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The Fairy Tale Museum
Fiction. Structured as a series of interconnected galleries, THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM is a curiosity-cabinet-as-novel that showcases the original, spectacular, grotesque, endearing, and otherworldly. You'll meet bird-headed lovers, a cyborg cyclops, a fortune teller, revolutionary ventriloquists' dummies, a narcoleptic vampire, Eros and Thanatos, and a host of woodland creatures. This is a book that celebrates hybrids, creativity, and transformation--a manifesto against putting ourselves into boxes that limit who we can be and what is possible.
"THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM has more in common with installation art than with any traditional literary genres... [this book is] an exercise in encouraging creativity."--Rain Taxi
"In THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM, Susannah M. Smith has crafted a world as seemingly scenic and romantic as a snow globe--except this world can break, it can draw blood, and it can transform. This is a beautiful book, its beauty only deepened by its bite."--Derek McCormack
"In Susannah M. Smith's fantastical, moody folkloric menagerie, you can wander slowly and savour, or leap randomly between surprising exhibits. Part Brothers Grimm and part Doktor Bey, part novel and part poem, THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM is a moving, exquisite sensory experience. This is an exciting book."--Stuart Ross
"THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM has more in common with installation art than with any traditional literary genres... [this book is] an exercise in encouraging creativity."--Rain Taxi
"In THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM, Susannah M. Smith has crafted a world as seemingly scenic and romantic as a snow globe--except this world can break, it can draw blood, and it can transform. This is a beautiful book, its beauty only deepened by its bite."--Derek McCormack
"In Susannah M. Smith's fantastical, moody folkloric menagerie, you can wander slowly and savour, or leap randomly between surprising exhibits. Part Brothers Grimm and part Doktor Bey, part novel and part poem, THE FAIRY TALE MUSEUM is a moving, exquisite sensory experience. This is an exciting book."--Stuart Ross
190 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2018
9 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 2, 2018
I knew I was going to love Susannah M. Smith's new book and I was right.
Beyond the beautiful cover and the tantalizing promise of a "folkloric menagerie," this is a work of art. Smith's prose is poetic and hypnotic. There were certain sentences in here that spoke to me as a reader and a lover of words.
Inhabiting the space between prose poetry and short story collection, this book is styled as a cabinet of curiosities. Each section is a category where you might find strange and fantastic things. Sometimes it is a woodland creature, a not-quite-human lover, or (most often) an echo of a dark fairy tale. Smith basically collected the fantastic and the storylike, sprinkled a dash of commentary on the modern condition and pressed "blend." The stories feel like walking through a carnival, but they are grounded in the real—sometimes sad and violent, sometimes simply true.
The best part is that when you get to the end, you realize that you don't need to read this book in order. You can start from back to front. You can "pull out drawers" at random. You can come up with your own special order. The beauty of this box that the author has created for you, is that each time you read it's never the same. I love that idea! I also love the tenderness in the letter at the end, the idea that these things have been gathered together by someone who loves you, to nurture you and sustain your imagination.
There were a couple of little things that didn't quite land (such as the nail-over-the-head one sentence pages like "Carry it with you" and "You can be anyone you want to be"), but on the whole, it is lovely. I can't wait to reread this, peeking into drawers on a whim.
Beyond the beautiful cover and the tantalizing promise of a "folkloric menagerie," this is a work of art. Smith's prose is poetic and hypnotic. There were certain sentences in here that spoke to me as a reader and a lover of words.
She smells rain. She walks a little faster, drawing the cape closer. How delicious, this gathering of energy, this being on the brink. How delicious, this feeling of something good about to happen, of knowing it's in the trees, it's coming.
Inhabiting the space between prose poetry and short story collection, this book is styled as a cabinet of curiosities. Each section is a category where you might find strange and fantastic things. Sometimes it is a woodland creature, a not-quite-human lover, or (most often) an echo of a dark fairy tale. Smith basically collected the fantastic and the storylike, sprinkled a dash of commentary on the modern condition and pressed "blend." The stories feel like walking through a carnival, but they are grounded in the real—sometimes sad and violent, sometimes simply true.
What do you do when you get bigger and the world around you stays the same size?
The best part is that when you get to the end, you realize that you don't need to read this book in order. You can start from back to front. You can "pull out drawers" at random. You can come up with your own special order. The beauty of this box that the author has created for you, is that each time you read it's never the same. I love that idea! I also love the tenderness in the letter at the end, the idea that these things have been gathered together by someone who loves you, to nurture you and sustain your imagination.
There were a couple of little things that didn't quite land (such as the nail-over-the-head one sentence pages like "Carry it with you" and "You can be anyone you want to be"), but on the whole, it is lovely. I can't wait to reread this, peeking into drawers on a whim.
