Susan’s Comments (group member since Jun 24, 2023)

Susan’s comments from the Once Upon a Time... group.

Golly, I'm pretty sure I read this version, but my recollections are misty. I'll have to see if it's in my ereader....

I'd love to hear further thoughts as some of you are able to read this book. I read it when it first came out because I read any serious (and seriously well-written) retellings I can get my hands on.

But I also read it because years ago I made Circe the antagonist in a stage play I wrote for young audiences, and I wanted to see what a serious author would do with her.

(My play was a play for young audiences, a mashup of The Sleeping Beauty and the Frog Prince--and I wanted the same witch to cast both spells--but not a generic witch. I always try not to bore the actor. And of course Circe was already famous for transforming men into animals....)

Lisa wrote: "Well, my library copy traveled all across country with me and never got opened at all. Hoping to get a start this weekend, but might have to resort to listening to the audiobook of it after the fir..."

I hope this means that you had a wonderful trip. I think this is the kind of book best read when you have lovely chunks of time to spend with it. (I've read it twice.)

Lisa wrote: "I personally love Barrie's writing style. I think his tongue in cheek comments about the characters make the book even more entertaining. It's kind of like listening to a favorite uncle tell you a ..."

I love it too, but I'm weird.

Gem wrote: "I could finally download the copy from the library I'd been waiting for. I adore most things written by Barrie, this is no exception. I adore the lost boys and I'd volunteer to be their mother if I..."

Jim Dale is certainly one of the audiobook stars.

But I wasn't clear with my original question--which was to ask about the author's own voice in the written text. I mean the way he inserts his own attitudes towards the characters.
It's a very particular (and I think old-fashioned--not that I mind it) style of writing, to have the author's attitudes come through so clearly. And I wondered whether anybody felt it too wordy, or too opinionated, or too anything else?

Gem wrote: "I am not sure how true to the orig..."

There's no single original story of Circe; she's only a supporting character in the stories of Odysseus, Medea, and many others.

Madeline Miller gathers all those episodes featuring Circe and turns them around to make Circe the main character--and to imagine them from Circe's point of view. Since Circe's telling these adventures now, you can't always trust what she says or what she thinks about other character's motivations.

The more you happen to know those other stories--and they are only stories (not history), and some of them are tiny fragments, really--the more you may suspect that Miller's Circe is exaggerating certain things, justifying certain things, leaving bits out, "misremembering," or making herself look better (as we do).

So Miller's Circe is an unreliable narrator--but only if you think the other writers of myth were reliable.

For many readers, even if you know a lot of those "original" stories, you might enjoy seeing them through Circe's eyes.

I first read this book sitting in the second desk in the second row of my second grade classroom. I don't know how I had time to do this much reading during school hours, but somehow I did. I've reread it a number of times since, and it is fair to say that I know passages nearly by heart.

I'd love to hear what people think about how the original Barrie differs from the so-familiar Disney animation, and what people think of Barrie's narrator voice.

I did read the Perrault version, and I agree that it feels empty, and the Cinderella herself wishy-washy--except for those moments when she messes with her step-sisters' heads by being super-sweet and acting all curious about the mysterious beauty at the ball. And it was weird that the godmother--just a plain godmother--just shows up and starts to work magic, and it's all taken for granted by Cinderella.

So I re-read the Grimm version, just to compare. You can find it online under the title Aschenputtel. I won't spoil it by going into the comparison.

I will add that the one thing I really like in the Perrault is his last word, the snarky second "moral of the story." You can be good and beautiful and all that, but it might not get you anywhere unless you also have a godmother or godfather--that is, someone to pave (or pay?) your way to the top.

Cheryl wrote: "And then there are the fractured retellings, and the versions from around the world. Cinder Edna is pretty good. I'm about to read Cinderella Stories Around the World...."

The retelling I've enjoyed the most was Bound, based on the Chinese "Cinderella" story Ye Xian. The Chinese story has the stepmother and step-sister, the ball, and the shoe that will identify the true bride, and it was written about 800 years before the Perrault and Grimm versions.

Lisa wrote: "I need to pull my copy off the shelf and start reading it again. It's been several years since I have read it this time, so I'm looking forward to visiting this favorite friend."

Same, except that I must have read a library edition. Will try to get hold of it again, because I recall enjoying it.

Hmmm. It is more like, I had favorite aspects and characters and portions of all of them? But not an overriding favorite--unless you count The Fire Rose itself, because the whole elemental magic world was a novelty and revelation to me.

I would suggest reading them in order, though, which I didn't do and regret not doing, because some of the characters drop into later stories.

I've actually been askig myself that question. I suspect if I had any powers, they'd be air. How about you?

Yes, I recall finding it hard to push through the section of the book that focused on that. It certainly had an impact.

Lisa wrote: "I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the salamander!"

I know, right?

I read this book a few years ago, too, and I liked it so much I've read most of the series. The original cover intrigued me, and the first pages hooked me. So I'll grab it from the library if I can, and reread at least parts of it this month.

It's actually my favorite Beauty and the Beast retelling, for two reasons. One is the historical setting, which I guess would be called the end of the gaslamp era or the Gilded Age. (I'm drawn to romantasies that are also authentic historicals, and there aren't too many of them.)

Secondly, this happened to be the first time I read a story using the elemental magic system, and that interested me very much.

Glad to hear some good things. I got bogged down in the first chapter, so I set the book aside, but I'll give it another chance.

I'm on the waiting list at my library, but I'll refresh my memory of the original first.

Lisa wrote: "I have also always wondered exactly how or why her father would meet the king, and why he would feel impelled to make such a ridiculous boast that she could spin straw into gold."

My questions, exactly!
It just happened that a miller got into a conversation with the king and mentioned that he had 'a daughter who knows the art of turning straw into gold.'

BTW, the source of this story was Dortchen Wild. Wilhelm Grimm married her at some point, and I will put in a plug (if this is okay?) for Kate Forsyth's The Wild Girl, a highly imaginative and highly fictionalized story about Dortchen. (The book is firmly New Adult/Adult, and the imagined parts derive from pondering which stories Dortchen found memorable enough to tell. The list includes some of the darker tales, like Hansel and Gretel, Fitcher's Bird, and All-Kinds-of-Fur.)

(I'm reading the U of Pittsburgh translation of the 1812 original, BTW, and it can be found online at https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0500... )

I read this book when it first came out, and I liked it better than Uprooted. Uprooted had an amazing hook, but as the story went on it developed into what felt to me more like a conventional romance, and then turned a corner into what felt to me more like a conventional fantasy battle.
Spinning Silver felt more sure-footed, with all the fibers (subplots, characters, worldbuilding, magical elements) well carded and smoothed into a stronger thread.
And the language! I read parts of it aloud just to hear it that way.
Not sure I'll have time to re-read, but will be glad to hear what everybody thinks.

Gem wrote: "Susan wrote: "Hello, everyone--I'm Susan, and I love to travel with folk tales/fairy tales/myths as they shift and split and twist through time, from their earliest tellings through the latest tran..."

One of the main differences I've experienced is the ability to create a new tribe every time a new theater project is formed. I think theater peeps learn to bond over shared vision and shared labor, and other shared/not shared characteristics fade into less importance--often into no importance at all.
In terms of my writing, I'd guess it's the comfort with dialogue (the kind that makes long tags and adverbs unnecessary). And (because of the genres I worked in) a crazy quilt memory stuffed with all kinds of history and lit and art and music.
I'm glad to meet you and hope to get to know you better (the link to thebardsyard doesn't seem to be alive at the moment, but the work sounds fascinating). And I hope to find a place in this tribe.