(no subject)
May. 7th, 2010 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floatingleafSo, I just finished reading another book by Tanith Lee. White as Snow. Yes, it's a retelling of the famous fairy tale - but forget all about the saccharine Disney version. Forget the Brothers Grimm too, for that matter. This story is NOT for kids. Just like original, folk fairy tales were not - they had much more in common with cruel myths of primitive cultures, rife with blood and vengeance. In fact, this book combines some old, "uncensored" versions of Snow White with the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. So the "evil stepmother" is in fact the natural mother - who is not evil at all... just very unhappy. We meet her first as a lonely 14-year-old girl, living with her indifferent father-king and an old, demented nursemaid in a remote castle somewhere in the north of Europe. Then the castle is invaded by some ruthless and ambitious warlord from the south. The old king knows he doesn't stand a chance, so he promises his young daughter he will cut her throat before she falls prey to "those barbarians". She doesn't understand why he thinks he has to do this. She is still a child. She doesn't want to die. So she sneaks out of the castle, with the help of a servant, and ends up in the enemy camp. She is, of course, immediately delivered to the leader's tent. He considers her his prize. What happens next is chillingly predictable. He "favors" her with his drunken attentions, which she, of course, rejects. He becomes more persistent. She runs out of the tent, through the camp and into the surrounding forest. He follows. She stumbles and falls. He does what he would have done anyway, except now he is impatient with her resistance - being unused to not getting what he wants at once - and doesn't feel the need to be gentle anymore. Afterwards, there are black winter trees and blood on the snow. This is how Tanith Lee's "Snow White" comes into being.
So, it is hardly surprising that the young queen doesn't love her child. (Yes, queen, because the warlord, who then becomes king, is plagued by sudden feelings of remorse and decides to redeem his deed by marrying the girl. She is by far not the first one he has ever violated, by the way - he only feels guilty because she is of royal blood, as the author informs us with her trademark icy sarcasm. She doesn't want to marry him, of course, but no one asks her opinion on the matter.) She doesn't even perceive the child as a person. She is far too young to have any maternal instincts. In her mind, pregnancy and birth are only yet another horrifying violation she has to endure. When they show her the baby, she turns her head away. It was nothing to her, it belonged to pain - is the author's dispassionate commentary.
And so both mother and daughter grow up in chilling isolation, mostly unaware of each other's existence. The king gets tired of his ungrateful, frigid spouse and goes off to build another city somewhere. Years pass, and finally the disgraced, bitter queen - still very young, but with an icy fortress built around her lonely heart - falls in love for the first time. With a common peasant. Now, this is all happening somewhere in the Balkans, at the time when early Christianity struggles to establish itself and uproot the old pagan religion (which is still universally practiced, thank you very much). So there are angry priests, condemning the sins of the flesh, and there are nightly orgiastic rituals in the woods. The symbols clash in a frantic dance. There are the seven dwarves - not magical creatures, but deformed "little people", medieval circus attractions, performing a moralistic pantomime of the Seven Deadly Sins. (And it is with one of said dwarves that the princess - "Snow White" - falls in love at the end, not with the prince. The prince, who rules "the Underworld" - or, in other words, the mines, where the dwarves often seek employment in between their circus acts - is a madman and a jerk. Worse than the warlord-king, in fact.) There is the "hunter king" of the woods - embodiment of the old religion - who seduces the frightened, violated girl and shows her the mysteries of love and desire (and heals her - but the healing, the understanding of it comes too late to save their love). There is the mirror, of course - not a magical object at all, but simply an heirloom, which follows first one heroine, then the other throughout their trials and tribulations, finally connecting them in a most fateful way. You could almost say that the mirror is the narrator in the story. This is how the book starts: Once upon a time, in winter, there was a mirror.
*takes a deep breath*
It's really not possible to give this tale any justice in a single LJ post. What was I thinking? I can't sit up all night raving about it. I have stupidly offered to come to work tomorrow, even though I won't get paid at the overtime rate, because I had to take a sickie earlier in the week. So I am going to spend yet another Saturday morning at the office, for the glorious reward of having about 30$ added to my next paycheck. WTF is wrong with me? Am I that desperate or what?... *grumbles*
Anyway... just wanted to say that Tanith Lee has a very unique and unsettling way of dealing with cultural archetypes. And with language. She can be so coldly clinical in her depictions of human suffering - and yet, so poetic. I have bookmarked a few quotes - but there is no time to share them now. There is never enough time for the really worthwhile things in life, somehow.:/
So, it is hardly surprising that the young queen doesn't love her child. (Yes, queen, because the warlord, who then becomes king, is plagued by sudden feelings of remorse and decides to redeem his deed by marrying the girl. She is by far not the first one he has ever violated, by the way - he only feels guilty because she is of royal blood, as the author informs us with her trademark icy sarcasm. She doesn't want to marry him, of course, but no one asks her opinion on the matter.) She doesn't even perceive the child as a person. She is far too young to have any maternal instincts. In her mind, pregnancy and birth are only yet another horrifying violation she has to endure. When they show her the baby, she turns her head away. It was nothing to her, it belonged to pain - is the author's dispassionate commentary.
