رز خارزار

by Robert Coover, بابک مظلومی (Translator)

Robert Coover has a power over the language matched by few authors and a curiosity about the nature of stories and narratives that keeps his work intellectually charged, if sometimes difficult to follow. Students of postmodernism and fans of metafiction will be interested to read Briar Rose, Coover's funny deconstruction and retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Fairy Tales, Retellings, Literary Fiction, American, United States

62 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

Robert Lowell Coover was an American novelist, short story writer, and T. B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. He became a proponent of electronic literature and was a founder of the Electronic Literature Organization.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sophisticated, post-modern and very adult take on the old fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. Coover plays with and subverts the genre, but the question that occurs to me is; does he go far enough and why only in one direction?
The tale is retold many times with numerous variations on the theme. Coover has in fact amalgamated Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty in the Wood and the Grimm’s Little Briar Rose. The cast of the good fairy, an evil old crone, a sleeping princess and rescuing prince are all present. Coover gives us access to the thought processes (and dreams) of all those involved. The good fairy and old crone are two parts of the same whole. The princess and the prince are also more nuanced, both questioning their roles. The happy ever after myths are exposed as false. The vignettes where there is a possibility of a happy ever after have one or both parties thinking “Is this it?”
Everyone questions their roles. The prince wonders whether he really is the one and if he is up to the job. The good and bad sides of the fairy battle with each other. The princess struggles with a lack of memory and how she got there and with whether she is briar or rose, whether she is waiting silently for her prey (An interesting take on the idea of the woman being passive, beautiful and evil can be found in Andrea Dworkin’s Woman Hating). In all of the outcomes explored the princess never finds a happy or fulfilling ending; sometimes the prince does.
Coover doesn’t play with the gender roles. The prince attempts to rescue and the princess waits. There are times when the prince wants the princess to act “Don’t just lie there! Get up! Come help!”
It is the area of sex and sexuality that is most problematic. The princess is raped as she sleeps fairly routinely by her father, her father’s knights, a group of the castle’s peasants, bear (and is then bitten by the bear’s mate), by the prince (of course the prince is married and his wife takes her revenge by killing and cooking the princess, feeding her to her husband) and there is even a sexual assault by a monkey. Sexuality is implicit in this tale and I have no problems with that, but all the sexual scenes have a strong element of violence in them (implicit or (more often) explicit). This reminds me of two feminist critiques of fairy tales; Brownmiller saying that fairy tales trained women to be rape victims and the idea that humiliation and powerlessness are central to the female role in these stories. I would have thought that playing with the genre would have involved more sexual variety and switching of roles. By staying with the concept of the female as the penetrated victim (even though the prince is not a heroic figure) is Coover missing a trick or is he trying to do something else?
This is a sophisticated and clever novella and the cutting back and forth between the prince and princess works well. The varying motives of the prince and the focus on duty with an element of dumb stupidity is also very effective. There is also a motif of eternally frustrated youth; never fulfilled, always seeking. Youth is caught by vermin and decay.
That leaves me with my dilemma in relation to the violent nature of the sexual interactions. Coover is a clever writer and, of course, he may be trying to highlight this particular aspect of the fairy tale genre by highlighting the problem in a sharp and obvious way. The action is repetitive and maybe Coover is showing how dull the genre can be. And yet I can’t help wondering whether the result is just to emphasize the princess’s (women’s) victim status. What would be wrong with adding a bit of playfulness, variety (or even tenderness)? That might have stretched the boundaries even more. I wonder if I’ve missed the point, but the unremitting rape and there being no move away from the woman as a victim (or prey) and both the prince and princess being trapped in their roles was a point I got very early on. I didn’t go anywhere else. Is it me?

[Mir · Rating 1 out of 5]

Robert Coover can imagine an endless variety of rape scenes, each more revolting than the last. What talent! With writing like this, one doesn't even need a plot -- which is fortunate because there isn't one, just sordidness alternating with abstract and pointless musings from the three underdeveloped, unsympathetic characters. The author blurb describes Coover's writing as "experimental" and I think this novella is an excellent example of how novelty isn't always desirable.

If you think the concept sounds intriguing, I strongly recommend Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Anne Sexton's Transformations or Emma Donoghue's Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins instead. I felt that Coover wanted to do what they had done but made it more extreme and graphic so he could claim to be original rather than imitative. In the process he lost the meaningfulness.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once upon a time...

