new book review
I have just read a fantastic book called "Beauty" by Robin McKinley. I must to tell you, I was entranced. This is her retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," with some interesting differences.
Beauty isn't actually this gorgeous misfit. She more like the mis-named misfit. "Beauty" is the unfortunate nickname that a rather plain bookworm got stuck with early in life. Her father is a merchant who loses all of his fortunes when nearly half of his ships come to disaster at sea. The family moves to a small village that is plagued with old legends of the haunted forest and the terrible beast within a hidden castle.
Paying no head to these legends, her father becomes lost in the woods, and eventually finds his way to the castle. He is treated well, until as he is leaving the next day, he plucks a rose from the Beast's garden. From there, he is given a horrible choice; return in one month alone and face your fate, or return in one month with one of your daughters...
Now, everyone knows the story, everyone knows how it ends, but it's getting there that's so much fun. McKinley gives a lot of backstory on Beauty from the beginning, and the intersperces backstory on the Beast from their first meeting on. Invisible servants, hints at other worlds, a library with every book ever written and every book yet to be written, and continuing references to Beauty being more like her name than she seems willing to believe... All these things add great depth and energy to an already good story.
I give it ***** (5 stars).
Now, I have to read McKinley's other retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" (yes, she did it twice). I've been told how amazing it is that this woman can take one story and come at it from a completely different angle and make it an entirely different and just as fantastic book.
Anyway, I have to go and get needles stuck in my back before I go to work.
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Sounds good
I have to go and get needles stuck in my back before I go to work.
Wow, and I thought wearing a hairnet to work was a pain!
Now, about the book. It really sounds good. Is this a secular book? I hate having to ask that, but you never know. Last summer, I saw a book with a title something like My Geek In Shining Armor. I read the back of it, and the premise sounded great. I so wanted to read this book, since I, too, have found my dreams with a geek. But in flipping through the book, I happened upon a very graphic passage. I was so bummed.
I think I may attempt to read some of the classics that I've never read this summer.
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No more compromise, no more room for lies.
No more giving in to a world of sin.
-"No More Compromise" by Rubicon 7
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I get up, I walk, I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing. - Hillel
Books
I like a lot of Robin McKinley's books. Some good ones were: The Hero and the Crown & The Blue Sword, Spindle's End, and of course the Outlaws of Sherwood (quoted below).
Spindle's End is another of Mckinley's retellings; this one is about Sleeping Beauty and I highly recomend this one. Unfortunately, I read it a long time ago and am not able to give a very good review, but I do remember that I really liked it!!!
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"I refuse to continue unless I receive a full apology!"
"And in a free, perfect world, you would certainly receive one. However, as this world is neither perfect nor fair, you won't"
-- "The Outlaws of Sherwood
The normal ones are boring. They all run-off screaming toward sanity. We just sit there at laugh at their sad attempts.
Um, I hate to be a party ruiner...
Everything you discribed about the stroy, Ash, isn't a re-telling. That's the way the original story went. Invisible servents and everything.
Did it have the room full of talking birds and the fact that the rooms in the castle could move? And did it have the part about Beauty's dreams?
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"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
You know how to raspberry, don't you Steve? You just put your tongue out and blow.
yes, party-ruiner
it did have all those things, but it's told in very different style with some different elements, and most importantly, written entirely in the first person from Beauty's point of view.
and no, no room of talking birds.
The one I'm reading now is her other Beauty and the Beast retelling, "Rose Daughter," which so far is fantastic, and actually very different than "Beauty." Obviously there are similar elements of the story, but really, we all know how the story goes, it's getting there that's half the fun.
It's like watching a Columbo mystery. The audience always knows who did it from the first five minutes of the show, the fun of watching is trying to figure out how long it's going to take Columbo to figure it out, and how he's going to prove it.
So, you can say that's it's exactly like the original story, but that's just not true, it's a whole new adventure every time. It's like with "The Giver" which is one of my absolute favorite books. I've read the book probably ten times, but every time I read it, I find something new and exciting and can put a different twist on things.
"We are the music makers... and we are the dreamers of the dreams." Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder)
Do you realize that if it weren't for Edison, we'd be watching TV by candlelight?
I think I understand...
I guess it just really just depends on what your looking for in reading material.
Personally, I find the "new-twist-on-fairytales" a tiny bit cliche'd for my tastes.
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"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
You know how to raspberry, don't you Steve? You just put your tongue out and blow.
Here's a suggestion, Ais
I have know idea if you'd like this one, but here goes:
I read a book a few years ago called "Dealing with Dragons". It was similar to a retold fairytale, however this one actually made fun of the cliche-ness of said stories.
The main character is Cymorine, the ninth daughter of the King and Queen of a peaceful kingdom in which "the ladies were beatiful, the knights always kept well polished and the number 7 was fashionable. Cymorine hated it." In an attempt to escape from her boring "proper" life, Cymorine runs away on the advice of a talking frog (who wasn't an enchanted prince). At the end of her perilous journey, she ends up working as Princess for a dragon. She then must overcome:
1) an evil society of wizards
2) an attempt on her life by a once-bottled djinn
3) the plots of a treacherous dragon who wants to eat her and
4) the lame, hard-headed and rather anoying 'rescues' of about twenty knights (including her ex-fiance) who show up for her at the worst possible times.
I give this book two thumbs way up, for it's inventive plot twists, mockery of steryotyped fairy tales and for creating a princess who was actaully heroic and not a total airhead!!!
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"I refuse to continue unless I receive a full apology!"
"And in a free, perfect world, you would certainly receive one. However, as this world is neither perfect nor fair, you won't"
-- "The Outlaws of Sherwood
The normal ones are boring. They all run-off screaming toward sanity. We just sit there at laugh at their sad attempts.
Sounds like an interesting book...
Lemme see if I can explain this... this is gonna be hard.
I was explaining this to my little sister last night when I finally finished telling her the story of Beauty and the Beast. (I sometimes tell her stories when we're supposed to be sleeping 'cause she says they help her go to sleep.)
Fairytales cannot count as being cliche'ed or steryotyped. And this is because they are supposed to be predictable. You never have to wonder if the knight will break the curse or if the giant will get his due.
That's part of the charm.
Here's the catch.
There's a difference between telling a story and storytelling.
No one ever reads a fairytale to find out what happens in the end. I can tell Leela storys she has heard a dozen times but it's how I personally tell them that makes it unique. It's in the voice and the ability to recall the story fast enough, to pick the right words on the fly. That's storytelling.
When you pick up a book of fairytales, it's probably to read to a kid you're babysitting, or you're thinking of when your mother read them to you.
That's what I think fairytales are for. And as funny or clever or witty those "twists" on fairytales are, you'll never find a mother simply telling them her children to get them to sleep.
As I said before, it depends on what your looking for in reading material. If you want something funny or clever or witty then new twists on fairytales might be just the thing for you.
I just prefer them they way they've always been.
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"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
You know how to raspberry, don't you Steve? You just put your tongue out and blow.
I've heard of Dealing with Dragons
It's my friend Anna's favorite series, but as I've been so bogged down with backed-up reading lately, I've not had a chance to delve into these.
"We are the music makers... and we are the dreamers of the dreams." Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder)
Do you realize that if it weren't for Edison, we'd be watching TV by candlelight?