Tag: Books

Bear and Psyche, Sort Of

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult4 Comments

As you might know, one of my reading challenges for the year is to read novels that are fairy tales retold–because I really need to read more than I already do!  🙂  But, that goal is what led me to Ice by Sarah Beth Durst.

Cassie lives in the Arctic, at a research station with her scientist father.  Her mother, she believes, died when she was young.  Her grandmother, however, tells a fairy tale about Cassie’s mother–she was the daughter of the North Wind, and was promised to marry the Polar Bear King.  But she fell in love with a human, Cassie’s father, and bartered with the King–he could marry her daughter instead.  And when the North Wind found out that his daughter married a human, in his fury he blew her away to the castle of the trolls.

Such is the swiftly-established backstory, which probably could have been a novel (or at least Part One of a novel) in its own right.  But Ice really starts when Cassie is eighteen, and past believing in fairy tales–until the Polar Bear King actually shows up and wants to marry her.

As you might guess, the Polar Bear King is in fact a magical polar bear.  He asks her to call him Bear, and can conveniently change shape to a human on occasion–although there are complications.  Durst created a very interesting magical framework for her tale, which I enjoyed.  The unfolding romance was sweet as well, and when some of those complications separate Cassie and Bear, Cassie’s quest to find him is an exciting one.  It’s also implausible in certain ways I don’t want to get into to avoid spoilers, but if you suspend disbelief, it’s a good read.

Ice has a very strong fairy tale feel, complete with the fairy tale backstory and a castle of the trolls located “east of the sun and west of the moon.”  But it wasn’t actually immediately apparent which fairy tale this was.  A video interview with the author describes it as “Beauty and the Beast,” and from the initial premise I went into it expecting that.  Maybe I shouldn’t argue with the author, but I have to say, the farther I read the more I think it’s actually “Cupid and Psyche.”  Granted, Cupid is not usually a polar bear, but that complication involving Bear’s human shape was that Cassie couldn’t see what he looked like–which is straight out of “Cupid and Psyche.”  It also wouldn’t shock me to find out there’s a minor tale somewhere in Grimm’s that this follows even more closely.  It just has that archetypal fairy tale feel to it, and I imagine some of the elements have come up in a lot of different places.

I did have a few reservations about the book.  One of the biggest involves Cassie’s mother.  It’s not giving too much away to reveal that she does come back from the castle of the trolls–it happens fairly early on in the book.  Not knowing her mother was a huge motivation for Cassie at the beginning of the book, but then when her mother actually comes back, I didn’t feel like that was adequately developed.  It’s fair enough to say that meeting your mother for the first time at eighteen does not necessarily lead to immediate closeness, but I didn’t feel like Durst properly explored any relationship between the two of them, even if it was going to be an awkward or strained relationship.

Second, I had some trouble with the points where magic and reality met.  I believed in the research station.  I believed (in a fantasy book way, I mean) in Bear’s castle and in his magic.  But sometimes the two intersected, and I had a lot more trouble believing in a scene where a scientist doing research in the Arctic says, “yes, my wife was held captive by the trolls for many years.”  I don’t think it was just magic and the modern day intersecting–I’ve read urban fantasy that I really enjoyed.  I think it was that characters who showed no sign of believing in magic suddenly started talking about it as an accepted fact, and that was a little hard to buy.

However–it was still a good book.  And when I was getting down to the last few chapters, I even stayed up late to finish reading and see how it would turn out.

Author’s site: http://sarahbethdurst.com/contact.htm (check out the best ever FAQ section!)

Because It’s There

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

I want to begin this review by saying that I have never been mountain-climbing.  Nor do I ever plan to go.  The truth is, I don’t even like steep hills (which, believe me, can be a problem if you live in San Francisco).  I can walk very happily for miles on flat ground, but give me a hill and it’s all over.  But this is why I love books.  I love that they let me live lives I would never actually live, whether that involves casting magical spells, visiting a distant planet, or climbing a mountain.

That last brings me to Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman.  You’ll notice I have a picture of Third Man on the Mountain.  Walt Disney changed the title for his movie version, and then they reprinted the book with the new title.  I like Banner in the Sky better–for one thing, I’m not sure what Disney’s title is even supposed to mean!

With either title, the book is about Rudi Matt, and about the Citadel.  Rudi is a teenager living in a small village in the Alps in the 1800s, and he dreams of climbing the Citadel.  It’s the one unconquered peak, the one no man has ever reached the top of.  No one has tried for years, since the failed expedition that killed Rudi’s father.  Rudi’s mother has forbidden him to become a mountain climber (and I do understand her viewpoint!) but when an Englishman comes determined to lead an expedition up the unclimbable mountain, Rudi is determined to go.

