the moment she realizes her wings have been taken from her. Maybe a tad melodramatic, but so wrenching and real that it made me hurt for her!)<br />
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<a href="http://www.fairytalefandom.com/2014/05/fairy-tale-media-fix-maleficent.html" target="_blank">Adam of Fairy Tale Fandom</a> writes,<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[<i>Maleficent</i> is] about two people and how their hearts become darkened by ambition, anger, bitterness and revenge. It’s also about how one of them starts to regain some light through exposure to someone who is good and innocent. </blockquote>
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and I think he's absolutely right. But <b>I feel like the key relationship, between Maleficent and Aurora, is not given any time to develop</b>, what between Maleficent watching her in her sleep and Aurora playing in the Moors with the magical creatures which are all show and no soul--the eeriness of Faerie is lost in this film, and I'd like to think I've cultivated a good radar for it. In <i>Brave</i>, for instance, that otherworldliness remains intact. It's hard for me to suspend disbelief and get behind Aurora's running away to the magical Moors forever, when it's just. So. Boring.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnXAz5JQpUZTCsXf6RJASfJtrxjFLzlgCxpRhf6-1QSe8RIaMJkF3CYUcJIyeDu1rKwjUeLVROfvgJ1dmD6k4AY2sZrJT2gp3RXHXUy0bvaeBqqQJ5dix8ltADzpkFRcQzXgC9hC6yySc/s1600/Maleficent7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnXAz5JQpUZTCsXf6RJASfJtrxjFLzlgCxpRhf6-1QSe8RIaMJkF3CYUcJIyeDu1rKwjUeLVROfvgJ1dmD6k4AY2sZrJT2gp3RXHXUy0bvaeBqqQJ5dix8ltADzpkFRcQzXgC9hC6yySc/s1600/Maleficent7.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">laughing and twirling and playing with magical creatures can only entertain me for so long<br />
<a href="http://sciencefiction.com/2014/04/21/disney-unveils-new-maleficent-featurette-photos/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Besides that, there were a lot of other little frustrations. How did the writers choose which elements of their original movie to keep? When does one draw the line? <br />
<br />
"We won't have Maleficent turn into a dragon, but we still need a dragon, so we'll have someone else be it." <br />
<br />
Or, "there's no need for thorns around the castle, but it's such a major element to the original, so we'll have thorns protecting Faerie instead." <br />
<br />
Even the spinning wheel is chosen because Maleficent happens to see it when placing the curse. I much prefer the mystery of not knowing to that. Why would a benign fairy even be named Maleficent, for that matter? I hoped it would be a name she took on, as she did her new staff and cloak. But apparently her parents had a strange sense of humor, or else didn't have <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/maleficent?s=t" target="_blank">a dictionary</a> on hand at <i>her</i> christening.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoGmXRZigbufvL40OxQ3P-VVFkExo_TPb_S49gwvCmT_HBa5iuH5BU2e8MXiHixwiPg99fe0MlzC_E7W3YcUxvyOQQNQuEc8xuS7dpqu3QjINTpJ4a0MjSoxApuOAXo8HqO4tSA-Ee7kh/s1600/maleficent_horns_by_balsavor-d6u6b5w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoGmXRZigbufvL40OxQ3P-VVFkExo_TPb_S49gwvCmT_HBa5iuH5BU2e8MXiHixwiPg99fe0MlzC_E7W3YcUxvyOQQNQuEc8xuS7dpqu3QjINTpJ4a0MjSoxApuOAXo8HqO4tSA-Ee7kh/s1600/maleficent_horns_by_balsavor-d6u6b5w.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">irrelevent but still interesting, <a href="http://www.hollyscoop.com/angelina-jolie/one-thing-you-definitely-didnt-notice-about-new-maleficent-movie.html" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>When I was a little girl, I lived and breathed <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>.</b> It was my absolute favorite Disney movie. I wanted to <i>be</i> Aurora/Briar Rose. And I never wanted or needed an explanation for the, well, maleficence of Maleficent. <br />
<br />
While I'm all for revisionist re-imaginings and villainous back stories, I worry this new trend is overlooking an important aspect of fairy tales: the fact that <b>there is evil and ugliness in the world, just as there is hope and unspeakable beauty. </b>To try to reason away these things (or, as the case may be, relegate them to a bland, mortal antagonist) steals a little bit of their wonder, and<b> it robs us of one of the great consolations of fairy tales</b>. Whatever the reasons may be for them, dragons exist, and so do wicked fairies. Yet there is always hope: a low door in the wall, a maiden's tears; a magic circle, a fairy godmother; a hole in the spell, one last gift-bearer overlooked and forgotten. The bad is not absolute, though it may seem impenetrable as a wall of thorns. <br />
<br />
And even death becomes only sleep in the end.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Death be not proud, though some have called thee<br />
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,<br />
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,<br />
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.<br />
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,<br />
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,<br />
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,<br />
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.<br />
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,<br />
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,<br />
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,<br />
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;<br />
<b>One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,<br />And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.</b></blockquote>
<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-69660946477277181952014-05-13T09:16:00.000-04:002014-05-13T09:16:40.861-04:00Family, Feuds, and Fairy Tales<b>Reading up recently on <i>The Mabinogi</i> has reminded me of the strong role of family in fairy tales and the sagas that came before them.</b> The <i>Saga of Hrolf Kraki</i> is a veritable family drama-fest, with brothers stealing each others' wives, and wives betraying husbands, and blood feuds, and boons and curses passing over generations.<br />
<br />
Family ties were of utmost import in these pre-Christian societies, so that <b>the slight of a kinsman was considered a grievous offense against one's person. The same loyalty could start a war or keep a dangerous man from justice.</b> Often, disputes would arise between one's spouse and one's family member. In my reading, the side of the blood-relative is almost always taken over that of the spouse. And children, being tainted by half their blood, might suffer <i>or</i> be spared for the offending parent.<br />
<br />
In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520253965/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0520253965&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20&linkId=5KTRY6XENM6K6JL7" target="_blank">the<i> Mabinogi</i></a>, Branwen, sister of the high king of Britain, is betrothed to the king of Ireland to keep peace between the two lands. Branwen's other brother, however, finds insult in not being consulted about the marriage, and in a fit, slaughters the Irish king's horses. The high king, Bran the Blessed, is himself greatly offended by their brother's doings, but rather than punish or disown him, offers recompense to the Irish king. The Irish king takes the gifts and his bride, but does not forget the slight, and a series of events unfold that lead to the scouring of two mighty lands. Branwen loses her child and dies of a broken heart before the end of it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4XyeqxTTeJaZF_5d3OWI5G8PQSQLjOoQJWuog27p2j6Yosb42GWdb8ni2zvsFFNgWmZ8CiuQ_Wi76RFo3JI2yNOoxmJroISfHG21RO_INNtU_egUwsl0O-Lf39LRGGfo90aB95LOt4Nv/s1600/branwen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG4XyeqxTTeJaZF_5d3OWI5G8PQSQLjOoQJWuog27p2j6Yosb42GWdb8ni2zvsFFNgWmZ8CiuQ_Wi76RFo3JI2yNOoxmJroISfHG21RO_INNtU_egUwsl0O-Lf39LRGGfo90aB95LOt4Nv/s1600/branwen.jpg" height="400" width="293" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Branwen releasing a starling to send a message to her brother of her mistreatment at the hands of the Irish king, <a href="http://celticmythpodshow.com/blog/archbishop-of-wales-draws-parallels-with-branwen-and-bran-the-blessed/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A similar deterioration occurs in late Arthurian legend, when Arthur will not--or cannot--decry the adultery between his wife and Sir Lancelot, a brother in honor and oath--since the arrival of Christianity, an even stronger bond than blood. The adultery weakens the kingdom, and in this weakness, King Arthur's nephews are able to overthrow and mortally wound him.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5s8Q-zf3TCMbX-_Rxch0K20n7X42IZT7OdOQHvUv3k0oqupiJ96J4aMBKwxvVwtutN5kh6UP5pZUMWQDhM6FZr3jNC7HvxiNSfOkjDf5LbY_BAJWMEcNvyHBCZ3LWfe8fRDCIGO256bN/s1600/bran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc5s8Q-zf3TCMbX-_Rxch0K20n7X42IZT7OdOQHvUv3k0oqupiJ96J4aMBKwxvVwtutN5kh6UP5pZUMWQDhM6FZr3jNC7HvxiNSfOkjDf5LbY_BAJWMEcNvyHBCZ3LWfe8fRDCIGO256bN/s1600/bran.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan Lee, the head of Bran the Blessed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I used to pinch the covers of my books in frustration at Bran and Arthur--surely, they could have avoided such tragedy by a firm decision and a swift act. But the truth is that <b>their situations are universal and entirely relevant. The conflict of family loyalty and honor is as alive now as it was then.</b> And in the news on the television, and in our own personal lives, we too often encounter those who let toxic family relationships destroy all hope for happiness.<br />
<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-88469019383055100412014-05-09T06:49:00.000-04:002014-05-09T07:02:22.142-04:00You Know You're a Fairy Tale Blogger When<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Kristin from Tales of Faerie and Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog have instigated a bloggy carnival of fairy tale goodness and invited me to join! Some of my admissions aren't a result of being a blogger so much as a general lover (and a passionate lover I am at that!), but blogging certainly aggravates the pre-existing condition. So, without further ado:<br />
<br />
<b>You know you're a fairy tale blogger when . . .</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>you always check the backs of wardrobes, just in case</b></li>
<li>you tell your child not to pick flowers or kick rocks in the woods because "the fairies wouldn't like that"</li>
<li>you ruin Disney viewings with friends with this helpful introduction: "in the original/oldest version of the tale. . ."</li>
<li>you're on alert for even the slightest fairy tale tropes and underlying themes in modern movies and television shows</li>
<li>ditto books</li>
<li>you judge which television series to watch next on Netflix according to two criteria: (1) is this a fairy tale show? and (2) can I blog about it? (see post on <a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.co.uk/2014_04_23_archive.html" target="_blank"><i>Ever After High</i> here</a>)</li>
<li>you tell Grimm and Anderson versions of Disney movies whenever an opportunity arises (I told Anderson's <i>The Little Mermaid</i> to a seven-year-old while washing dishes)</li>