If you were like me growing up there came a time when the fairy tales your parents read to you no longer rang true. The story's simplicity and thin veneer of reality didn't jive with the way that the real world was just starting to reveal itself to your blooming mind. If you were like me growing up you began to ask questions about the story that the adult reading it to you couldn't answer. And like me, it was around that time that you were encouraged to embark on some independent reading of books that were age appropriate.

He has undertaken a great adventure ... to provoke a confrontation with the awful powers of enchantment itself.

Coover's ability to take the shopworn tale of Sleeping Beauty, smash it into infinite pieces - soak those with the blood and piss of reality, and then examine them one-by-one in a re-telling is nothing short of brilliance. We have the story told through the eyes of the sleeping princess, the crone fairy, the gallant knight. Told, retold, retold, retold and even though this novella clocks in at less than 100 pages it has the capacity of being endless.

In a sense, omnipotence is a form of impotence.

Beyond the familiar narrative, Coover explores the inner lives of the characters, the action of what came before and what happens after the awakening kiss. Countless alter realities. Which is the real story? Can't it be all of them?

...and they all lived happily ever after.

[Tony Vacation · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coover is kind enough to let Brown University maintain this website which features the entirity of this novella for free online.

Well, this reader's G-spot has been found and then carpet bombed. As is his wont, Coover tackles the basic story of a timeworn fable and then sets about deconstructing it and then reconstructing many possible forms the fable can take - all of this as part of his quest to reclaim our myths and find some wisdom worth retaining for humanity. This time Coover turns the Sleeping Beauty myth into a disturbing hall of mirrors with vignette after vignette featuring a prince besieging a castle through a treacherous maze of thorns, the eternally snoozing princess sequestered in a tower above and the (by turns good and bad) fairy that enchants the princess with a series of stories that tell troubling variations of the exact fable in which she slumbers through. As experimental narrative structures abound, the principle cast become more than the trappings of their familiar archetypes as the lies of true love and happily ever afters are eviscerated. Why must the princess spend her life waiting for some "true" prince to come part her thighs and prod her with his sword? Why does the prince, with his restless lack of contentment, feel the need to throw himself again and again into the brier patch in search of some new maiden to save? And why must bitter old fairies tell the young false fantasies about what he and she should want out of life? As grim as this all may sound, Coover's writing is so full of life that one does not dwell in despair but instead is invigorated by the power of possibility storytelling holds, and the promise that we may actually be able to learn from stories and not just play our parts through life by rote. Now excuse me while I smoke a cigarette amidst tangled sheets.

[Tempo de Ler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Com Rosa Brava, o seu autor, Robert Coover, leva a cabo uma experiência muito interessante: esborracha completamente as nossas pré-concebidas ideias e expectativas em relação a um conto-de-fadas bem conhecido: A Bela Adormecida. Rapidamente percebemos como estamos dependentes da 'tradição' em relação a estes famosos contos e como nos sentimos frustrados quando não acontece o que é 'suposto'.

Não há cá Finais Felizes para a Bela Adormecida de Robert Coover!... Não há, tampouco, liberdade de escolha. Os personagens representam papéis que lhes foram impostos, como se tivessem um destino a cumprir independentemente de o quererem ou não; estão presos em papéis que não pediram para representar, dos quais não tiram prazer algum, vergados por expectativas que não vêm cumpridas ou não podem fazer cumprir.

Apesar de apreciar todo o conceito não gostei de ler o livro, especialmente porque, por entre a exagerada repetição, encontrei apenas aborrecimento. Esta repetição vem na forma dos diferentes sonhos que a fada má impinge a Rosa. Violentos e obscenos, compreendo que estes sonhos sirvam para estabelecer a ligação entre a versão de Coover às versões contadas ao longo dos séculos e que tenham por objectivo frustrar tanto leitor como personagens em relação às suas expectativas, mas esta experiência, aplicada vez após vez sobre o leitor, acaba por perder o sentido e rouba o livro daquele que seria o seu objectivo.

