Funny Little Snake

by Tessa Hadley

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

October 16, 2017 issue

Fiction, Short Story

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

23 pages, ebook

Published October 16, 2017

About the author

Tessa Hadley is the author of Sunstroke and Other Stories, and the novels The Past, Late in the Day and Clever Girl. She lives in Cardiff, Wales, and teaches literature and creative writing at Bath Spa University.

Reviews

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snow was blowing across the narrow street in wafting veils, and the quiet was like a sudden deafness; breaking into the crusted surface, her boots creaked. No one had come out to shovel yet, so nothing was spoiled. Every horizontal ledge and edge and rim was delicately capped; the phone box was smothered in snow, the light blue-gray inside it.

Having just read a novel so infused with darkness, cold and rain I still shiver, aptly mirroring the dark rainy day coming in through the window, it was what a reviewer pictured as ‘a certain quality of light’ she perceives to Tessa Hadley’s stories that made me return to this little gem.

Funny Little Snake is a moving winter tale which along with the aesthetical pleasure of coruscating, elegant prose offered substantial food for thought, a contemporary fairy-tale in which some traditional key ingredients like evil stepmothers, hunters and eerie animals get a twist.



A young wife tries to relate to and bond with the nine year old daughter from her husband’s first marriage, during the child’s first week stay with Dad, an academic mainly obsessed by his career, being barely around. At the end of the week, Valerie is ‘gasping for her solitude like a lungful of clean air’ and looking forward to the moment Gil will transport little Robyn back to the mother, the previous wife of Gil - a task he wriggles himself out of by sending Valerie to London with the child instead. This journey however will bring major change and open Valerie’s eyes. Meeting Robyn’s mother Marise for the first time when dropping off the child at her house, Valerie realises how both parents are intrinsically preoccupied with themselves. Follows an audacious leap into the unknown.

Within the frame of this short story, set in the sixties, Tessa Hadley manages to bring her characters to life by portraying them with a psychological depth and finesse one would rather expect from a more lengthy novel. For a story touching on sizable themes like (step) parenthood, love, tangled loyalties, intimacy, class differences and child neglect, I was amazed how Hadley - almost like a fairy lifting the veil of commonness from ordinary domestic life by touching it with her wordy want - creates a magic sense of light cracking through at the decisive turn in the story, embodied by the childlike enchantment she conveys when Valerie awakes in the city turned white at night and walks through the pristine snow, playing with light and colour by setting the world into a different light, a ‘purer, weightless light blooming on the wallpaper’.



Even if we know some of our actions will indubitably complicate our own chaotic lives even further, sometimes things just have to be done, regardless of the consequences. Funny Little Snake draws an unfashionable moral lesson in non-consequentialism, encountering our own proper categorical imperative in the shape of a little girl.

[Annet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird little story, loved it! Did not know what was gonna happen with each alinea right until the very end. Intriguing, intriguing... Great writing, dark story. Valerie, married to a self conscious professor, rather full of himself I would say, meets her little stepdaughter Robyn called 'Funny little snake' by her mother, the husband's ex, during a week's stay. Husband calls his ex the Rattrap, and the Beak, and the Bitch from Hell, just to set the tone of the story. And during the stay of Robyn, and after, when Valerie decides to bring Robyn to the home of the ex, things turn weird a little.... wonderful writing. New Yorker describes it as the 'power struggles of parenting'. Intriguing short story, interesting writer. Will follow her work.
You can find it here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent short story about a new wife, a little stepdaughter, and the girl's mother. The new wife, Valerie, is young, inexperienced and diffident. The ex-wife is glamorous, mean and a slob. The little girl is pitiful.The husband, hoping to pull one over on his ex, gets more than he bargained for.

[Bloodorange · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is one sentence in the last paragraph Valerie was thinking that she might need to summon all this effort of ingenuity one day for some escape of her own, dimly imagined, and that taking on the child made her less free. that 'locks' this as a short story. Still, my instinct tells me this feels more like an embryo of a novel; the epiphany - central to any short story - is no epiphany at all, since the heroine does the very irrational, yet inevitable, thing we expect her to do. The characters introduced have depth and complexity and we want - not really, no, but want nonetheless - to learn what will transpire of Valerie and Gil's marriage. As it is, the story - rich, detailed, fairy-tale like, feel-uneasy story - has the feel of a pre-title sequence in a James Bond movie; more of a teaser linked to the story proper than a story in itself.

[Paul Secor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad and hopeful story.
Many thanks to Ilse for bringing it to my attention. The more exposure I have to Tessa Hadley's writing, the more I'm drawn to it.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the only story I liked and finished from the O. Henry Prize Stories of 2019.

A tangent: There were so many stories of animals getting hurt in the O. Henry collection. It seems like lots of writers use it as a lazy shortcut to saying something about death, the darkness of life, cruelty, vulnerability, etc. etc. blech. It really turns my stomach.

No snakes were harmed in this story! I cannot say the same for the rest of the book.

[ꕥ Ange_Lives_To_Read ꕥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a short story about a woman’s first visit with the strange little girl who has recently come into her life. The woman married the girl’s father, and they will have to learn to deal with each other on these occasional weekends and holidays. The arrangement takes an unexpected turn when the visit ends and the stepmother is tasked with returning the child to her mother’s home.

I enjoyed this, and unlike most short stories it didn’t leave me with the question, “What was the POINT, exactly?” In this case, my question was, “Why was this a short story?” It seemed more like the beginning of a novel. I was intrigued and wanted to see how it all panned out.

[Gila Gila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in the New Yorker a while back and it always stayed with me; I've just read it again now, as I work my way through Tessa Hadley's most recent collected stories, After the Funeral, and - maybe it's contextual, because the stories I've read so far in this book are so damn good - I found it even even better the second time round. Every single character memorable - for that matter, every hallway in that godawful house came right back, full force. A story of salvation, desperately needed, almost - we hope it's only almost - too late.

[Rachele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like how we actually see a difficult relationship between a parent (a stepmom) and a child. Often times the bonds between adults and children is sugarcoated, only portrayed as loving and affectionate, making parenthood seem beautiful and perfect. But this story introduces a different relationship, where a woman is looking after a child not her own (worse still her husband’s child from his first marriage) AND a child that just doesn’t seem to care about her. That was the most interesting part of the story to read!! Of course, in the end we see Robyn really cares for Valerie and Valerie likewise cares for Robyn. But of course, the story subverts that trope of a happy ending by (realistically) portraying Robyn crying over her lost toys back in her house. Usually such an ending where a child gets saved out of a abusive household (neglect), gets turned into a fairytale ending so that crying ending was very refreshing (and funny).

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, just a little time-waster for a long, hot afternoon, and how I started off loving Robyn and ended up feeling redeemed and vindicated and refreshed. And hopeful. Thank you, Tessa.

[Habon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a little while ago and yet every now and then I think about it. This story has stayed with me.