<li><b>you swear you keep seeing Ents on your evening walks</b></li>
<li>you dedicate an entire Pinterest account to collecting fairy tale art and images</li>
<li>collecting and organizing those images take up an unwholesome amount of your time</li>
<li>you pen letters (or want to) with a quill and ink</li>
<li>you resolve to read the <i>Harry Potter</i> series because it's such a major player in the mythic/fairy tale genre</li>
<li><b>you never tire of the observation that there are next to no fairies in fairy tales but plenty of fairies in folktales</b></li>
<li>you write your college senior project on fairy tales</li>
<li>you have more than one blog, and wrestle with simplifying by combining them, but just <i>can't </i>drop your fairy tale blog, even if it means less time and more work for you</li>
<li>you know the difference between dwarfs, elves, goblins, pixies, gnomes, and fairies</li>
<li><b>you know <a href="http://www.minastirith.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=1;t=001154" target="_blank">the difference between "dwarfs" and "dwarves"</a></b></li>
<li>you sometimes "lose" fairy tale library books which are no longer in print (but they were so lonely and hadn't been checked out since 1968!)</li>
<li>you leave cake out on All Hallows' Eve, to welcome lonely spirits, but would only ever admit this on a blog!</li>
<li><b>the names Gerda and Kai and Hansel and Gretel are on your list of potential future baby names--bonus points for twins</b></li>
<li>you're a bit of a snob about prissy boutiques and their cutesy "happily ever after" pillows and frogs-in-crowns cartoons on hand towels; <i>like, what, are fairy tales a joke to you?</i></li>
<li>and think, "they have no idea what a real fairy tale is" and "if only they knew they're creating the opposite of their desired effect!"</li>
<li>you tire of the phrase "real life Cinderella," because you doubt there were any fairy godmothers or magical birds involved</li>
<li>it's been said already but bears saying again: your Amazon wishlist is hurting for it!</li>
<li><b>you learn to spin on a drop spindle on the sole merit of spinning's popularity in fairy tales</b></li>
<li>you want to purchase a spinning wheel some day</li>
<li>and fully intend to use it, not just for decoration</li>
<li>your dream home is just short of a gingerbread house in the woods</li>
<li>and you decorate your current home like one!</li>
<li>you have a love-hate relationship with fairy tale interpretations because they are <i>so</i> interesting but because just the fairy tales themselves are more powerful than our attempts to understand them</li>
<li><b>you make <a href="http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/introduction/gkchesterton.html" target="_blank">G.K. Chesterton</a> the patron saint of your blog</b></li>
<li>you write a fairy tale novel approximately ten years in the making</li>
<li><b>you consider the admonition "you're living in a fairy tale!" a supreme compliment</b></li>
</ul>
<br />
I better stop before I use up everyone else's. <b>But I promise all of the above is true!</b> Other posts in the series so far by<br />
<br />
Kristin from <a href="http://talesoffaerie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/you-know-youre-fairy-tale-blogger-when.html#comment-form" target="_blank">Tales of Faerie</a><br />
Gypsy from <a href="http://fairytalenewsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/you-know-youre-fairy-tale-blogger-when.html" target="_blank">Once Upon a Blog</a><br />
Heidi of <a href="http://surlalunefairytales.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/you-know-youre-fairy-tale-blogger-when.html" target="_blank">SurLaLune</a><br />
Adam of <a href="http://www.fairytalefandom.com/" target="_blank">Fairy Tale Fandom</a><br />
Tahlia from <a href="http://www.diamondsandtoads.com/2014/05/you-know-youre-fairy-tale-blogger-when.html" target="_blank">Diamonds and Toads</a> and <a href="http://www.timelesstalesmagazine.com/" target="_blank"><i>Timeless Tales</i></a><br />
Kate at <i><a href="http://www.fairytalemagazine.com/2014/05/you-know-you-fairy-tale-blogger-when.html" target="_blank">Enchanted Conversation</a></i><br />
Kristina at <a href="http://authorkw.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Twice Upon a Time</a><br />
Reilly, co-founder of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/austfairytales" target="_blank">Australian Fairy Tales Society</a><br />
<br />
Reilly tagged me, and <b>now I tag Megan of <a href="http://darkforestfairytales.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Dark Forest</a>!</b><br />
<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-71165406158744638492014-05-01T17:39:00.002-04:002014-05-01T17:39:52.712-04:00Saint Walpurgis Eve<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjO0PtWwU2GWj8_lU6om81UIvSTH2AHBVkHxA22xnRWICGTsuhLk_vAAsf1VT2jYsTHengEEr_GYcB2f4ya7C490Ypa9BKUu4KTK20vFqFljw4zz4Z18QB_b3zmmI8Rzz3C1qdsCHC8wh/s1600/Heilige_Walburga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjO0PtWwU2GWj8_lU6om81UIvSTH2AHBVkHxA22xnRWICGTsuhLk_vAAsf1VT2jYsTHengEEr_GYcB2f4ya7C490Ypa9BKUu4KTK20vFqFljw4zz4Z18QB_b3zmmI8Rzz3C1qdsCHC8wh/s1600/Heilige_Walburga.jpg" height="640" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Walpurga<br /><a href="http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=29535" target="_blank">source</a><br />(please note: accuracy of article questionable)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Hallowe'en is a popular modern holiday evolved from the medieval festival, with roots in pre-Christian Europe. But <b>the average person doesn't celebrate, let alone know about, Hallows Eve's opposite and counterpart, St. Walpurgis Eve, the night before May Day</b>, whose ancient name is Beltane.<br />
<br />
Here in Wales, the holy day of May 1st survives only as a disembodied bank holiday, floating around the days of the week depending on the calendar year. But that wasn't always the case. It used to be a night of bonfires and blessings, drinking and feasting, of ritualistic acknowledgement of the changing seasons, and a celebration to usher in the fullness of spring.<br />
<br />
<b>There are four seasonal festivals that have been celebrated, in some shape or form, for over 2,000 years in the west</b>: Hallowe'en/All Souls Day and Christmas Eve/Christmas survived the test of time, but Saint Walpurgis/May Day and Midsummer's Eve/Day, for some reason, lost their potency. Their remnants are found in our cultural traditions. Midsummer's Night was fortunate to be memorialized by Shakespeare's play, but vintage pictures of maypoles and skimming literary references keep May Day buzzing in the back of our consciousnesses, like static low on the television. Even still, they are better known than the all-but-forgotten Saint Brigid's Day and Lamas Day, celebrated on February 1st and August 1st, respectively.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNf-6YLUcHdfpeMf2pGkFPPaq77E_ukc3BY0VOgchzRrM5wngRz20_pAUKvnB2hUIrb2mFnXMOMQj78SDW_YYLyCpntyEav72XZC6xLXduLTqph4xVi3E7RTXbJRhhe8O9tpXZXRwNrPD/s1600/mayday_idawaugh.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNf-6YLUcHdfpeMf2pGkFPPaq77E_ukc3BY0VOgchzRrM5wngRz20_pAUKvnB2hUIrb2mFnXMOMQj78SDW_YYLyCpntyEav72XZC6xLXduLTqph4xVi3E7RTXbJRhhe8O9tpXZXRwNrPD/s1600/mayday_idawaugh.png" height="367" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ida Waugh, <a href="http://hedgehogstudio.com/tag/may-day/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Some of these holy days mark the middle of the seasons rather than the beginning of them. The summer and winter solstices recognize the approximate time when the lengthening or shortening of the days reverse or, as we know now, when the earth stands still and pauses before it starts to tilt in reverse direction. <b>But the ancient Gaelic festivals were somewhere between the end of one season and the beginning of another; associated with transitions, in all their forms, as thresholds where one is neither in nor out, neither here nor there.</b><br />
<br />
The difference in calendars and the reckoning of seasons is difficult to grasp; I can hardly get my bearings on them myself. I grew up with the popular seasonal groupings of spring (March, April, May), summer (June, July, August), autumn (September, October, November), and winter (December, January, February), but the ancient holy days suggest a different kind of division--especially in the remaining Catholic tradition of a the vigil, in which a new day begins at nightfall rather than sunrise. By celestial time-keeping, however, all the seasons are bumped forward about a month. By this reckoning, autumn starts in October, winter in January, etc. Look up the "first day of autumn" and "the first day of winter" in your calendar diary, and you'll see what I mean!*<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP94XuDipx__OxYf24xzfVOK0eeDTccbcfyfIn_ET37qV-1XxhijL0ps1ar4ImWH7WX_vzzAbFjbFIFisMdz8ft3lZeOuL57dT4Cln3IVFlc-mF2DAmcqg7aXm-qifN8yf3LuKhTtd9QEe/s1600/wheel+of+the+year+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP94XuDipx__OxYf24xzfVOK0eeDTccbcfyfIn_ET37qV-1XxhijL0ps1ar4ImWH7WX_vzzAbFjbFIFisMdz8ft3lZeOuL57dT4Cln3IVFlc-mF2DAmcqg7aXm-qifN8yf3LuKhTtd9QEe/s1600/wheel+of+the+year+4.jpg" height="400" width="382" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">neo-Pagan "wheel of the year," <a href="http://paganspoonie.blogspot.co.uk/p/wheel-of-year-20122013.html" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Awareness of the season and where one is in the calendar is integral to folklore and fairy tales.</b> Brushes with the otherworld were most likely to occur on the liminal days (equinoxes), and even Midsummer could mean trouble for maidens and wandering children. We can see how the seasonal waxing and waning, dying and awakening of the earth inspired folk traditions and daily living. The seasonal changes weren't just about the weather. They were near--and sometimes dear--realities. Just like fairy tales.<br />
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<br />
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<i>*Tolkien adapted and elaborated on the seasons and the folk traditions to engineer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_calendar" target="_blank">personalized calendars for the races populating Middle Earth</a>--right down to the Leap Days!</i><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-49470037766663985092014-04-29T08:01:00.002-04:002014-04-29T08:01:27.625-04:00Sweetness and Bite: A Book Review<h3>
<i>The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making</i> by Catherynne M. Valente</h3>
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<b>Turning to the fist page of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250010195/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1250010195&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" target="_blank">The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland</a></i> is like stepping into the midnight garden of the initiated</b>--those who tenderly love fairy tales and Know What They're About, all sweetness and bite and none of the Disney sanitation. The very first line of the novel is fair warning to the casual wader:<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250010195/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1250010195&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1250010195&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=spinstraintog-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=spinstraintog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1250010195" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog.</blockquote>
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And if there were any hint of doubt left, the sentence immediately following casts it aside:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her and flew to her window one evening just after her twelfth birthday.</blockquote>
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<b>Here, in two sentences, is the bone and sinew of fairy tale: something ordinary expectedly-unexpectedly intercepting the extraordinary. </b> This knowing tone--the expected unexpectedness--is carried through the story seamlessly and with much obvious enjoyment by Ms. Valente, making it a delight to read and a sort of wink aside to fairy tale enthusiasts.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HYmi9295a8jrEGWlvDO4B0rjm_lCvEUxVyziCY9YV9JCgdzRVOlpVsNxzjjp-y57ckdcGIrnZRyG1q8eKpbUKMG7RWiJaGy8QHClunQVEKM6K4m6ekGjSYk1zQ_KpMMfJu3-CLUswyCB/s1600/GirlWho-textSmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8HYmi9295a8jrEGWlvDO4B0rjm_lCvEUxVyziCY9YV9JCgdzRVOlpVsNxzjjp-y57ckdcGIrnZRyG1q8eKpbUKMG7RWiJaGy8QHClunQVEKM6K4m6ekGjSYk1zQ_KpMMfJu3-CLUswyCB/s1600/GirlWho-textSmall.jpg" height="162" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ann Lambert, <a href="http://www.annelambelet.com/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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The story itself is not complex and takes the form of the hero's journey, but the characters, respectful attention to fairy tale tradition, and exquisitely crafted syntax make for a heady feast. Ms. Valente chooses to circumvent the cultural-specific folkore and go straight for the idea-of-fairytale-personified: <a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/guest-post-strange-country.html" target="_blank">the Strange Country</a>, the universal otherworld. This mix of folkloric traditions might be jarring if it wasn't done so thoroughly. There's a pooka, or <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pooka" target="_blank">pwca </a></i>from the Welsh (love it!!); <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spriggan" target="_blank">spriggans </a>from Cornwall; a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marid" target="_blank">marid</a> from Indian mythology; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glashtyn" target="_blank">glashtyn</a> from the Manx; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami" target="_blank">tsukumogami </a>of Japanese tradition, and witches. All tied together into an exotic bouquet with a steel wire of steampunk. I love that September's mother works at a factory and sports the greasy muscles of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It!" target="_blank">Rosy the Riveter</a>.<br />
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September's relationship with her parents is an example of how Valente skilfully works the Victorian narration. A lot of the character development and revelation is secondary--not part of the action but disclosed to us in prose. It's done extremely well, by the curious technique of <i>witholding knowledge</i>. We get the impression in early chapters that September is a disloyal child, but we are given a glimpse into her growth as time goes on, only becoming aware of it as September does. I'm finding it hard to describe, but if anyone who has read the book and has something to add, let's discuss it in the comments!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBRlKC19ISjiaM-oTLS1Uv7orSuG7tmG-Zhi4vlkIP_67pwNDO8xFVssk4QHQ2JqwZGMoTqtaIuM_VuW0EVt3tt2FU-PvYVNPE7CZDPqTX-564OQ9IXqaJJRYSg9UZW1Y1rx6qJbQtiYKm/s1600/september.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBRlKC19ISjiaM-oTLS1Uv7orSuG7tmG-Zhi4vlkIP_67pwNDO8xFVssk4QHQ2JqwZGMoTqtaIuM_VuW0EVt3tt2FU-PvYVNPE7CZDPqTX-564OQ9IXqaJJRYSg9UZW1Y1rx6qJbQtiYKm/s1600/september.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">artist? [not credited in my copy]<br />September going "native" in the country of Autumn.</td></tr>
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Other things I enjoyed about <i>The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making</i>:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>the vocabulary. I learned several new words, no lie.</li>
<li>the Victorian chapter introductions--clever, whimsical, <i>and </i>functional!</li>
<li>the ridiculously long title</li>
<li>the subtle love story. I don't think Saturday's name would have worked as well without it. As a pair with September, though, it makes sense.</li>
<li>September's love of Halloween. Valente nails the autumn mood and suspense the same as Ray Bradbury, and that's saying something!</li>
<li>A-Through-L, the Wyverary. I've been cultivating my own type of book-loving dragon since learning about the my high school's literary magazine the <i>Pendragon</i></li>
</ul>
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<i><br /></i>
I'm looking forward to reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250034124/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1250034124&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" target="_blank">the sequels</a> and sharing the stories with my son as he grows. The <i>Fairyland</i> series is a modern classic, and is an luscious addition to any fairy tale library.<br />
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A few closing notes:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008PBYYOY/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B008PBYYOY&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B008PBYYOY&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=spinstraintog-20" /></a><b>I can't emphasize enough how much Ms. Valente knows her stuff.</b> It's delightful to read an author who has so carefully studied Faerie--and as is the way with Faerie (and fairy tales) this book isn't simpering and innocent. <i>There must be blood</i> is one of the sovereign rules of Fairyland. There's also lying, witches, blood tithes, and unsympathetic creatures. But the fickle, dangerous, and mysteriously ordered otherworld of folklore and human memory is intact and recognizable. The witticisms abound, and are somewhere between fact and nonsense--which means it's probably, as is the way with literary things, truth. Such as the assertion that children have no hearts, which is what makes them terribly thoughtless, reckless, and selfish, and that we grow hearts as we age. It's biting but beautiful observation, and put in a way that maybe skims the truth of the matter far better than psychoanalysis.<br />
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<b>This is a book of Fairy, and sojourners should expect to get messy; charmed; ravished; and even lose their hearts. . .</b><br />
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<i>{If you liked this review, please consider supporting this blog by purchasing the books via my Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for your support!}</i><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-89744459210786957802014-04-23T08:45:00.000-04:002014-04-23T08:45:00.620-04:00Non-Disney Princesses II<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>{Read the original <a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/non-disney-princesses.html" target="_blank">Non-Disney Princesses?</a> article here.}</i></div>
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Remember the "good old days" of franchise-launched fantasy cartoons centered on toys, such as <i>My Little Ponies</i>, <i>Strawberry Shortcake</i>, <i>Care Bears</i>, <i>Lady Lovely Locks</i>, and <i>Rainbow Brite</i>? (Children of the 80's, you know what I mean.) Some are getting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony" target="_blank">modern-day makeovers</a>, but there are also some new kids on the block. Out of curiosity, I clicked on a mini-series called<i> Ever After High </i>on Netflix, and it just goes to show that fairy tales will never, ever get old . . . or lose their potential for advertising!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131222190356/glee/images/e/e9/Ever-after-high.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131222190356/glee/images/e/e9/Ever-after-high.jpg" height="285" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
From left to right: Briar Beauty, Apple White, Raven Queen, and Madeline (Maddie) Hatter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b><i>Ever After High</i> is like <i>Clueless</i> meets Ponyville: where the children of famous fairy tale characters dress like themed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita_fashion" target="_blank">lolitas</a> and talk in insufferable puns while gushing about shoes, secret parties, and the dating scene.</b> It's where Hogwarts gets a run for its money with adult authority figures such as Headmaster Grimm, Baba Yaga, and Professor Rumplestiltskin. It's also where they're expected to fulfill their pre-written destinies by following in their parents' footsteps. Enter the main series conflict.<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316401226/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316401226&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20">Ever After High: The Storybook of Legends</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=spinstraintog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316401226" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<b>It's interesting to see what types of fairy tale trends take hold in this Barbie-esque multiverse.</b> There is the super-sugary blonde goody-goody befriending the antagonist-presented-as-protagonist misfit (<i>Wicked</i>); crossover characters from literary fantasies, such as<i> Alice in Wonderland </i>and<i> Robin Hood</i> (<i>Once</i>); and the forbidden romance between Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf (every supernatural romance ever).<br />
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Something else I found interesting was the choice to make Apple White, Snow White's daughter, a blonde. Though this was probably a purely aesthetic choice to make her contrast the daughter of the wicked queen, Raven Queen.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131113171332/everafterhigh/images/1/17/Card_-_HHSotH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131113171332/everafterhigh/images/1/17/Card_-_HHSotH.jpg" height="295" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