Não há conclusão real para esta versão da história… mas também, depois de o ler, não me parece que alguém esperasse que houvesse uma…

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Briar Rose is short, but very dense. It's not a book you can read without concentration. I think I'm just not smart enough for this. I'm sure there were so many things I missed. Coover delves into "happily ever after" quite seriously and examines what that might mean. He has the prince contemplate heroism, he has the fairy (both evil and good) examine archetypes and ego and female-ness and male-ness. The princess is caught in a dream, or is it real? How long IS a hundred years anyway? All in beautiful language.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't read if you love a happy ever after story. Read if you like black humour and clever writing. A very adult story of Sleeping Beauty complete with a wicked fairy, a faithless prince, and an empty headed princess. Grimly entertaining

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Coover's Briar Rose is a postmodern fairy tale for adults, one that delights, chills and entertains all the way, as the action / inaction loops with endless desire and lovelorn longings only to return ever and again to the comfort / discomfort of the familiar, be it a bed of thorns or the silent boudoir-of-the-hundred-year sleep; both bound in dreams of enchantment and terror. Black humour wonderfully well written.

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/zarzarrosa-...

Zarzarrosa y Ciudad fantasma de Robert Coover. Catas postmodernistas

No hay muchas posibilidades, actualmente, de acercarse a la obra de Robert Coover; si sumamos el desorden cronológico a la selección de materiales, el pobre lector que intente introducirse en su obra y en la figura del norteamericano se puede llevar una sorpresa, y no siempre agradable, por las indudables dificultades que ofrece su lectura; la editorial Anagrama publicó varias obras suyas en su momento pero ahora están descatalogados así que nos quedan tres opciones reales y bastante diferentes; por un lado tenemos la colosal y excesiva La hoguera pública, de la que hablé en profundidad aquí y que podemos disfrutar gracias a Pálido fuego, pero se antoja como una opción abrumadora por su temática, uso de recursos y estilos, todo un compendio que reúne casi todas las estrategias postmodernistas y que necesitaría una explicación extensa para disfrutarla.
CiudadFantasmaPor otro lado tendríamos las novelas cortas Noir y Ciudad fantasma, Galaxia Gutenberg ha sido la artífice de su aparición, y se caracterizan por la utilización de algún recurso y una extensión llevadera; curiosamente podrían ser una buena forma de acercarse a su trabajo con la debida orientación. Y eso me lleva a este post donde voy a coger Zarzarrosa (descatalogada pero encontrada) y Ciudad Fantasma (novedad de este año) y, como si de una cata de vino se tratase intentaré dilucidar dos tipos de estrategias postmodernistas que usa Coover.
“Ironía, jugueteos, parodia, humor negro”
En efecto, una de las características más emblemáticas del postmodernismo literario es este uso de la ironía, junto con el humor negro y esa idea de jugueteo del lenguaje. Se trata de coger un concepto aparentemente serio y parodiarlo, reírse de ello, mostrar su contrario precisamente para abrir nuevas perspectivas de ello.
En Ciudad fantasma, Coover utilizó este concepto hasta la extenuación, al fin y al cabo, toma prestadas todas las características de un western (que aparentemente, por defecto, debe estar impregnado de una cierta gravedad, seriedad, dureza) y convierte toda la historia en una amalgama de excesos que el protagonista narra en primera persona en su búsqueda de una ciudad:
“Bueno, chico, ¿y hacia dónde vas de paso? pregunta un tipo acartonado de barba gris con sucios pantalones a rayas, camiseta roja y abollado sombrero hongo. A su lago, el hombre del sombrero flexible lía hábilmente con nudosos dedos unas hebras de tabaco en una fina hoja amarilla.
A esa ciudad de allá lejotes. Su fusil ya no cuelga del pomo de la silla, sino que descansa sobre sus piernas.
No me digas.
Pierdes el tiempo, chico. Allí no hay na.
Bueno, igual me vale.
Nunca llegarás, chaval.
