Mallory’s Reviews > Clever Maids: The Secret History Of The Grimm Fairy Tales > Status Update

So the war ended, Wilhelm ultimately chose Dortchen over Jenny, and we never got an update about wtf was up with Ferdinand. The end.

I’m sure there just isn’t much info on any of the most pertinent ladies who contributed to the tales, but I’m still feeling underwhelmed with what we got from this book. Sorry.

Maybe the Grimms misrepresented Dorothea Viehmann in the forward to volume 2, but AT LEAST THEY CREDITED HER. Apparently you have to be an enthralling performer with an eidetic memory to earn their acknowledgment. -_-

Wilhelm “just might marry” Jenny von Droste-Hülshoff? What happened to Dortchen Wild? I thought they were soooooo in love?

Lotte being depressed and “willful” is the most understandable thing ever, and Jacob and Wilhelm are just beside themselves trying to figure it out. “Why does being our housekeeper vex her so?” ‘Tis a f*cking pickle.

The stories in these two chapters teach that silence (for a woman) is golden and obedience is expected... just like they did in the last two chapters. Feel like we’re treading water here.

Finally we’re more into the actual fairytales!

Poor Fränz! It sounds to me more like the men were just sexist asshats who resented that she had opinions rather than her actually being an insufferable person.

The book is a little scattered ngl. Things will be mentioned that don’t have much to do with anything, as though Paradiž just included them because she found them, not because they were pertinent.

The book is called Clever Maids and is supposedly about how the Brothers Grimm basically stole all the credit for their stories from women.

Yet the entire first two chapters have just been about the Grimms’ childhood and early adulthood. Is this a “Secret History” of the Grimm fairytales, or a biography about the brothers?

I’ll continue with it because it’s a short read, but I’m a bit dubious now.