Will he rescue Snow White or Red Riding Hood?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>There are some clearly problematic things that naturally arise when combining fairy tales that were not addressed in the series.</b> Such as, in which story does Hunter Huntsman belong? Or is the Huntsman, his father, <i>the</i> archetypal character that plays one role in many stories. If the princes Daring and Dexter Charming are the sons of King Charming, aren't they also the brothers of Cinderella's daughter, Ashlyn, and even Apple, making the pre-determined pairing of Apple and Daring incestuous? If the Evil Queen is Snow White's stepmother, then Apple and Raven should be a generation apart, and Raven effectively Apple's aunt (Raven's mother is Apple's mother's stepmother). How far back do the generations go, exactly? Is there a line of hundreds of Goldilocks, or just the two, Goldie Locks and her daughter Blondie?<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316401226/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316401226&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0316401226&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=spinstraintog-20" /></a><br />
<b>There's nothing of really deep, lasting substance here, but <i>Ever After High</i> can't help but to stumble upon the roots of what haunts in fairy tales; too bad it doesn't care to water them and see how they grow. </b> Perhaps, the opportunity for delving is better humored in storybook format: Shannon Hale, acclaimed author of <i>The Goose Girl</i>, is authoring an <i>Ever After High</i> fiction series, with several books currently published.<br />
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=spinstraintog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316401226" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316401226/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316401226&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20">Ever After High: The Storybook of Legends</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=spinstraintog-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0316401226" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-1435397129035811272014-04-16T06:11:00.003-04:002014-04-16T06:11:22.348-04:0021st Century Fairy Tale Telling<h3>
<b><i>Metalalia</i>--Postmodern Fairy Tales for Your Tablet and Phone</b></h3>
<b><br /></b>
<b>It's been about 200 years since the brothers Grimm first committed pen to paper </b>in order to preserve the folktales of their native Germany.<br />
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Since then, fairy tales have grown and contracted, been melted down and reforged to make new alloys of folk-and-fiction. <b>The twenty-first century has already seen impressive and stunning contributions to the fairy tale tradition, but what about the storytelling medium?</b> To see the written word upon paper expire is the last thing I want, as I'm sure all of you agree. But adaptability is key to survival. And movies just aren't cutting it as a successful fairy tale medium (see my <a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/missing-heart-of-fairy-tale.html" target="_blank">review of Disney's latest <i>Frozen</i></a>).<br />
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<b>Enter Metalalia, an immersive, digital fairy tale storytelling experience.</b><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/835/200/b3787d0c787c3ed27a54244ae1714e8f_large.jpg?1396579203" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/835/200/b3787d0c787c3ed27a54244ae1714e8f_large.jpg?1396579203" width="410/" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">character design for <i>The Wind-up Boy</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Musician Pam Shaffer and author Alex Nicholson have defied distance to join their creative efforts over the width of the Atlantic (Steel thistles and glass mountains? <i>Please</i>!). Together, with a team of talented professionals, they've laid the foundations for <b>an app that will bring "future-twisted fairy tales" to your fingertips with original scores, fresh imagery, and interactive elements</b>. This means users will be able to "tailor their experience by combining or removing artistic elements, customizing the story, and making it more accessible."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/835/171/0dbc752f5943e2173b9a2ca09bda6616_large.jpg?1396578399" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/835/171/0dbc752f5943e2173b9a2ca09bda6616_large.jpg?1396578399" width="410/" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">first page of <i>The Hair-Woven Rope</i></td></tr>
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A multimedia storytelling experience that harnesses organic audience-to-author interaction recreating folkloric origins in a 21st century context? I think <i>yes</i>.<br />
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<b>The Metalalia team are rallying fairy tale enthusiasts and free-spirited creative types to help them <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pamshaffermusic/metalalia-multimedia-fairytales-for-your-tablet-an" target="_blank">fund the launch of their app on Kickstarter</a>.</b> At the time of my writing, they have already raised almost $2,000 of their $9,000 dollar goal.<br />
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If this looks like something you'd appreciate; if you feel the importance of the digital medium in preserving our sacred fairy tales and engendering new ones; or if you just want some really cool freebies, <b><a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pamshaffermusic/metalalia-multimedia-fairytales-for-your-tablet-an" target="_blank">click over there</a> and donate anything from $1 to $1,000</b>. Whatever you feel moved to contribute.<br />
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If you're at all like me, they'll have you at "digital illuminated manuscript" and "William Blake."<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-31577744268952367822014-04-08T08:29:00.000-04:002014-04-08T17:04:33.597-04:00The Kingdom of Arthur<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm sorry I've been neglectful of this blog for the past year or so. My personal life has undergone some huge shifts in the past months, one of which has been to <b>temporarily relocate to Wales--the country adjacent to England, part of the island of Britain.</b><br />
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Wales is my heart's home and, as you fairy tale lovers might know, the mother of the great English-speaking tradition. It sounds paradoxical; but most scholars agree that the culture, language, and people of Wales are the most direct inheritors of pre-Roman Britain. It is unfortunate that the pre-Christian mythology did not survive intact like it did in Ireland, but the little that does remain is wealthy enough. <b>The most influential being none other than King Arthur.</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0413771997/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0413771997&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0413771997&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=spinstraintog-20" /></a>So why else should people who care about fairy tales care about Wales? The great historical scholar, Geoffrey Ashe, wrote a comprehensive volume converging British history and myth, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0413771997/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0413771997&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" target="_blank">Mythology of the British Isles</a></i>, modeled on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0241952743/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0241952743&linkCode=as2&tag=spinstraintog-20" target="_blank">Robert Graves's book on Greek mythology</a>. This divides the myths chronologically and by themes, with a summary of each myth and then a historical analysis. <b>What emerges from these collected mini-volumes is a trail of bread crumbs leading back to Wales</b>--which would have been to where the Brythonic peoples retreated during both the Roman and Anglo-Saxon invasions. What is more, there was a great deal of Irish settlement in Wales from the West, cross-pollinating the mythologies and restoring and/or preserving the mythic elements shared in common between the two Celtic peoples.*
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Following Chesterton's lead that all folk stories are growths from roots of fact and seeds of history, <b>Ashe speculates that King Arthur really lived</b>. And out here, near the gray Irish sea-waves crashing on gray rocks and mysterious doors-in-walls, it's not a bit hard to believe.<br />
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<i>* Though a Celtic identity was popular in the early 20th century, scholars are now in doubt as to whether or not the Celtic language-speaking peoples could justifiably be considered part of the same ethnic and cultural groups. It is doubtful whether those who lived in Britain before Roman rule even shared genetic link with the people known as Celts to the Roman Empire of the time, or if there was merely similarity from trade and cross-cultural influence.</i><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-71392003518185793702014-02-06T00:16:00.003-05:002014-02-06T08:23:38.430-05:00Missing the Heart of the Fairy Tale<h3>
A Review of Disney's <i>Frozen</i></h3>
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<i>I should be sleeping, or reading </i>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban<i>, but I stumbled upon <a href="http://www.catholicallyear.com/2014/02/i-have-some-thoughts-about-frozen.html" target="_blank">this review of </a><a href="http://www.catholicallyear.com/2014/02/i-have-some-thoughts-about-frozen.html" target="_blank">Frozen</a> and remembered that I had similar things to say about it. So.</i><br />
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<b>I liked <i>Frozen</i>.</b> It was funny, sweet, and well-animated, if a bit buggish (whatever happened to the beautiful, graceful characters from original Disney, making appearances as late as Princess Tiana?). The songs weren't particularly moving, but I did get the refrain <i>do you want to build a snowman?</i> stuck in my head, so I suppose it was effective. It takes place in a clear and easy-to-pinpoint location with decent attention to the visualization of culture and customs. Being a fan of folk culture, and especially Scandinavian folk culture, I enjoyed that part of the film immensely. But for our purposes here on Straw into Gold, it is imperative that I communicate the residual impression it left with me, which was this: <b><i>Frozen </i>was not, except by a deft maneuvering of the imagination, a fairy tale.</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Minkyu Li, <i>Frozen </i>concept art</td></tr>
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<b>My problem with <i>Frozen </i>is that it was virtually gutted of all things Faerie.</b><br />
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I don't mean that it was hardly recognizable from its inspiration, Hans Christian Anderson's <i>The Snow Queen</i>, although it <i>was </i>that. <b>I mean the magic was all but absent.</b><br />
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Oh, there was magic, as in the powers of Princess Elsa to make ice and snow from the touch of her fingertips. But there was <i>an utter lack of the magic of Faerie</i>; the sense of and cautious reverence for the Otherworld; of danger from an almost-but-not-quite pernicious sentience; of the fickle, and uninterested, yet inexplicably connected existence just beyond the reach of of our own. There was no alarm at Elsa's powers or inkling that something deeper was going on in relation to them (the curse of a slighted fairy, or the residual trait of an ancestor's mingling with gods); and even the characters' fear of Elsa was not found in the nature and source of the powers but in her potential to do damage with them. After the ball scene when the new queen's secret is revealed, Anna doesn't even pause to wonder at this astounding development; it's all par for the course. "So <i>that's</i> why she's shut me out all these years." O-<i>kay</i>.<br />
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Granted, in traditional fairy tales, fantastic events are often presented without any commentary on their fantasticness. But the fairy tales never mean to make the fantastical <i>belong </i>to the mortal. There is always an explanation of sorts, even if that explanation shuts out further investigation, like the lid of box snapping shut on a hand. "She was actually a faerie changeling in disguise." That's it, that's all that's needed. A recognition of the Other, of some always-and-ought-to-be unknown.<br />
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<b>Even the trolls are pared down to their lowest common denominator, emptying them of all the mystery and danger of the otherfolk and making them mere comical, cartoonish creatures.</b><br />
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<b>Finally, the glass shard in the heart* loses its potency.</b> Rather than darkening the sight of Anna,** the shard in the eye (generalized to "head" in the movie) only knocks her unconscious and turns white a strand of her hair. All her memories have to be erased so she forgets her sister's gift-curse and doesn't question Elsa's separation from her. But that is a secondary, and not a direct, result of the ice shard. The second ice shard slowly freezes Anna's body but leaves her heart untainted. <b>What kind of congress with Faerie only touches the outside of a person, only his physical existence; leaves his perception of the world unshaken?</b><br />
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When Anna finally reaches the palace of her ice queen sister, it is opposite of what little Gerda finds when she arrives at the sheer and terrible fortress of the Snow Queen. Anna finds only a very human girl, with very human hurts and emotions and fears, and the rest of the palace empty. But Gerda finds the Snow Queen absent--as her nature, one might say, is a great, gaping absence--and dear Kai with his soul half-killed, working away mechanically at a puzzle made of shards of ice, trying, yet ever failing, to form the word <i>eternity</i>. Anna's act of sacrificial love for her sister Elsa breaks the spell, as one would expect. When Elsa feels and knows her sister's love for her, her frigid emotional walls falter and crumble. It is a self-administered cure. But when Gerda finds poor Kai enslaved to logic--the ice-cold logic of the mind, of science, of nature, and of seasons--her shed tears melt his heart and wash loose the shards of glass.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/art/frozen-concept-art/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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For Faerie is vast and fierce, and we often tremble before it and believe ourselves helpless. But in this, the heroes and heroines of fairy tales prove us mistaken. We are not helpess. Faerie is wild but not immune to obeisance--for those with stout hearts and stubborn wills, though the winter seem endless, and the journey long.<br />
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<i>* changed from glass to ice in the movie, so as to remove the uncomfortable and politically incorrect hell-mirror-falling-from-heaven scenario</i><br />
<i>** who is the combination of Kai and Gerda from Anderson, though Elsa, the Snow Queen figure, has bits of Kai in her as well</i><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-59997712342870246102014-01-23T22:39:00.000-05:002014-01-23T22:39:10.867-05:00Something in the Water<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Do do do do do do do do do do<br /><br />I wear a demeanor made of bright pretty things<br />What she wears, what she wears, what she wears<br />Birds singing on my shoulder in harmony it seems<br />How they sing, how they sing, how they sing<br /><br />Give me nights of solitude, red wine just a glass or two,<br />Reclined in a hammock on a balmy evening<br />I'll pretend that it's no thing that's skipping my heart when I think of you<br />Thinking of me babe I'm crazy over you<br /><br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water, something in the water<br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water, that makes me love you like –<br /><br />I've got halos made of summer, rhythms made of spring<br />What she wears, what she wears, what she wears<br />I got crowns of words a woven each one a song to sing<br />Oh I sing, oh I sing, oh I sing<br /><br />Give me long days in the sun,<br />Preludes to the nights to come<br />Previews of the mornings laying in all lazy<br />Give me something fun to do like a life of loving you<br />Kiss me quick now baby I'm still crazy over you<br /><br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water, something in the water<br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water that makes me love you like I do<br /><br />Oooh oooh oooh [x3]<br /><br />Give me nights of solitude, red wine just a glass or two, give me something fun to do<br /><br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water, something in the water<br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water that makes me love you like I do<br /><br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water, something in the water<br />Aaah Aaah Aaah<br />There's something in the water that makes me love you like I –<br /><br />Do do do do do do do do do do</i><br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-60334163064636630942014-01-12T15:49:00.000-05:002014-01-12T15:52:38.991-05:00HPP: Many First Impressions<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_5M4EAJmuwWlm3kaqw40Ey6Q81qUVCSAUZO8q06yuwZ4SBza793untDD2iLM_Y683cV-g72dPv5HEP52z1uHXl16OtexeV-CRpX7wysnjsHbBFIFOHMZxHYu7m4JyeBct2854M4J66i7/s1600/HPP+banner+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_5M4EAJmuwWlm3kaqw40Ey6Q81qUVCSAUZO8q06yuwZ4SBza793untDD2iLM_Y683cV-g72dPv5HEP52z1uHXl16OtexeV-CRpX7wysnjsHbBFIFOHMZxHYu7m4JyeBct2854M4J66i7/s1600/HPP+banner+2.jpg" width="250" /></a><br />
<b>Two introductions are made in Chapter 5 of <i>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</i>, mostly in relation to each other: the dementor and Professor Lupin.</b> At this point, we're not sure of the alignment of either, though we're told that dementors are (mostly) under control and there for the students' protection; and Professor Lupin is trustworthy enough to be employed by Dumbledore and also very handy after Harry's first encounter with the former.<br />
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<a href="http://www.jennasthilaire.com/2013/12/harry-potter-book-club-prisoner-of.html" target="_blank">Jenna writes</a>, "In all the speculative fiction I've ever read, I cannot think of a more troubling invention than the dementor," and I'm with her there. I'm also with her when she says that <b>the horror of demenotors draw from the fact that they are a real thing in this world: a beast called depression, which is far more common and far more conspicuous than demenotors in the fictional one. But there is another thing that troubles me about the dementors, and for that explanation, I'll quote <a href="http://cyganeria-masha.blogspot.com/2013/12/dementors-harry-potter-book-club.html" target="_blank">Masha</a></b>: "But the dementors fail in one essential and deeply troubling sense. The ‘dementor’s kiss’ steals the soul of the victim." If this is truly the case--and we've yet to finish the book and series, so more remains to be seen--then that is an extremely terrifying being, and an extremely depressing universe for it to exist in. And one, I think, that is flawed.<br />
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We more or less agreed, over in <a href="http://cyganeria-masha.blogspot.com/2013/12/dementors-harry-potter-book-club.html" target="_blank">Masha's combox</a>, that </div>
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. . . what horrifies [. . .] about the dementors [is] that we exist in a world where one's soul cannot merely cease to be like that. Rowling's fatal mistake--if we want to carry the depression metaphor to its fullest--is in emotionalizing the soul. The soul is more than feeling, it's got an intellectual element to it (I think Aristotle and Plato touch on this?) So a soul can be thrust into the pit of despair, but the ultimate sin [in the Judeo-Christian philosophy] is an intellectual denial of God's goodness.</blockquote>
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I'm sure we'll discuss this more as the dementors make their reappearance later in the book. I'll just add to Jenna's comment on chocolate being an odd, tiny remedy for the chill of the dementors. I like that it is something that is so often made to be the enemy of modern women and their figures. I think it's an important affirmation that simple, ordinary things aren't just okay for us but <i>good </i>for us--that life is about taste and enjoying a bit of luxury in the un-lofty, and that <i>that </i>healthful reverence a healthy person makes. </div>
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If no one has anything else to add, we'll leave them at the gates to the Hogwarts grounds and move forward, to Chapter 6, and the third major character introduction of Professor Trelawney. She's a brilliant character, and a lovely parody; smoky and glittering and mysterious, everything a fortune teller-psychic-palmist ought to be, according to popular conception. I do appreciate Rowling's fond use of tropes and reader expectations. (Giving her the name Sibyll? I know Masha's not impressed by the easy-come puns, but I enjoy them!) I'm also very much appreciative of Rowling's perceptive depiction of the faults and follies of divination.</div>
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Completely aside from any assertion as to its accuracy, Trelawney's showcasing in the Gryffindor's first session is an effective argument against the practice and/or use of divination; the children, excepting Hermione, are nervous wrecks afterward. <b>Whether or not they really do know the future or only <i>think </i>they do, an important invisible thing has been shoved aside to make room for her revelations: hope. It's determinism with the face of mysticism.</b> And really, even if it weren't an imprecise art, like Professor McGonagall says; or, also as she says, there are some who really possess it in it full capacity; why would anyone <i>want </i>to use it, let alone learn it as part of their course syllabi? <a href="http://www.jennasthilaire.com/search?updated-max=2013-12-18T19:16:00-08:00" target="_blank">Jenna might tease me for thinking much too far into it for a children's book</a>, but I have to be honest with my first time impressions, right? c;</div>
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The minor character Sir Cadogan was such a nice treat for me--Rowling's clearly familiar with the Arthurian, chivalric tradition, from the Welsh-originating name to the fat knight's dated speech.</div>