The book is as much about Rudi’s growth as it is about the mountain.  He learns that there’s more to climbing a mountain than just scrambling over rocks, learns about things like trusting others and never leaving a comrade.  He learns to follow his father’s footsteps in more ways than one.  My best guess on Disney’s title is that Rudi becomes a man on the mountain, rather than a boy–but I can’t quite figure out how Disney calculates him as the third one.

This makes it all sound like it’s deep and reflective, and occasionally it is–but there’s also plenty of scrambling over rocks, and getting caught on ledges, and even an avalanche or two.  It’s an exciting story as well as a meaningful one.

It reminds me a little bit of stories about Scott’s expedition to the South Pole.  Not because of the snow similarity, but because they’re both about men trying to achieve a feat that has been considered unachievable.  They’re about pursuing the impossible dream.  And while I personally don’t have any desire to climb a mountain or ski to the South Pole, when the story is told right, I can get very enthused about someone else’s dream.

Why does someone climb a mountain?  “Because it’s there” is always a good answer.  Because it’s there to be conquered.  For Rudi, it’s because he wants to take his climbing staff and his father’s red sweater, and plant them as a flag at the top of the Citadel–a banner in the sky.

Even though I need a good reason to climb a steep hill and can’t imagine climbing a mountain, Banner in the Sky makes me believe in Rudi’s dream, makes me see it as vital and important for him, and makes me want to see him succeed.

Beauty (Maybe) and Her Beast

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult6 Comments

Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favorite fairy tales–probably because the retellings are so good.  If you go back to the original story, it’s almost as flawed as any other traditional fairy tale.  But the retellings…are SO good.  Beauty by Robin McKinley is a particular favorite of mine.

The basic story is familiar, if you’ve read the original or even if you’ve seen the Disney movie.  From the Disney movie you’ll recognize the part about the terrifying Beast living in the castle in the woods.  A lost traveler spends the night and, upon offending the Beast, agrees to bring back his daughter, Beauty, to stay at the castle.  From the original story you’ll recognize the part about Beauty’s father being a rich merchant who lost his fortune, forcing them to move out to the country.  And Beauty had two sisters as well, and it was Beauty’s request for a rose when her father began his ill-fated journey that, in a way, put everything else in motion.

I think I read Beauty before I read the original fairy tale, so when I did read the original, I kept thinking, “oh, now I see where McKinley got that detail or this part from!”  But, like any great fairy tale retelling, McKinley has taken the slender original story and embroidered and expanded upon it, bringing the characters to life and explaining the bits that never quite made sense.

Beauty’s father and two sisters are very real characters, and the tragedy of going to the Beast’s castle is as much about leaving them as it is about going to an unknown fate with a monstrous Beast.  How a rich merchant family makes their way in a country village is a detailed and developed part of the story.

Beauty and the Beast are my favorite characters though.  Beauty, like the original and the Disney version, loves to read.  She’s also ugly, or at least considers herself so (not something from either version).  I LOVE that element.  If you read enough fairy tales, breathlessly beautiful heroines get very old.  They’re all very much the same, sweet-tempered and beautiful and sickeningly good.  So I love McKinley’s scrawny, mouse-haired, stubborn-minded Beauty–a name she picked up as a child and has been too embarrassed to request dropped.  The Beast is charming, sometimes unsure of himself, and really rather sweet.  I thought the romance was very cute.

My other favorite part is probably the castle itself.  It’s enchanted, of course, but there’s a wonderful practical side to the magic.  Beauty has a couple of enchanted breezes (sort of) attending to her, and in personality they’re quite fussy and straight-forward and focused on common sense.  And I’m so very, very amused by enchanted candles that light themselves–and sometimes have to admonish each other, “Hsst–wake up, you” when one of them doesn’t light.

Robin McKinley wrote another retelling of Beauty and the Beast called Rose-Daughter which, despite following the same basic plotline, is quite different (a lot more roses, for one thing).  It’s very good also, but much more surreal.  The magic, and even the non-magical characters, like the two sisters, feel less real-world to me–not unrealistic, exactly, but not so realistic either.  I recommend it too, but personally I prefer the more grounded Beauty.

But by all means, read both.  Or either.  Or pretty much anything else by Robin McKinley, because I can’t honestly say I’ve met a book by her I didn’t like.  Beauty may be my favorite, though.