And so both mother and daughter grow up in chilling isolation, mostly unaware of each other's existence. The king gets tired of his ungrateful, frigid spouse and goes off to build another city somewhere. Years pass, and finally the disgraced, bitter queen - still very young, but with an icy fortress built around her lonely heart - falls in love for the first time. With a common peasant. Now, this is all happening somewhere in the Balkans, at the time when early Christianity struggles to establish itself and uproot the old pagan religion (which is still universally practiced, thank you very much). So there are angry priests, condemning the sins of the flesh, and there are nightly orgiastic rituals in the woods. The symbols clash in a frantic dance. There are the seven dwarves - not magical creatures, but deformed "little people", medieval circus attractions, performing a moralistic pantomime of the Seven Deadly Sins. (And it is with one of said dwarves that the princess - "Snow White" - falls in love at the end, not with the prince. The prince, who rules "the Underworld" - or, in other words, the mines, where the dwarves often seek employment in between their circus acts - is a madman and a jerk. Worse than the warlord-king, in fact.) There is the "hunter king" of the woods - embodiment of the old religion - who seduces the frightened, violated girl and shows her the mysteries of love and desire (and heals her - but the healing, the understanding of it comes too late to save their love). There is the mirror, of course - not a magical object at all, but simply an heirloom, which follows first one heroine, then the other throughout their trials and tribulations, finally connecting them in a most fateful way. You could almost say that the mirror is the narrator in the story. This is how the book starts: Once upon a time, in winter, there was a mirror.
*takes a deep breath*
It's really not possible to give this tale any justice in a single LJ post. What was I thinking? I can't sit up all night raving about it. I have stupidly offered to come to work tomorrow, even though I won't get paid at the overtime rate, because I had to take a sickie earlier in the week. So I am going to spend yet another Saturday morning at the office, for the glorious reward of having about 30$ added to my next paycheck. WTF is wrong with me? Am I that desperate or what?... *grumbles*
Anyway... just wanted to say that Tanith Lee has a very unique and unsettling way of dealing with cultural archetypes. And with language. She can be so coldly clinical in her depictions of human suffering - and yet, so poetic. I have bookmarked a few quotes - but there is no time to share them now. There is never enough time for the really worthwhile things in life, somehow.:/
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-09 12:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 09:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-09 12:17 am (UTC)Very true! I'm sure you know all about that right now.:D *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-17 05:43 am (UTC)I talked with my sister about it - um TRIED talking with her.. who instead got all Lalalala!!Shut UP!!! ("don't destroy my Disney!image of fairytales") =/
Yep, well.. I find instead the whole historical context - with the aspect of religious tension of those times, very interesting per se, and then the "origin-of-myth".. or -fairytale (or even a different interpretation of a tale) very refreshing. So damnit.. I will check out the library.
There is never enough time for the really worthwhile things in life
*groans* No shit!!
Funny that, how there can actually be scarcity of Time. Who the fuck invented that thing????
Anyway.. hope you´ve had a nice refreshing weekend -->>not_spent doing any extra hours at work.. (the week after this post?)
*snuggle*
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-19 03:20 am (UTC)I hope you like it. It's pretty gruesome at times... shockingly cynical, and yet tender somehow. Only a great writer can pull this off, imo - but it may not be to every reader's liking, nonetheless...
the "origin-of-myth".. or -fairytale (or even a different interpretation of a tale) very refreshing
I remember a university lecture about the origin of fairy tales - it was fascinating. I also remember reading a scientific study of myths and legends, their structure, symbolic meaning and the educational purpose they fulfill within traditional communities. I can't recall the title of the study, but I think the author was Bruno Bettelheim. Those anthropological/cultural topics were always the most captivating aspect of university education for me.
hope you´ve had a nice refreshing weekend -->>not_spent doing any extra hours at work..
I didn't go to the office the past Saturday, but I am going again this week.:/ And probably the next one too. I don't HAVE to, of course - but I can totally use the extra money, so I'm taking the overtime while it's available. I'm still not doing as many hours as the boss wants me to, because I REFUSE to start earlier than 9 a.m. - and there are stupid rules saying that we have to leave the building by 6 p.m. on weekdays and by 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Oh well... there is only so much I am willing to do for extra money.:P (just don't tell my mother, LOL)