No es más que una ciudad fantasma.
Pallá voy.
¡Ja!”
Los excesos, el uso exagerado de la parodia vienen caracterizados por la violencia de los indios, salvajes que apelan a la magia a través de prácticas inhumanas:
“El hechicero le practica unos agujeros en el pecho a cada lado de los pezones y se los ensarta con unas clavijas de madera atadas con cuerdas de cuero, para luego hacerle bailar al extremo de las cuerdas hasta que se le arrancan las clavijas. Si no se desprenden, lo cuelgan al poste central de la cabaña del hechicero, con los tobillos y el miembro viril cargados con cráneos de búfalo (una especie de bendición, le aseguran sus hermanos con compadecidos movimientos de cabeza y guiñándole el ojo sin alegría), hasta que las clavijas se sueltan, mientras los demás guerreros lo pinchan rítmicamente con lanzas y flechas y le graban símbolos religiosos en las nalgas. Afortunadamente, una vez extirpada la primera clavija, le dicen, la segunda no tarda en salir, pero entretanto el dolor es tal que sólo permanece consciente parte del tiempo, con pesadillas recurrentes sobre la podredumbre de la civilización, los horrores del cosmos tal como se representan en el reino animal y las visiones del futuro pronosticadas por su futura esposa: sí, la abandonará; así se lo dice el tremendo dolor que atenaza su corazón.”
Y también vienen por el uso de lo escatológico de una manera grotesca, desenfadada, zafia, ciertamente desagradable:
“Remata el brindis con un eructo retumbante que los demás, rodeándolo, remedan sonoramente. Golpean los vasos vacíos contra las mesas y sirven otra ronda de whisky, que alimenta la creciente agitación.
¡Uaah! ¡Qué pestuzo tan agradable!
¡Como el de un coño caliente en la mano!
¡Pero mirad esos revólveres de plata, fijaos!
¡Y esas botas de postal!
¡Y el cuchillo con todas esas tachuelas!
¡Qué refinao!
¡Un vaquero mu distinguío, hombre!
¡Seguro que tamién tiene tachuelas en el nabo!”
Aunque parezca mentira, todo esto tiene un sentido, nuestro protagonista busca, como ocurrió en dicha época (y sigue ocurriendo en la actualidad…), el santo grial que le haga crecer por sí mismo, es la personificación del sueño americano, del hombre hecho a sí mismo:
“Me dijeron que por aquí había to lo que se podía desear o incluso imaginar. Me dijeron que había afloramientos de oro entre árboles cargaos de piedras preciosas y ríos del whasky más puro y alegres y preciosas mujeres y hasta la puta fuente de la juventú, y, joer, yo quería un cacho de to eso, ¿quién no? Quería estar, tal como mabían dicho, en el azaroso escenario de una grandiosa gesta. ¿Y sabes una cosa, hijo? Acércate más, me estoy quedando sin aliento.”
Este paleto que no sabe ni hablar (el uso de lengua vernacular es otra estrategia en este caso para conseguir esta parodia) se encuentra con lo más grotesco de lo que estaba buscando, con la decepción y la frustración de un sueño que no es tal y como le habían dicho, así lo refleja Coover más adelante:
“Da un paso atrás y considera todo eso, mira alrededor. El único signo de vida es su propio sombrero en medio de la calle desierta. Se ha equivocado en todo. La ciudad está abandonada. Aparte de él no hay nadie. Le flaquean los hombros y se da cuenta de lo cansado que está, un cansancio que no sólo obedece a los esfuerzos físicos sino a todas las difíciles reflexiones que ha realizado. En lo único que tiene ahora que pensar es en encontrar algo húmedo para despegarse la lengua del cielo del paladar.”
zarzarrosa-robert-coover-18350-MLA20153124029_082014-FNo hay tal sueño, la realidad es más como una parodia tal y como la pinta Coover: una tierra baldía.
“Intertextualidad” “Reescritura”
La intertextualidad es aquella relación entre un texto y otro y cómo están entrelazados en el tejido de la historia literaria. Los postmodernistas utilizan esta cualidad para coger un texto conocido por la mayoría de los lectores y reescribirlo. Esta reescritura sirve para mostrar matices que no eran visibles anteriormente y se resaltan mejor por el hecho de que el lector conoce cómo era el texto original. Normalmente, estos matices, suelen ser lo contrario de lo original, estas dicotomías obran de manera deconstructiva y buscan, sobre todo, cuestiones de género, raza, colonialismo, etc…
Zarzarrosa es un ejemplo perfecto de este recurso; Coover usó para esta narración el cuento de la Bella durmiente (Briar Rose=Zarzarrosa):
“Tú eres esta llama, que parpadea como una fiebre abrasadora en el corazón de los hombres, consumiéndolos de deseo, cautivándolos con tu radiante y misterioso encanto. Lo que el hada no dice, porque no quiere aterrarla (siempre un lío que luego hay que limpiar sábanas que cambiar), es: Tú eres la Bella. Ella dice: Cuando otros preguntan quién soy, qué soy, tú eres la medida y la justificación de sus preguntas. Quédate tranquila, hija mía. Tú eres Zarzarrosa. Tu príncipe vendrá.”
La típica espera, dormida, a la llegada del príncipe, es utilizada en diferentes variaciones, mucho menos canónicas del cuento y nos saca la perspectiva desde el punto de vista del príncipe (en este caso preguntándose si ella sueña con él, con quitarse el hechizo):
“Y, sin embargo, si bien todo progreso a través del seto se ha detenido dolorosamente y las espinas lo arañan con cada golpe, él continúa luchando incansablemente, dando tajos decididos al seto con su espada, rechazando las ramas que lo atrapan, reflexionando todo el tiempo sobre la bella doncella, profundamente dormida, llamada Zarzarrosa. ¿No sueña nunca con su desencantamiento? ¿No sueña nunca con él?”
Y usa, como no podía ser de otra manera, el punto de vista de Zarzarrosa, precisamente para cuestionarse su propia identidad y la esclavitud que supone ser elegida para ser rescatada, es la forma de dar voz a una mujer que no ha podido tenerla en el cuento tradicional:
“Ah, aquí estás, preciosa mía, dice la vieja bruja, con una risita socarrona. ¿De vuelta para un poco más de lo mismo? ¿Quién soy yo? ¿Qué soy yo?, pregunta enfadada desde la puerta, temiendo entrar pero temiendo todavía más echarse atrás, sin estar segura de que las escaleras que subido sigan estando allí detrás de ella. ¡No es justo! ¿Por qué soy la elegida?”
Cada variante redunda en aspectos que van de lo escabroso a lo mágico y que desenfocan para siempre nuestra visión del cuento para abrirnos a otras posibilidades; parece mentira que éstas se acerquen a una visión más realista de la sociedad en que vivimos, esa sociedad en la que la mujer queda reducida a un cuento, a una imagen idealizada de la belleza ninguneada por el “héroe” que parece el único protagonista.
“[…] ha intentado, hasta cuando se aferraba a la trama principal, contar cada variante como si nunca hubiese sido contada antes, sorprendiéndose incluso a sí misma por lo novedoso de sus enfoques. Ha imaginado, y lo ha descrito para Rosa, un rico surtido de bellas y príncipes, obstáculos, despertares y qué-ocurre-luego, tejiendo una variada colección de monstruos, dragones, ogros, mofas, violaciones, acertijos, asesinatos, magia, lisiados, cadáveres y bebés, solo para observar cómo la insaciable durmiente se estremece y grita y se retuerce de miedo y anhelo, como hada malvada que es.”
Coover no tarda en mostrar el camino de la rebeldía ante esta situación; Zarzarrosa no se conforma con una historia que la relega a un papel secundario, odia el cuento, ¡y con razón! Lo que no está claro es que se pueda librar de ello, como ocurre nuevamente en la actualidad, el poder del heteropatriarcado imperante, a veces consciente, muchas veces inconsciente:
“¿De qué otro modo pasaría estos tediosos siglos? Érase una vez, se dice sonriendo con una mueca, su lado perverso dominando la situación como siempre, un apuesto príncipe y una bella princesa que vivieron felices por siempre jamás. ¡Pero es terrible!, gritó Rosa. No, no, espera, ése es solo el principio. ¡Pero odio este cuento! Felices por siempre jamás, le reprende el hada, agitando un dedo nudoso del color de un lingote de hierro. Tal vez no valga una higa, hija mía, pero oculta las verrugas, ¡de modo que no te des tanta prisa en rechazarlo! Eres realmente malvada, gime Rosa, que sigue pinchándose sin piedad. Sí, bueno, ¿qué esperabas, bobita?”
No me digáis que no vale la pena leer estos dos libros desde estas aproximaciones. Espero que os hayan gustado.
Los textos provienen de la traducción de Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas de Zarzarrosa de Robert Coover para Anagrama y de Benito Gómez Ibánez de Ciudad fantasma para Galaxia Gutenberg.