June 2, 2019
Impressed by the depth and detail the author conveys in few words. This collection will encourage repeat readings. Bravo!
October 29, 2018
From prairiefire.ca. Review by Lindsey Childs
You find yourself in the forest. You know the one. It’s the forest where the stories you read as a child take place. A forest so green and thick, that it’s positively brimming with life, with magic.
Up ahead, you see a grand building, majestic amongst the trees, yet not intrusive. It belongs here, as surely as the moss, the leaves.
You have found The Fairy Tale Museum. Welcome. Come inside.
The Fairy Tale Museum by Susannah M. Smith is a museum of the mind. Each piece is a vignette of a museum display. You stay in each vignette long enough to appreciate the beauty of the scene, before moving on to the next wonder. The Fairy Tale Museum could also be described as a curio cabinet. Each story, a drawer you open to examine the contents—to hold them in your mind, explore the tiny worlds they show you, and then return them to the cabinet, before opening the next drawer.
As you explore the museum, you will notice you are not alone. There is a fox that weaves through the different stories, popping up just long enough to remind you of its presence, before disappearing back into the scenery. There is also a long poem with a secret that pops up between vignettes, giving you a line here, two lines there. It is a poem to keep you company on your journey through the museum, and whose secret can be unlocked upon completion of the book.
As well, you meet the museum’s collector at the beginning and ending of the book. The collector has curated this magical place, and has done so for you. Before the curator sends you off to explore the collections, they leave you a short list of instructions, such as “The object is a repository for magical thought. Objects contain stories. You have a relationship with the object. The object offers you its secrets. By association, you become magical.” (2)
Susannah M. Smith, like a lapidary, has chosen her materials (in this case, words) carefully, carving and shaping each piece and then polishing it until it shines. Her ability to anchor you in a scene in just a few sentences is commendable.
Smith uses characters old and new to populate her vignettes. In “Bömerwald” we encounter Eros and Thanatos from The Island of Doctor Moreau, having left the island in search of a new place to live. In “The Rose Lady” we meet a woman who woke up one day to discover her eyes had become roses. In “The Squirrel Painter” we meet Mr. Flesk who spray-paints squirrels around the city. “Small and pristine. Perfectly represented.” (97)
The curator reminds us “You can read this book from front to back or open it at random, in search of a bright shard to illuminate your day… You can wander in and out of the drawers, the galleries, the stories, the pages… This is one of the joys of the book cabinet: its capacity to be reconfigured, reclassified, exhibited anew at any given time, revealing different aspects of the collection.” (188-89)
The Fairy Tale Museum is a beautifully written book of short prose invites the reader to relax and explore the curated ‘collections’ of pieces. It is a book you can, like a museum, come back to again and again and discover something new each time.
You find yourself in the forest. You know the one. It’s the forest where the stories you read as a child take place. A forest so green and thick, that it’s positively brimming with life, with magic.
Up ahead, you see a grand building, majestic amongst the trees, yet not intrusive. It belongs here, as surely as the moss, the leaves.
You have found The Fairy Tale Museum. Welcome. Come inside.
The Fairy Tale Museum by Susannah M. Smith is a museum of the mind. Each piece is a vignette of a museum display. You stay in each vignette long enough to appreciate the beauty of the scene, before moving on to the next wonder. The Fairy Tale Museum could also be described as a curio cabinet. Each story, a drawer you open to examine the contents—to hold them in your mind, explore the tiny worlds they show you, and then return them to the cabinet, before opening the next drawer.
As you explore the museum, you will notice you are not alone. There is a fox that weaves through the different stories, popping up just long enough to remind you of its presence, before disappearing back into the scenery. There is also a long poem with a secret that pops up between vignettes, giving you a line here, two lines there. It is a poem to keep you company on your journey through the museum, and whose secret can be unlocked upon completion of the book.
As well, you meet the museum’s collector at the beginning and ending of the book. The collector has curated this magical place, and has done so for you. Before the curator sends you off to explore the collections, they leave you a short list of instructions, such as “The object is a repository for magical thought. Objects contain stories. You have a relationship with the object. The object offers you its secrets. By association, you become magical.” (2)
Susannah M. Smith, like a lapidary, has chosen her materials (in this case, words) carefully, carving and shaping each piece and then polishing it until it shines. Her ability to anchor you in a scene in just a few sentences is commendable.