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I'm happy for Hagrid's appointment as a teacher but not sure he can handle his own against snotty little brats like Malfoy; he's too much of a gentle giant. Although, if he has anything going for him in the role, it's that he's hopelessly and sweetly oblivious to his own beautiful character and outstanding strengths. If he could just gain a little bit of self confidence, enough to ignore the Slytherins' teasing, he'd easily shut them up and put them in their place by the mere existence of his excellence.</div>
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I love Hagrid. (Who doesn't?)</div>
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-64971715056255697742013-12-19T15:18:00.000-05:002013-12-19T15:18:16.991-05:00Posts of Christmas Past<b>I've been stretched a bit thin in real life this year</b>, and except for the <i>Harry Potter</i> Project, to which I made a commitment and to which certain well-disciplined project partners/friends keep me accountable, there's not been much new material on the blog since the summer. It's a real pity to me and something I intend to improve in the new year.<br />
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In the meantime, <b>I thought I'd gather together all the Christmas and wintery posts and link them</b>--some of them you may have forgotten in a year's time or never read them, if you're new to SSiG. Seasons each have their own distinctive magic, and the winter season's is sharp and clear. A perfect time for internal scrutinizing and looking back on things in the ice-blue distance.<br />
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I wrote on the theme of winter dreaming last night:<br />
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. . . I do dream of white Christmases, and dreaming is memory--at least, they must come from the same place in the soul. And even though I now live in a sub-tropic clime, I'm a child of Midwestern winters, and the hard, warm snow that fell on flat, dry grass, lending its porcelain silence to a drab and weary backdrop. </blockquote>
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I remember waking in the dark of early morning, breath held. Even if no word came from the television that school was canceled due to snow-blocked roads, I still thrilled to step out into the white-and-black world. Snow makes stars sharper, somehow. I'd bundle up and go out early to wait on the corner of the street. My feet were the first imprint; it was surreal, like crossing finest sand on a beach no human soul had touched on another planet. Everything was suddenly closer, the world made smaller; you know, sharper, like when you twist your camera lens and everything comes into focus, so that you can see each tiny grain of glass. As if the light reflected drew the sky down to gaze at her own reflection. I stood there for ten, fifteen--twenty minutes well before I had to; before the other children--noisy, shoving and joking, oblivious--came out to wait with me; before the squat bus lumbered over the road toward us, and broke my shimmering bubble of infinite yet self-contained existence. </blockquote>
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I mean, there's more than one reason it's called a <i>snowglobe</i>.</blockquote>
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That's a taste of where I write from when I write about this lightless season; though it really doesn't lack light of all.<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-snow-queen-part-1.html" target="_blank">On the Snow Queen, Part I</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-snow-queen-part-2.html" target="_blank">On the Snow Queen, Part II</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2012/12/merry-magic-christmas.html" target="_blank">Merry, Magic Christmas</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2012/12/father-christmas-as-fairy-tale.html" target="_blank">Father Christmas as Fairy Tale</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2013/01/on-snow-queen-part-3.html" target="_blank">On the Snow Queen, Part III</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://spinstrawintogold.blogspot.com/2013/01/snow-apple.html" target="_blank">Snow Apple</a></div>
<br />
Enjoy. And thanks for sticking with me.<br />
<br />
<b><i>What are some of your favorite thoughts on winter?</i></b><br />
<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-45195385613600084772013-12-15T13:22:00.001-05:002013-12-15T13:22:20.358-05:00HPP: When Worlds Collide--er, Overlap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In chapters 2 through 4 of <i>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</i> is the first instance--at least the first in my notice--that the Muggle world and wizarding world have modern, real-time overlap.<br />
<br />
The Ministry of Magic sees fit to inform the non-magical media of the escape of a murderous maniac. To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't had more problems of this kind. There must have been bad wizards and witches, like our common thugs and petty criminals, who didn't care to keep their mischief confined to their own kind. But then, that's what memory charms are for, I suppose!<br />
<br />
<b>It's an interesting thought to entertain--how often and how many times have happily oblivious Muggles happened upon magic only to have their revelations erased and their life's events rearranged for them--and how does that jive with ethics, wizards' or otherwise?</b><br />
<br />
It's a perfect parallel with Mr. Weasley's dilemma in wanting to tell Harry the truth about Black. Mrs. Weasley believes Harry would be happier protected from the knowledge that a sinister, escaped prisoner has him marked for murder. But dear Arthur insists that Harry has a <i>right </i>to <i>know</i>. <b>Once again, Arthur Weasley steps forward as champion of common sense and decency.</b> He has more the heart of a <i>human being</i> than either Muggle or wizard, and every time I read about him, my respect for him grows in leaps and bounds.<br />
<br />
This also whets an appetite that has been stirring in me from the first pages of the first book: a thus far unfulfilled hunger to see how the world of magic, veiled from the ordinary world, can go on in secret; and wishing to see what would happen if someone--either by choice or by force of hand--were to reveal to the majority of the world on a mass scale that magic is real and exists all around us, in a parallel society, since the beginning of the beginning. The build-up to the mortal struggle with Voldemort we are heading toward is a perfect opportunity for this; for wizards to throw down their wands and say, "We all have to work together if we're going to defeat the Dark Lord" and "It's just as much <i>their </i>fight as it is <i>ours </i>because it's their world--it's their <i>lives</i>--too."<br />
<br />
In a similar vein, <b>I'm looking forward to seeing Hogsmeade, a real, live, in-the-world wizard village</b>. I wonder, what do unsuspecting Muggles who wander into Hogsmeade think of it? Is it cloaked or concealed somehow from non-magical people? I do want Harry to go there, but I've a bad feeling that he's not going to make a legitimately allowed visit.<br />
<br />
If not for <a href="http://www.jennasthilaire.com/2013/11/harry-potter-book-club-prisoner-of_19.html" target="_blank">Jenna's saying so</a>, <b>I wouldn't have ever put Aunt Marge and Margaret Thatcher together</b>; but then, I'm not knowledgeable about politics and any history more recent than the Reformation. Even if this is a jab at conservationism, the labels mean different things for Americans than Brits, and I've never been a fan of labels anyway, except for the one Big One (it's obvious enough if you read around here closely). The only way conservatism vs. liberalism would interest me is in the details--how they rate or what stances they take on particular issues or with certain real people who have names, jobs, and children . . . and not in the abstract generalizations. So a "no" to that, I think, Masha?<br />
<br />
I won't add to <a href="http://cyganeria-masha.blogspot.com/2013/11/harry-being-angryand-death-omens-book.html" target="_blank">Masha's commentary about Harry's anger</a> and the consequences thereof because I believe I've made my discomfort regarding that clear already, and repeating myself gets old, especially for readers!<br />
<br />
I'm curious and looking forward to omens and fortunetelling in the book. I don't have much personal opinion about it and experience with it myself, so discussions around that I'm looking forward to as well. At any rate, Rowling is playing a bit with death omens herself, with the black wolf sighted by Harry and its affiliation with the book subtitled "<i>what to do when you know the worst is coming</i>."<br />
<br />
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 take their time baiting and building up the main conflict that is to come, which allows the charming world of <i>Harry Potter</i> to open further fore exploration. The Knight Bus is fun in the way that much of Rowling's inventions are: unbalanced in favor of pun more than for practicality. The Leaky Cauldron's got <i>rooms</i>! Crookshanks, Scabbers, Percy's promotion to Head Boy, Ginny, and a mirror that gives unhelpful feedback. And there's been mention of some sinister guards placed around Hogwarts to keep watch for the also-sinister murderer. We're well on our way to another interesting school year.<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-69596295681210099642013-11-15T21:07:00.000-05:002013-11-15T21:08:24.740-05:00Guest Post: Fairy Tales and the World<h2>
by Bethany Cassel</h2>
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<i>[Dear friends and readers, when Bethany contacted me about the premise of her </i>Snow White<i> retelling, I was immediately intrigued. I'm fascinated with Pomona, my favorite Roman deity She is really like no other; diminutive, local, and domesticated, she's different at an essential level than the her sister harvest and vegetation goddesses. Those mythologists among us tend to make the connection between Demeter and Persephone's story and Snow White and the Queen's . . . but Pomona is an altogether refreshing choice of interpretation. I'll be reviewing </i>Shadowskin <i>as I am able to further read the Kindle copy Bethany gifted me. In the meantime, enjoy this palate-teaser from the author!--C.]</i></div>
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Hello, everyone! My
name is Bethany Cassel, and <b>I recently self-published my own fairy-tale
retelling, <i>Shadowskin</i>, on Kindle,
CreateSpace, and Nook</b>. Christie has
graciously agreed to allow me to write a guest post for <i>Spinning Straw Into Gold</i>. So
here it goes!</div>
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When I first started considering what to write for a guest
post, the first thing I thought about was a concept I’ve considered regularly
over the course of writing a fairy-tale retelling. It revolves around one question that sounds
deceptively simple: <b>“How do fairy tales and the world we live in impact one
another?”</b> To those who don’t regularly
study fairy tales, the answer is that they don’t, not really. Fairy tales were written ages ago and they
really don’t say much about our world today.