[Stewart Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m making an effort to read more Coover from here on out. I feel like he’s one of the few authors in that fantastical postmodern Barth-adjacent camp that I haven’t given enough attention to, and I haven’t been as crazy about his stuff as I was hoping so far. Briar Rose is one of the more interesting things I’ve seen from him - it’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a fun riff on fairy tale cliches, and it’s short enough to read in a single go. Let’s see how much mileage I get out of the rest of his work.

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just like Barthelme's Snow White, Coover takes a wry angle on fairy tale conventions. Filled with infanticide, forced cannibalism, and jealous anger, this isn't the Disney Sleeping Beauty. The story never really occurs: each page, just about, is a fresh tale, a thread spun by the wicked (good?) fairy keeping the princess (Rose) asleep. Metafiction in its purest manifestation, this book reflexively looks back at itself, and at all fiction, with the liberated archness of merry PoMo pranksters.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Briar Rose examines the question "is there such a thing as happily ever after," through the use of the tale of Sleeping Beauty as told through the psyche of the three crucial characters: the Princess, the Prince, and the Good/Bad Fairy. Coover rewrites numerous myths and fairy tales as a warning to our Princess about what she might face when she awakens. The novella is at times funny, vulgar, sad, repetitive, adventurous, entertaining, and encompasses all the things that remind us that in life there is no happily ever after.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

For your viewing pleasure;

imagine ::

ME on a mountaintop parnassus; !

I read goodreads onestar reviews of Briar Rose by Robert Coover !!:)

[Don't do it!!!]

I shake my head in --

unsurprised disbelief.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

"What is happily ever after, after all, but a fall into the ordinary, into human weakness, gathering despair, a fall into death?"

Adult. Repulsive. Corrupt. All accurate descriptions of Coover's Briar Rose, a post-modern retelling of "Sleeping Beauty." Not the Disney version with lovely Aurora and whimsical fairy godmothers and an honorable Prince Charming. Nope, this story is born of its originals: dark, shocking, and overtly rapey. However, intertwined with these threads of depravity, Coover spins a fairy tale about the insidious side of desire and the folly of romance.

3.5 stars

"And even if there is a princess, is she truly the beautiful object of pure love she is alleged to be, or is she, the wicked fairy's wicked creature, more captor than captive, more briar than blossom, such that waking her might have proven a worse fate than the one that is seemingly his, if worse than this can be imagined?"

[Antonio Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Brillante! El ingenio de Coover es fascinante. Reescribe el cuento de la bella durmiente desde múltiples ángulos. Coover vuelve a elaborar constantemente su texto reescrito; estamos ante un divertido y profundo juego, donde explora los densos caminos de zarzas, los castillos inexpugnables, y la multitud de durmientes (y deseos y vejaciones y miedos).

Los elementos mencionados adquieren un elevado carácter simbólico que, con la repetición y la reelaboración, adquieren mayor protagonismo.

Este relato de relatos es una búsqueda inquieta, incesante. Es la persecución de un camino y el deseo de reforzar una identidad propia pero también es desconcierto y pérdida, de uno mismo y del otro.

[J B · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Here's a book that commands attention to itself. It will infuriate you and and it will want to stop you but you can't and neither will it. Inside contains a savage labyrinth of normal fairy-tale characters tormented by the demons of staying pure to one's self but wanting to escape the Satan-like fairy who pulls the strings of endless horror. It relates back to the absurdness in life present in all who do not obtain peace.

It is also about love, romance and all it's hellspawn both in fear and reality.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible postmodern and psychological rewriting of not only the specific fairy tale, Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty, but a unique exploration of the fairy tale genre itself. Coover returns the fairy tale to its original adult listeners, restoring the erotic elements and questioning the mythological assumptions of such stock characters as the hero. Compelling, disturbing, and strangely comic (not unlike life itself).

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Coover: the naughty high-concept sprite of the American postmodern. Briar Rose was presumably knocked out quickly. It is a thin little book that eschews much mucking about. It is one of these coming-at-a-thing-repeatedly books. My favorite book of his that I have read, Spanking the Maid, is the best coming-at-a-thing-repeatedly book I have probably ever read (let us grant that most authors more or less spends their career coming at a thing repeatedly). Coover presents us a situational matrix. A thing that has to be played out between certain respective parties, but that can play out in any number of ways, and that will indeed be played out in a number of different ways. Very, very near the end of the book Coover speaks of "sequential disenchantments" and then "eternal reenactment." These are the bottom line of his kind of coming-at-a-thing-repeatedly book. Here we have the prince approaching the castle through a briar patch to rescue Sleeping Beauty w/ a kiss, as she lays in her hundred-year dream being told stories by a fairy. Sleeping Beauty is also named Rose. The prince is tangled-up in the briars. And it plays out in myriad ways, repeatedly backing up (or coming through a different window) and having another go. There is a cute metaphor here. It is about the extraordinary impasses of sexual coupling, of courting, of fulfilling imagined romantic destinies. It is about desire and its frustrations. We are dealing w/ mawkish manipulation of archetypes, which in Coover always involves a kind of kinetic dollhouse mischief. But desire in Cooper is always related to partnering with a nominal sexual partner. The sex part, in Coover, however, is all bawdy farce. There is a longing in desire here which is more pure and sweet than just engorged members and supple white flesh. I think what the characters in Coover are striving for is kind of a spiritual harmony and a succor. In such a world as he invites us to enter, however, they always do so ridiculously and totally in vain.