Author’s Site: http://www.robinmckinley.com/

Ordinary–But Charming

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews1 Comment

I’ve read several books about ordinary princesses.  The danger is that ordinary can sometimes be only half a step from boring, and when you set out to make your heroine ordinary, you sometimes end up with a heroine who is so very ordinary that she’s not at all interesting or distinctive.  But, on the other hand, sometimes it works.  There’s nothing at all boring about Amy in The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye.

I have to love a book that begins “Long and long ago, when Oberon was king of the fairies, there reigned over the fair country of Phantasmorania a monarch who had six beautiful daughters.”

Amy is born seventh, and is cursed–or blessed?–at her christening by a fairy to be ordinary.  Unlike her blonde-haired, blue-eyed and breathtakingly beautiful sisters, Amy has mousy brown-hair and a turned-up nose, is not the least bit graceful, and is, well, ordinary.  But she knows how to climb down the wisteria vine growing by her window and go off into the forest to climb trees and make friends with squirrels, and she has a wonderful practical bent.  Of one of her sisters’ suitors, she thinks, “He may be very good-looking, but I’m quite sure he has never giggled one good giggle in his life!”

When Amy’s turn comes to get married, the royal family is at an utter loss to find an interested prince, so they decide the solution is to bring in a dragon.  That will of course tempt some prince to come kill it, and then he’ll have to marry the princess.  Not wanting a dragon to lay waste to the country, Amy decides to run away.

She goes on to have quite ordinary adventures, in the forest and later as a kitchen maid at another castle, where she falls in love with a man-of-all-work.  They’re ordinary adventures in the most charming way.  The writing is very good, and Amy is a sweet and endearing heroine.  She somehow seems utterly unlike a lot of the brown-haired, tom-boyish, clumsy “ordinary princesses” that populate other books of this sort, even though point by point she has a lot in common with them.  Maybe it’s simply better writing.

I love practical, pragmatic, humorous stories loosely inspired by fairy tales, and this one’s a favorite.

A Window in Thrums

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday6 Comments

I bought A Window in Thrums because L. M. Montgomery recommended it to me; she mentioned it in her journals.  She mentioned a lot of books she read in her journals, and since this one was by J. M. Barrie I decided to try it.  But this isn’t a book review, this is a Fiction Friday post.

I recently wrote about books as objects, especially pieces of history, and mentioned my copy of A Window in Thrums.  It’s a good story, but one of the most interesting aspects of my copy is the inscription on the flyleaf: “For Grandma from Mary Eunice, December 25th, 1898.”  I don’t know who Mary Eunice or her grandmother were, since I bought the book used online only a few years ago.  But shortly after buying it, I decided to write a story imagining who they might have been, and who else might have owned the book over the years.

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A Window in Thrums

            “Do you think Grandma will like it?” Mary Eunice asked, hugging the book to her chest.

            “Of course she will, dear,” her mother said firmly, continuing briskly down the row, eyes on the baskets of fruit for sale.

            Mary Eunice frowned, the frown of a girl just old enough to start questioning firm parental assurances.  “But will she really like it?” she persisted, hurrying after her mother.  “I want her to like it because she really likes it, not just because it came from me.”

            Her mother absently picked up an apple, put it down, and went on to the oranges.  “There’s never anything really fresh this time of year,” she muttered.

            “But, Mother, will she?”

            “What?  Oh, the book.  Yes, of course, you know she likes Mr. Barrie’s novels.”

            “That’s true,” Mary Eunice said thoughtfully, feeling reassured.  She watched her mother walk down the row but stayed where she was, to look at the book in her hands.  She enjoyed the proud thrill of ownership for at least the twelfth time in the last ten minutes since they’d walked away from the bookstore.  It was the first book she’d ever bought with her own money.

            Mary Eunice thought it was the prettiest little book she’d ever seen.  The cover was dark blue, with silver curls and swirls and a scattering of pink flowers.  The spine was the same, the back pale gray, the pages crisp and white.  Mary Eunice ran her fingers lightly across the silver title stamped on the cover: A Window in Thrums.  She checked on her mother, saw she hadn’t gone very far, and carefully cracked open the book.  She turned a few pages and found Chapter I.

            “On the bump of green round which the brae twists, at the top of the brae, and within cry of T’nowhead Farm, still stands a one-storey house, whose white-washed walls, streaked with the discoloration that rain leaves, look yellow when the snow comes.”

            Mary Eunice stopped reading with a puzzled frown and closed the book.  “Oh well,” she whispered to it, “I still think you’re the prettiest little book I ever saw, even if I don’t know what a brae is.  And Grandma likes Mr. Barrie’s writing.  That’s what matters.”

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