Scenes of grandmothers dwelling alone deep in the forest, glass
slippers, and magic mirrors all seem part of a time long gone by. For those who still love fairy tales long
past childhood, however, the truth is that fairy tales are part of one of the
most relevant genres in literature. One
need simply look at the studies of Bruno Bettelheim and Jack Zipes to see that
a true fairy tale never ceases to be important.</div>
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I was relatively early in the development of <i>Shadowskin</i> when I began to understand
that one cannot simply write a fairy tale retelling without a purpose. According to Professor Zipes, a fairy tale <i>must</i> say something about the world it
exists it. As he writes in his
introduction to <i>Beauties, Beasts, and
Enchantments: Classic French Fairy Tales</i>, the fairy tales of the French
courts in the late 18<sup>th</sup> century were direct commentary on the
courts. Some of the fairy tale writers
were even exiled for their ‘traitorous’ words.
Likewise, Hans Christian Andersen’s stories stirred deeply in the midst
of a late-19<sup>th</sup> century Europe in which poverty was a rampant
tragedy. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Pomona</i>, Caisa M. Howerin, <a href="http://www.elfwood.com/~caisa/Pomona.2603170.html" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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<b>So where did that leave me?
I sought to retell <i>Snow White</i> after a simple thought: why would the
evil stepmother really want to kill Snow White?
She must have another motivation.
This led directly to the invention of the queen’s daughter, the
protagonist Pomona. The queen’s
motivation would be maternal.</b> I didn’t
begin to think of it in a modern sense until much later in the process, but <b>I
realized that this queen character represented the change in motherhood that is
taking place in our current century: the queen essentially works in a
profession that she does not want in order to bring the best for her children,
whom she cannot spend time with as a result</b>.
I will avoid getting too political here, but the present-day
conversation about mothers who must make the unfair choice between a career and
a family had made its way into my writing without my even knowing it. </div>
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<b>This is why fairy tales are such a powerful genre. They are vehicles for social commentary, and
they <i>will</i> comment on the world
whether bidden or no.</b> As a writer I am
not alone in using my writing to express my feelings about the world, but as a
fairy tale reteller I realized that I had chosen the perfect genre. <i>Shadowskin</i>
is not a political novel by any stretch of the imagination, but as a fairy tale
it carries these ideas in its bloodstream.
I gained a great deal by writing <i>Shadowskin</i>,
and I hope that future readers will gain something from it as well.</div>
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Thank you Christie once again for giving me the opportunity
to write this guest post.</div>
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-83399036621151710022013-11-12T15:59:00.002-05:002013-11-12T16:02:42.491-05:00HPP: Modernism vs. Magic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's a good thing we've covered Book 2 so far in the <i>Harry Potter</i> book club, or I might accidentally mix some floo powder into my tea thinking it some sort of magical tonic. I feel like Harry, Hermione, and Ron, lately: always headed for a bed in the hospital wing. I wouldn't mind a Percy stand-in to bully me into some Pepperup Potion every now and again.<br />
<br />
Fevers are appropriate, however, as we're back with Harry in the summer, under the hot blankets with a flashlight doing homework. <b>Chapter 1 of <i>The Prisoner of Azkaban</i> is a good, steady re-introduction. The pace slowed noticeably from the first book to the second, and from the second to third it's slowed yet again.</b> Well, so there is something to the fact that each consecutive book gets larger and larger! It makes sense. Now that we are more familiar with the intricacies of the Potter universe, we can take our time and explore the back-roads . . . enjoy the scenery.<br />
<br />
I like reading about owl post in action; and <b>it's characteristic of the wizarding world, which seems to exist in an eternal crisis (if that's the right word) between the archaic and the modern</b>. You can throw some powder in the chimney, walk into the fireplace, and end up in another town altogether, but apparently it takes a Galleon prize drawing to be able to afford a trip to Egypt. Of course, we Muggles see it as charming, but for the wizard-born-and-raised, wouldn't the e-mail and the text message seem more magical? <b>And what separates magic from science, in a universe where magic seems to lack all elements of spirituality and is a naturally found occurrence?</b> It reminds me of the passage in <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> when Lady Galadriel kindly tells Sam that what he considers "elf-magic" is for them art, skill, and science.<br />
<br />
I'm also happy that, at last, Harry had a good birthday.<br />
<br />
Jenna's<a href="http://www.jennasthilaire.com/2013/11/harry-potter-book-club-pumpkin-recipes.html" target="_blank"> conjuring pumpkin recipes</a> over at Hagrid's. Before she did that, though, I found a most extraordinary thing in a (non-magical) schoolroom the other day.<br />
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Though a trip to Universal Studios is not impossible, it is, monetarily speaking, and at this time, out of the question. And so is <a href="https://www.universalorlando.com/Merchandise/Shop/Honeydukes/Sweets_Candy.html" target="_blank">the price tag for ordering online</a>! So we'll stick with Jenna's experiments for now. At least, my roasted pumpkin seeds came out pretty tasty!<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6034855245900964602.post-10534797467924042062013-11-03T21:41:00.001-05:002013-11-04T11:37:39.331-05:00HPP: Of Phoenixes and Free Will<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCn69zsibDEypX9nVuA5Wg4fxO7KeMGQ3215mmwImZfglTLuvY8PO23cbdORFBn1qGuDaat7NPLO8HlB2k7E3fJTRkuHPxViuVtR-HdnB6IDeyGtoWwhQoyU_nsSFLS5SX2WyD_47cO66g/s1600/HPP+badge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCn69zsibDEypX9nVuA5Wg4fxO7KeMGQ3215mmwImZfglTLuvY8PO23cbdORFBn1qGuDaat7NPLO8HlB2k7E3fJTRkuHPxViuVtR-HdnB6IDeyGtoWwhQoyU_nsSFLS5SX2WyD_47cO66g/s320/HPP+badge.jpg" width="250" /></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallowmas" target="_blank">Hallowmas</a> was the perfect week to finish up <i>The Chamber of Secrets</i>, and it did not disappoint. <b>Chapter 17, "The Heir of Slytherin," was a sledgehammer of <i>ah-ha!</i> moments and </b><i><b>I-gotta-remember-thats!</b> </i>So let's begin, shall we?<br />
<br />
In Chapter 16, Ron and Harry's intention to question Moaning Myrtle is postponed in several steps: (1) they are caught by McGonagall on the way to the bathroom and must make the detour to the hospital wing to cover their story; (2) they discover the crumpled paper in Hermione's hand and the nature of the beast and decide to inform McGonagall; and (3) they're thrown completely off track by the news that Ginny has been taken--and most likely killed--by the Heir of Slytherin. This is all great story-building and plot strategy. I'll take a pinch of unbelievability for a gallon of masterful layering and cross-layering (is that redundant?) any day.<br />
<br />
When they at last come to themselves again, Harry and Ron decide to confide the information they have to Professor Lockhart, who is to descend into the Chamber to attempt a rescue. Why they would go to him rather than to McGonagall, who is clearly more capable, I don't know. But it works.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the staff room, by Marta T, <a href="http://hpcompanion.com/artists/marta-t/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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<b>This is one of the instances I wrote on previously, in which Harry asserts himself--as a character, as a personality, as the subject of his novels, rather than just an object to be acted upon and blown about by every wind. In which he lays down the title earned for him by his mother, the Boy Who Lived, and fits out a reputation of his own making. He gets angry.</b> And it is that very human anger and its source in love for his near and dear that brings me closest to him thus far. It's when I really <i>believe him</i> and feel I know him as a person. I just love it when he gets angry! (<i>Whoa</i>--am I having a Ginny moment?) Harry is one of those unassuming people who's not easily ticked--he's never anything other than kind to the moon-eyed little sister of his best friend, Colin's obsessive photo-snapping, and even Lockhart's friendly arrogance (okay, well maybe just "tolerant" of that last one)--but if and when he is made angry, heaven help you!<br />
<br />
Henceforth, all the pieces fall into place. Lockhart is revealed as the charlatan; Myrtle gets her five minutes of fame; the Chamber entrance is discovered. The boys go forth alone, with only their fragile bravery, their determination, and a good-for-nothing Professor of Dark Arts.<br />
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<b>After Chapter 17, I understand why people say <i>Chamber </i>is the darkest book.</b> The bleeding black ink; the sinister and apelike statue of Slytherin, crude and vast, reminiscent of dark, primitive demons that accepted blood sacrifices in the jungle; the heavy body uncurling itself from a black hole of a mouth. <b><a href="http://cyganeria-masha.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Masha feels that Riddle is more distressing than Voldemort as a villain</a>, and I agree. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Riddle is an ideal villain in this one book. His Voldemort self is less convincing, and less interesting to me than the conscience-free, arrogant boy facing Harry beneath the castle. Is this why Chamber of Secrets is more unnerving than the rest of the series? Because Harry is still so young, still likeable, and Riddle is very much the image of a boy seduced by darkness, and not the incompetent, almost ridiculous little demon he becomes? </blockquote>
<b><br /></b>
<b>The smiling, handsome schoolboy, model student, orphan, prefect, head boy, calm and cool, like a brunette James Dean is poorly suited to the demented, murderous intention, the calculating conniving, the raw, yet-to-be formed and distilled craving for power, the self-stylized name . . . juxtaposition highlights perversity.</b> (Harry, why oh why did you <i>put down your wand</i>!)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU-Hz87fpgPzDKKwMHCpugFmKb4dvJaRjyN8_ynrYYitNOVC36w5t18vbOROE4N2BXmKl3GIiThPQjqNNC1aqQ315i_b-lU7evbqXX6iYi_EdgKWp5v-rtNSvfTOZKQQgD6y-Alu2nZu5E/s1600/cs17-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU-Hz87fpgPzDKKwMHCpugFmKb4dvJaRjyN8_ynrYYitNOVC36w5t18vbOROE4N2BXmKl3GIiThPQjqNNC1aqQ315i_b-lU7evbqXX6iYi_EdgKWp5v-rtNSvfTOZKQQgD6y-Alu2nZu5E/s640/cs17-4.jpg" width="409" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom Riddle, by glockgal, <a href="http://hpcompanion.com/artists/glockgal/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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<br />
The infiltration of Ginny by Tom Riddle is by far worse than Voldemort's parasitical relation to Quirrel. Quirrel was a willing host. Ginny is literally possessed. And <i>how </i>he possessed her, by feeding on her fears and secrets!<br />
<br />
<i>"If I say so myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed."</i><br />
<br />
That's the part that refuses to leave you in comfort--<b>the outright deception</b>. At least Voldemort stands and faces his enemies. They know him. His name is feared. But <b>Riddle works like an infestation or a terminal disease</b>, and you've no chance to defend yourself. By the time you know what he is, it's too late.<br />
<br />
Now the other thing I noted was how similar the attitudes of Draco Malfoy and Tom Riddle were. Riddle's interest in opening the Chamber of Secrets (and in re-opening it through Ginny, at first, before he learned of Harry) was in ridding the school of Mudbloods. Draco expressed approval of such a purge several times. I daresay that he has the capability to become another Voldemort, if not the talent, charm, and intelligence, then in intention.<br />
<br />
[Quick side question: why is such a despicable person such as Salazar Slytherin head of Hogwarts, even if he was one of the founders? If, say, a racist bigot founded our school or town or club, we'd be in all sorts of hurry to unaffiliate with him.]<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcukZl-szK91K2ChiNcMwXgaQdEUSmBeOEmYYISkERPm1FmJdEh4DFfiUPv2oMty1skKYq_w6d1pBPHSyCUwDRZSAWholJcDqMXy0yoy_tLqesfHbUG1qatwrDUxznH0D3iiLP3Ns206a/s1600/cs17-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcukZl-szK91K2ChiNcMwXgaQdEUSmBeOEmYYISkERPm1FmJdEh4DFfiUPv2oMty1skKYq_w6d1pBPHSyCUwDRZSAWholJcDqMXy0yoy_tLqesfHbUG1qatwrDUxznH0D3iiLP3Ns206a/s640/cs17-21.jpg" width="409" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fawkes & the Basilisk, by odella, <a href="http://hpcompanion.com/artists/odella/" target="_blank">source</a></td></tr>
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<br />
Riddle's anagram-name is narcissistic, unlike Harry's confidence in and loyalty for Dumbledore. <b>Fawkes's unearthly music is one of the truly magical moments in <i>Harry Potter</i>. The "eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly" song that "lifted the air on Harry's scalp and made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size" is more magic to me than any charm, potion, or transfiguration; even more so than an enchanted ceiling is that thin, high note ringing out in the dark, kindling hope in the heart. </b>Masha:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The magic in Harry Potter is not magic in the true sense, and teaches us nothing about how to approach this "embodiment of the sublime virtue of hope", with all it's dangers, pitfalls, and beautiful potentialities. More often than not, the magic of Harry Potter is mere 'hocus-pocus spells' - not fairy at all. But then, there are at times that real sense of 'ritualized optimism' that makes the magic real.</blockquote>
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Fawkes is splendid. But <b>the best part of this chapter is, surprisingly, not in the the feeble but unwavering faith and loyalty of the good; but in the unflattering but accurate portrayal of evil as something dull, arrogant, and uncreative</b>. While Harry has no idea how a shiny bird and a shabby hat will save him, Riddle is assured his victory. He refers to Lily's valiant sacrifice flippantly as "a powerful counter charm" and mocks Dumbledore's aid to Harry, even to the point of forgetting--he, the most brilliant and powerful of wizards--that phoenix tears have healing powers. <b>Voldemort's prideful carelessness can be counted on much more than Dumbledore's haphazard and sometimes dubious help to secure the the triumph of goodness. So in the end, it is Riddle's own creature--the fang of the basilisk plunged into that black diary--that destroys him.</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.jennasthilaire.com/2013/10/harry-potter-book-club-chamber-of_28.html" target="_blank">The girls have already spoken sufficiently on Harry's (and Dumbledore's) extreme kindness to Ginny.</a> So I won't say more on that. But I will say that Gilderoy without any memory is a much more likeable person than normal Gilderoy. Funny how he is the most himself, as opposed to the person he wants everyone to think he is, when he doesn't know himself: "Am I a professor?" said Lockhart in mild surprise. "Goodness. I expect I was hopeless, was I?"<br />
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I pouted a bit about the lack of free will in the last book club post. That was well remedied in Chapter 18, when Dumbledore makes his famous assertion: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." And I like that. <b>I'm a huge champion of free will operating in stories--especially when it is made blindingly clear by one or two very grave choices, upon which all the rest of the story hinges.</b> Which is why Harry can wield the sword of Gryffindor. He chooses to.<br />
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We come back to Dobby at the end of the story. It seems like such a long time--a school year packed with hard lessons, difficult classmates, social awkwardness, lovely holidays, exciting sports, deadly adventures, real fears and desolations--since the little house elf stood in the upstairs room in the Dursleys and begged Harry not to come back to Hogwarts. <b>Harry's kindness to Dobby is yet another example of choice shaping fates.</b> When Lucius Malfoy reels on Harry with his wand raised, Dobby knocks the wizard off his feet and commands him to leave (see how the tables have turned!). And since Dobby's role was too small in this book, I expect to see him again in later stories, where the opportunity for Harry's choice in kindness can bear fruit for another adventure.<br />
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Christiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18107748184124761940noreply@blogger.com4