[D · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even meandering people would have their limits tested. Maybe the whole charm of this book was lost on me. The cooked babies and incestuous (why is this a theme that keeps popping up?!) dreams, yea, they were strange and disturbing, but they lost their novelty after 80,000 different permutations (Briar Rose kept "dreaming" these dreams with the help of a wicked fairy). Absolutely no resolution. Reading the synoposis of this book just now at Goodreads, I was surprised to find that this book was supposed to be funny...Maybe it was supposed to be one big joke on the reader.

[Ine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the writing style a lot, but the overabundance of rape scenes kinda put me off.

[Andrew Sare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful blond girl asleep in the forest with no one watching over her. What could go wrong?

Coover's retelling of Sleeping beauty imagines if the story were not a fairytale, but instead an absurd never-ending nightmare. This is really closer to real life than the fairytale where things go wrong over and over again in so many ways.

Oh, and its well written too.

[Sara Stickney · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather unsettling re imagining of Sleep Beauty. No idea what was "real" or what was a dream with an open ending that left me rather unsatisfied.

The point got itself across though; sitting around dreaming and waiting for the "one" to rescue you doesn't do much good at all.

[Edgar Cotes Argelich · Rating 2 out of 5]

No hi he entrat. Aprecio el joc literari, però se’m fa molt redundant i he perdut l’interès. L’abandono a la meitat.

[Elliott Ector · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that you either love or hate, that you find intriguing or exhausting. It's certainly not for everyone, and I'll freely acknowledge that. Personally, I found this book to be quite compelling; we hardly think about what Sleeping Beauty might have been dreaming about for those hundred years, or what the prince who saves her is thinking of while on his quest. The princess' horribly cyclical dream state creates a relatable feeling of claustrophobia, and a certain pity takes hold on realizing that she is seemingly only capable of dreaming of how she will be taken advantage of as she is sleeping, or the fate that awaits her when she is awakened by whomever decides to assault her. The agony present in the dramatic irony of knowing all the things she has dreamed as the audience, while she herself does not remember anything outside of the current iteration of the cycle, is really quite pertinent.

Many are of the opinion that Coover's numerous depictions of the princess' assault are distasteful, and that is certainly a valid perspective to have. However, I feel the way it is written is meant to demonstrate the unfortunate flatness of her character in most versions of the tale--she exists to be taken advantage of and then be somehow grateful for it, something that no one should have to experience. The same can be said for the prince, who exists to save the princess regardless of what else he might want to do with his life. Rarely do we consider how he might second-guess himself while enduring the painful process of reaching the princess in the first place. Overall, I found these aspects of the story to be thought-provoking traits that allow for much interpretation on the part of the reader and therefore make an ideal base for discussion of what meaning may lie beneath the torturous cycle these two characters, who never asked for any of this, must experience.

[Christophe Bonnet · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Sleeping Beauty is a tale that terrified more girls than one would think", said psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto (or was it Bettelheim?). This novel is basically an account of that terror.

What the book is doing, basically, is to rewrite the fairy tale through the twin lenses of the princess dreams/nightmares (if you're sleeping for a hundred year, that accounts for a lot of dreaming) and of the rescuing prince, although his narration could be part of the princess dreams, too. On a symbolic level, the book strikes me as mostly centered on female genitalia, as the title would suggest; conversely, penises prove to be as elusive as the castle's turrets, glimpsed at through the brambles only to be lost again. Rape on the other hand is very much part of the picture, which also includes zoophilia, incest, cannibalism and such. Dreamland is not a rosy place...

Being deprived of the straightforward directionality that is so characteristic of children tales, the narration goes round and round in fascinating circles. The book being quite short, it can afford to do that without the need of an overarching structure, and without spreading its material too thin.

I can't say much on style sincewhat I read was a French translation - a translation which at times is surprisingly clumsy. That's quite unpleaseant in the first few pages; after that, it is only a minor disturbance, even though the "flow-of-(un)consciousness" kind of writing is quite sensitive to stylistic glitches.

On the whole, a fascinating little book, rich with gems such as that conversation about Prince Charming: "He's married? - Of course he's married, what did you expect?"

[Rach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew. What a retelling.

I read this in a course for both my bachelors and masters work. I am rereading it now for a bit of a refresh and research for my current poetry book.

I have a love-hate relationship with this book. The first time I read this, I hated it. With a fiery passion, oh did I hate it. But now, I think it’s a great modern retelling of the tales, bringing to light the true nature of fairy tales and how, if I can put it bluntly, fucked up they are.

Briar Rose by Robert Coover is very much a post-modern take on the various tales that are commonly known as Sleeping Beauty. Really great writing. Wicked and very meta. In this retelling, he returns the tales back to their origin. Coover plays with the idea of female and male space within the fairy tale realm and what it means to be gendered that way. He tricks the mind with good versus evil and how easily they can be misidentified.

There are alternative realities within those alter realities and the reader, presumably adult, is given the same morals that children are given in the foundational tales — maybe less crass? It’s pretty exceptional.

I am providing some trigger warnings here: there are numerous rape scenes that continue to grow in detail, incest, infanticide, cannibalism, murder, mutilation, abuse, and very dark and psychological/traumatic stories. It is a dark read — as all fairy tales truly are.

A solid ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ for this retelling.

[Melanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I'd been told that this book was rather 'adult', I wasn't quite expecting the level of 'adult' content. However, the second sentence which compared the parting of brambles and caress of rose petals to the parting of thighs clued me in rather quickly.

Keep the 'original' versions of Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose in mind while reading this. In the original versions, Briar Rose is awakened by such things as child birth or the suckling of her infants. This book explores different ways this could have come about - in other words, visions of Briar Rose getting pregnant while sleeping. It also explores different potential physical consequences of a long sleep; dust, dirt, various bodily discharges of both daily and monthly natures, or possible feeding tubes/IVs, etc.

It's a very post-modern take on Sleeping Beauty, seeking all the different possibilities rather than any real plot, action, or resolution. And while it's interesting, it's rather unfulfilling - deliberately unfulfilling, I believe. And while I can't say I loved, or even strongly liked the book, I can't think of a thing that I would wish altered. Even the ending, even lacking in resolution as it was, is extremely apt and I can't imagine the novel ending any other way.

[Esther · Rating 1 out of 5]

The repeated violations of the sleeping princess served no purpose for me. I might have been impressed by the author’s modern spin on a classic fairy tale had he not presented his rape fetish as an essential part of the story. (I don’t know what else to call it). This was published in 1996. I wonder if the author would pull a Stephen King and say that times have changed since he wrote it. Unfortunately for him, women knew this type of fantasy was wrong way before then.

I picked this novella up and read a few pages at the beginning of July. Then I put it down for a while until I decided to get it off my “currently reading” list. It’s considered a notable book of the year, but I could have easily done without it. Thank God is was short. I barely made it through as it was.

[Kay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know what to say. I felt like I was stuck in an endless cycle of...I don't even know. But it happened over, and over, and over again. I don't even know if it ever ended. I don't really know anything. I felt like Sleeping Beauty just trying to get through this book. Was that what he was hoping for? And it's so short. And it's the same thing, just from another angle. Every few pages he starts telling it a different way. I feel like he wrote fifty three-page versions of the story and put them all together. With snippets of the Prince's many deaths in-between. I gained nothing from this book but a headache. It was a literal pain in the neck.

[Jamie Grefe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fluidly written retelling of Sleeping Beauty oddly retold in classic Coover fashion, which means we spin around the central characters, become caught up in the prick of a spindle, hacking our way through the briars, never able to make our way to the goal (yet we persist, can't help but persist). It's an extremely frustrating experience, but Coover fills the void with rich humor, beautiful wordplay, and clever turns along the way. If you've made your way into Coover's writing and are looking for another dose, this will not fall short.