Smith uses characters old and new to populate her vignettes. In “Bömerwald” we encounter Eros and Thanatos from The Island of Doctor Moreau, having left the island in search of a new place to live. In “The Rose Lady” we meet a woman who woke up one day to discover her eyes had become roses. In “The Squirrel Painter” we meet Mr. Flesk who spray-paints squirrels around the city. “Small and pristine. Perfectly represented.” (97)
The curator reminds us “You can read this book from front to back or open it at random, in search of a bright shard to illuminate your day… You can wander in and out of the drawers, the galleries, the stories, the pages… This is one of the joys of the book cabinet: its capacity to be reconfigured, reclassified, exhibited anew at any given time, revealing different aspects of the collection.” (188-89)
The Fairy Tale Museum is a beautifully written book of short prose invites the reader to relax and explore the curated ‘collections’ of pieces. It is a book you can, like a museum, come back to again and again and discover something new each time.
July 4, 2021
This is surrealism as literature, a (literally) fantastic blend of impressions and images and flights of fancy that are intentionally dislocating. I found myself absorbed momentarily in a single vignette, then yanked out of that and immersed in another, but only for that moment, that moment only and then on to yet another. There is a jeweller's delight in a story as artifact, a delighted and deliberate attention to this and that this other detail, all part of a dreamily loose connection-not-connection that is, again, the hallmark of surreal art.
I felt compelled to pull this or that vignette out and transform it in its turn to an over-sized tea mug, or a t-shirt, or a postage stamp. The impressions make an impression, certainly. And what do we ask of what we read except that it make an impression?
I felt compelled to pull this or that vignette out and transform it in its turn to an over-sized tea mug, or a t-shirt, or a postage stamp. The impressions make an impression, certainly. And what do we ask of what we read except that it make an impression?
February 22, 2020
I LOVED this book. It is absolutely enchanting and magical. Its otherworldliness takes the reader on an adventure from beginning to end. I was completely charmed every time I picked it up and I was only too happy to return to it over and over again. Susannah Smith's seemingly natural connection with, and interest in, all things peculiar comes across loud and clear. Her research is extensive and her talent is undeniable. This is my new favourite book to share. What an absolute delight. I literally smile and wonder and laugh and dream every time I read it. Simply exceptional. Thank you so much!
October 31, 2018
Written in a style that allowed for linear or scattered reading, this book was visually delightful above all. Short prose, stories and poems conjured up scenes of a fantastical museum full of oddities and curiosities in every room. I enjoyed it straight through, but have returned again to a number of favorites as tantalizing standalone quick bites of art. This is the first time I have read a book with this particular layout. Very enjoyable if you keep an open mind and forget what you think you know about traditional story telling.
February 13, 2019
Loved this so much! I don't usually love collections/compilations in book form but the blend of poetry and prose in this book had me remembering and revisiting lines and paragraphs the whole time I was reading it. This will definitely be a re-read for me because there is so much packed into the sentences and phrases of this book.
August 7, 2018
This is a wonder-full collection of poems, wee stories and fragments. I place it in my collection of charming misfit reads, along with Shawna LeMay’s Rumi and the Red Handbag and my wish list items, including Joseph Cornell’s boxes, and Kurt Schwitters collages from Merz.
August 31, 2018
‘It is as if you have come home to all the mysteries you know are true.’
This book is a cabinet of curiosities. Read it straight through or open to any page and find yourself transported to another, fantastical world.
This book is a cabinet of curiosities. Read it straight through or open to any page and find yourself transported to another, fantastical world.
September 13, 2020
I really wanted to love this book, but I think it's just not for me. There are some gorgeous passages I appreciated, and Smith is a master of imagery, but I think a lot of what others love about the book was lost on me – a fault of my own, not the writer's.
July 2, 2024
2.75 stars
book of otherworldly snippets, could have been more cohesive. none of the pieces particularly drew me in. but loved the feeling of being in a dream where you enjoy the vibes but can't really make sense of once you wake up.
book of otherworldly snippets, could have been more cohesive. none of the pieces particularly drew me in. but loved the feeling of being in a dream where you enjoy the vibes but can't really make sense of once you wake up.
August 13, 2018
A wonderful, beautiful collection of curiosities.
January 27, 2019
Encore!
July 4, 2020
Wonderfully weird and dream like somewhere between poetry and prose
January 17, 2022
have you ever come across a book that touches your core so easily it feels like it was written just for you? that’s how i feel about this book
November 4, 2022
Weird, beautiful world of dreamscapes.
January 28, 2025
I thought this was a really beautiful book and there was a lot of interesting short stories in there; i really enjoyed the concepts and telling of it
February 13, 2025
Probably more of a 3-star experience subjectively, but I give it credit for being exactly what it set out to be: enchanting and mysterious and charming. A collection of poems and fragments and moods.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews