#neil gaiman's hansel and gretel

[adarkrainbow]

As it turns out, I should never say "never" because despite what I claimed earlier, I still have one more "Hansel and Gretel" post to make! This one I wanted to make for a long time but simply forgot about, and so I'll make it now to conclude my long series of "Hansel and Gretel" posts. (I also do think it is time to make a new masterpost soon)

And in this post, I want to talk about Neil Gaiman's Hansel and Gretel.

"What?" you ask. "Neil Gaiman did a Hansel and Gretel story? When? Where?". And indeed, many people seem to have overlooked it, but the author of pieces such as "Coraline", "The Graveyard Book", "Sandman", "Stardust" and many more has done an illustrated book for children retelling the story of Hansel and Grtel - with accompanying illustrations by Lorenzo Mattoti. Illustrations that do set the tone for the story, since they are black and white illustrations in the style of shadow-puppets, presenting small, featureless characters in vast, enormous, dark landscapes.

It was released all the way back in 2014 (October or November if I recall well?)

Given this book as made for children, and not much talked about, it is a bit hard to get, and is not placed on the same shelves as Gaiman's other adult and teenage-oriented works. I personally only could have an experience of the story by listened to "read-through" and audio versions of the book, unable to get any physical copy - but maybe it is just because live in France? I don't know.

But of course I cannot ignore what Neil friggn' Gaiman would have done with "Hansel and Gretel". Neil Gaiman is famous for his fairytale-inspired works, but to my knowledge most of what he did was either fairytale-fantasy (Coraline, Stardust), either dark, mature and twisted retellngs of fairytales (Snow, Glass, Apples ; The Sleeper and the Spindle). I think it was the first time Neil Gaiman did a straight retelling of a fairytale, directly aimed at children.

Which is fascinating because I read something about it in a book recently. Remember when I told you about this book about fairytale villains - a book which disappointed me because it wasn't a character study and more of a general look at the publication and "sanitization" of fairytales today. Well this book still contained fascinating parts and tidbits - and one of them was an explanation that, the rewrite of a classic fairytale for children was one of those "initiation rites" or "obligatory steps" in a writer's career. The writing - not the invention, but the rewrite - of a famous fairytale is one of the most common "exercice of style" a writer can perform. Because they are forced to keep the basic story, the main plotline, the core tale, and can't change it too much... But they have to shine by the little details. The tone of the story, the way they fill some plotholes, or how they smooth or erase certain details, or certain traits they give to the characters. Little details, little changes, but that reflect how well they handle a story or what message they want to carry through the tale.

And what are those small changes Gaiman brings to the tale? I won't copy-paste the whole story here of course, but be warned of spoilers as I will break down the little things Gaiman added or changed compared with the original tale.

The opening of the tale pecises that it was uring the time of the reader/listenr's "grandmothers", or perhaps in the time of their grandmothers' grandfathers. All in all, it was back when "we all lived at the edge of the great forest".

There is an explicit mention that Gretel is the oldest sister, Hansel the youngest, and they are two years apart. Gretel used to be called Greta, and her birthname is Margaret ; while Hansel's birthname was "Hans", which his parents turned to Hansel because "they could not make it shorter".

Neil Gaiman depicts a specific family life for the children. Hansel and Gretel did not go to school, because school was far away from the forest near which they lived, and it needed money - too much money for the humble life of a woodcutter. However their father "taught them the way of the woods", while their mother taught them skills such as sewing, cooking and cleaning. Hansel and Gretel's parents were not the best in the world - their mother was bitter and sharp-tongued, and their father was a sullen man always eager to be away from his little house. But the children were happy as long as they could play in the forest, climb on trees, swim in nearby trees - and have enough food. The narration details the different foods and meals the family could afford during the "better days", when their father was paid well for his wood. Regular meals involved cabbages, fresh bread, eggs, things of the sort - and when they had more money, their father bought meat from the butcher, or a live animal that they killed and ate themselves. But even then, there was still some beast to capture in the woods - some rabbits to catch or ducks to find. The narrator insists "There was always food". [Oh yes, forgot to mention - no stepmother here, Gaiman reused the original story involving only the children's mother]

The reason for the family's bad situation is explicitly referred to as a war followed by a famine. It began when soldiers arrived and stole the cabbages, the chickens and the ducks - they were men motivated by a mixture of anger, hunger, boredom and fear. The local farmers were either taken and forced to be new soldiers, or killed by other soldiers - their fields either burned by the war, or left to rot since nobody could tend to them. Hansel and Gretel's own house was located far away from the war, and their father never knew why the soldiers went fighting or who they were fighting - all they knew that was there was the war, and the soldiers were fighting. But the household felt the effect of the war as the butcher lacked meat to sell, the baker didn't have any more flour to bake, and the family could only have scarse and bad or stale food.

The dialogue where the mother convinces her husband to abandon the children relies on emotion vs logic. The mother acts purely and entirely out of logic - and even claims it herself. She says that it is better for two people to die than four ; she explains that if the father doesn't eat and deprive himself for his children, he won't be able to cut the wood/earn money and they'll all die of starvation ; she also adds that it isn't about killing the children, but about losing them in the woods. Maybe some kind stranger will help them and care for them! she says - only for the father to reply in anger "Maybe a bear will devour them!". But despite's the father emotional refusal, the mother still ends up convincing him somehow. (There is also the mention that Hansel was listening to the conversation because he was so hungry he couldn't sleep - though he said nothing and refused to complain, given he knew how difficult the situation was)

The clue that makes Hansel understand his father accepted their mother's idea is because one morning he claims he will take the children into the woods and teach them how to cut the wood - something which is unusual since before their father always refused to let them accompany him to work, saying the woods were too dangerous for children.

The father here asks the children to sit down in a grove of birch trees and wait for him: he creates a small fire for them to sit by, and even offers them his lunch, promising to return for them. Hansel knows he won't - but Gretel stays convinced that they must wait and that their father is merely "delayed", until finally she has to admit he won't come back. (Hopefully Hansel had prepared the pebbles)

When the children return to their house, their father (who has been noted to have a crimson face and teary eyes, as if he had been crying and drinking) is so happy he offers them two syrup-covered cherries. This is no random decision, as they are kept in a jar in the house - a jar which once was full but now is almost empty. And as the children slowly savor their cherries, their mother, pale and with pinched leeps, looks hungrily at the four leftover cherries in the jar...

The next attempt at losing the children (and this second one is the successful one) happens a few weeks after the first. This time Hansel is caught unprepared, as their father announces he takes them in the woods one morning, right now, on the spot, without Hansel having heard anything the night before. This is why he must use one of the two freshly-baked loaves of bread their mother baked them for the morning.

There is an insistance on how deep and far their father takes them, compared to the first time. They pass by creepy trees that look like "scraping and scratching hands", then their father helps them cross a river, showing them where to go and where it's too deep ; they reach a deeper part of the forest where the enormous twisted trees as like "giants frozen in time", and there is the poetic line of the thorns and brambles of the forest constantly gripping the clothes of the kids, as if to try to keep them here and prevent them from going further.

The second time they are abandoned, it is Gretel who is the first to admit and recognize their father won't be coming back - showing that she learned from her first experience.

When the children discover the birds (wood pigeons) eating the bread, while Hansel says nothing, Gretel takes pity upon them, commenting that even the animals of the forest are hungry.

It is not a bird that attracts the children to the house - but the sweet and warm smell of gingerbread, that Hansel catches first, and then Gretel. A smell of honey cakes, and ginger, and spices, that makes their stomach hurt and makes them run with hunger towards the source of the scent.

The house of the witch is described as smaller than the one of Hansel and Gretel, and made of fresh gingerbread. It is decorated with green and red candies of hard-sugar, and the window panes are also clear sugar.

Like in the first-edition version of the Grimm tale (which obviously seems to be Gaman's main source), the witch does have a creepy little rhyme as she comes out of the house "Who nibbles my house? Is it a mouse?" she says with a gentle and amused voice), and the children do not answer, speechless (but their mouth too full). However, as the narrator points out, they are relieved after a moment of scare, to see that it is "no ogre or monster" that comes out of te house, but a "kindly-faced old woman with dim eyes", hobbling around and using a cane/stick to walk.

The inside of the house is described as having just a single room, with a "huge brick oven" on one end. The other main furniture of the house is a table, though later the text also mentions two little beds prepared for Hansel and Gretel (but that are quickly removed after their first night), and the witch's own bed.

The meal the old woman first offers the children is made of candied fruits, cakes, pies, cookies, biscuits, and all sorts of other delicious treats - but as the children note, there is absolutely no meat. When asked about it, the old woman has a long explanation which is FILLED with creepy foreshadowing. The woman says that she has grown too old and too short-sighted to be hunting animals in the forest. That now, all she can do is "lay her bait" in the forest and hope it catches something - and she complains that even if she does manage to capture something, the creature will be too scrawny and need a good fattening up. "But now that you are here, perhaps now there will be meat once again".

The deep sleep the children fall into after their first meal at the woman's house is explicitly caused by drugs that the old woman placed in their food. Now, the VERY interesting thing in Neil Gaiman's retelling is that nowhere the word "witch" appears in the story. It is clear that the old woman has magic - but she is never called anything else than "the old woman", leaving her true nature more ambiguous. The only "reveal" the narrator tells us after confirming that the children were drugged into sleep, is that the old woman was much stronger than she let them believed - as she had a horrible, "sinewy" strength to her.

Hansel is locked up in a cage with rusty metal bars, inside a stable behind the house - with nothing in it but straw and a "few ancient, well-chewed bones". Every day she serves him lots of food, "cakes, potatoes, candied fruits, puddings, gruels, crumbles" and many more dishes. She also stays by his side until he finishes everything - and carefully listens to make sure he eats every dish until there is nothing, poking him with her stick if he ever complains about being too full or unable to eat. Gretel, meanwhile, finds herself chained to the table and unable to leave the house - in fact she doesn't see her brother until the end of te tale, staying alone with no contact with him for a very long time. The old woman forces Gretel to clean the house and cook for her, and if she doesn't do her chores quick enough, the old one beats her and insults her.

Neil Gaiman adds a fascinating detail to the way the old woman treats Gretel. When she is in a good mood, she promises to care for Gretel, and to protect her as she will grow into a woman. She also promises to teach her all her secrets, three of which are explicitely named: to call the birds down from the trees (implying she might have sent the wood pigeons devour their food, though it is a subtext monly) ; to ensnare travellers (the scent of the gingerbread house was described in ways implying it was much more powerful than regular gingerbread scent should be) ; and to make sure anyone that comes to the cottage never leaves. But, as the narrator points out, an hour or so after each of these promises, the old one would be back to scolding Gretel and telling her she was a good for nothing. Gretel in turn barely speaks to the old woman, merely saying one word or two, to the point the old woman starts to believe she might be a "half-wit".

One month or so after first being imprisoned, the old woman decides to eat Hansel because she has been running out of patience - but she still doesn't want to eat Gretel apparently. In fact she has this horrible line, "We will roast your brother, but do not be sad: I'll give you the bones to chew, little one." And when, after playing dumb, Gretel pushes the old woman into the oven, there is another great line: "The girl had learned more from the woman than she thought."

After burning the old woman, Gretel steals her keys from under the woman's pillow and sets herself and her brother free, and they hug in the sunshine... But Neil Gaiman insists on the fear and slight trauma the two kids went through. Gretel doesn't just push the old woman and lock the door - she holds the door tight, she listens until the horrible screams of the woman die out, and still then she fears of letting go of the door, fearing the hag would somehow come back from the fire and crawl out of the oven. And when she sets Hansel free, she is puzzled and she marvels at two things 1) at how her little brother turned into a "plump young man" (after all she hasn't seen him for a whole month, during which he was force-fed fattening witch-food) and 2) at how he mysteriously holds a little bone in his hand, as if his whole life depended on it (the reader knows why Hansel clings on to this bone ; Gretel does not).

The children still make sure the old woman is truly dead: they return to the house (now filled with the smell of burned human flesh), and once the oven cooled down they open it to see the charcoaled, blackened husk of their tormentor... And a little iron key that, as they discover, opens a chest beneath the old woman's bed. Said best contains all the treasures she took from the many travellers that came to her house: gloves, hats, rings set with rubies and diamonds, gold coins and silver coins, chains of gold and of silver, pearl necklaces, clothes of satin and silk... The children quickly replace their old rags with new clothes from the chest, put all the jewels, gems and coins they can in a big bag, and leave the house.

Since Neil Gaiman based his retelling on the first-edition version of the tale, there is no duck to help the children cross the stream. They simply come across the same river they had encountered at the beginning of the tale, and use what their father had taught them then, so as to cross in the most shallow area of the water. They then return to the part of the forest they are the more familiar with - the one where they played and climbed on trees. And fnally they return home...

They do not dare get too close to their home, but they still call out to their parents. Their father answers, overwhelmed with joy, confessing he couldn't sleep or find peace ever since he abandoned them, and that he searched for them every day. The children ask where their mother is - explaining they brought enough riches for her to eat whatever she wants, go wherever she wants, and never fear hunger again. Their father silently gestures at the grave he dug for her. Here the narrator offers several reasons why their mother died: maybe she died of hunger? Maybe something "ate her from the inside". Maybe she died of anger? Maybe she died because of the loss of her children? But ultimately, as the narrator concludes, we will never know.

After doing the traditional conclusion about how the family never lacked anything again, always had food on their table, and solved most of their problems with the newfound wealth, the story goes on for a few more paragraphs. It explains that Hansel and Gretel each ended up marrying happily (though the story does not mention who they married), and that there was so much food at their wedding feasts that the guests "had their belts burst, and fat dripping from their chins". The fairytale concludes with: "And the pale moon looked kindly upon them all."

[ibrithir-was-here]

Old short story I wrote a couple of years ago and then forgot about. Remembered it the other day, gave it a bit of a brush up, and figured I'd share it. My own take on the old "Dark Snow White" retelling

Sunlight and Snowdrops

Father is sending us away tomorrow, sent for schooling at a monastery far off in the south. His new wife--The Usurper, who I will not grace with the title of queen-- tells us of the walled gardens, where pomegranates and figs grow almost year round on trees with leaves as large and tall as a man, a place where the sea still rushes up freely to meet the shore, long stretches of golden sand, forever warm to the touch.

She has talked of little else for months now, as if she and Father hope that such constant chatter will somehow soften us to the idea of our exile, make us forget the kingdom she has stolen from us, just as she has stolen his heart. And perhaps with my sisters she has somewhat succeeded . They always did take after Father, with their butter-yellow hair, and skin flushed like ripe peaches. Perhaps they were always more suited for such places. But I am my mother’s daughter, as any who look upon me can tell, and I will not be made to forget.

For how could such a flat, lurid place ever hope to compare with the beauty of my mother’s kingdom? What is a stretch of damping sea-shore to the beauty of a deep lake, forever crystallized into the finest mirror? What are walled gardens with their mad jumble of gaudy fruits to the dark towering pines, whispering to each other as the wind moves through them? What monastery could ever hope to reach heaven in the way that the mountains of the valley swell up in dark waves, to crack the egg-shell gray of the sky?

It is the blue sky of that far off place I fear most of all. What want have I for a sky of unchanging blue, suffocating in it’s immensity, with its one great burning eye beating down to peel and crack my skin in the day, and it’s thousand eyes to stare down at night? My mother’s pale sky has never once burned me, never once stared into my dreams, not with her veils of snow to protect me. Her sky is forever changing, shifting from stillness to storm on her whim. Blasting and breaking, soothing and softening, blanketing all with her beautiful covering of pure, protective white.

But my father’s new queen has poisoned its beauty for him, turning his head with her talk of salted water and coarse sand. If she wishes to retreat to such places, then I say let us be well rid of her. If my father and sisters are fools enough to follow her, to believe the lies she and her counselors and sages have spread about my mother, the rightful queen, then let them be off as well. I know the truth, I have not forgotten, I of all her daughters, have remained faithful.

There are so few of us now. So many have turned away from their true queen. But though loyalty is fragile, memory remains as firm as the ice upon the Great Lake. Despite their seeming love for the Usurper, The common people still tell my mother’s story. The Usurper thinks that because she was once one of them, a drudge plucked from obscurity by the weakness of my father’s will, that their hearts have turned to her in full.

But they can never forget my mother completely, she does not let them.

When the winds howl thick, like wolves at the door, the tale, long and wondrous and wild, is whispered between huddled crones and wide-eyed children.

A tale that takes hold of the mind and heart, as surely as the cold takes to the bones.

It begins in Winter, for indeed, how could it not?

A winter long and dark, when my grandmother, a woman wise in the old ways of the world, sat sewing at her window, looking out into the forest that spreads like an ink stain all round the castle, the snow falling heavy all around her, silencing the world as she made her request to the magic of the woods.

Three drops of her own blood she spilt to gain her heart's desire, a child for her childless king. And a child she received, a beauty such as never been seen. Hair black as the trees of the forest, lips as red as the blood she had given, and skin as white as the purest snow. A child of the winter woods, born on winter’s darkest night.

A life had been granted, and so was a life taken away. My grandmother lived long enough to bless my mother with her name, and the king, who once had so longed for a child, was now too grieved to bear the sight of his new daughter. And so my mother was given over to the wife of the castle’s woodsman, recently blessed with a child of her own, and who, most importantly, lived in a cottage on the edge of the woods, far, far away from the castle grounds, and her mourning father’s eye.

For seven years my mother grew up in the care of the woodsman’s family, as loved as if she were their own blood daughter, and the girls loved each other as sisters. They spent many days beneath the shadows of the trees, and learned much from the woods. They say even then, before she had come into her power, that the creatures and spirits of that place knew my mother as part of their blood, knew that something of her had come from something within them, and protected her for it.

It was in the winter of her fifth year that she met my father, a lad of nine, trapped within an enchanted bearskin. She and her foster sister brought him into the warmth of their cabin, saving his life, and each winter for three years after, he returned. She told me once that those winters were some of the happiest memories of her life, surrounded by those she loved in the shelter of the snows.

It was in summer that her sorrows came.

It was in summer that my mother discovered the gnome that had cursed her bear, and by his death my father was freed from his enchantment, only to then return to his own far off kingdom. It was in summer that my mother was parted from her foster family, recalled to court at last--only to find her own usurper on her father’s arm.

The people of the land adored the lady who had come to them out of the sun-drenched south, calling her their Summer Queen, praising her for the abundance that had blessed the lands since she had wed the king. And surely there was never a woman so beautiful. They say that her hair flowed like sunlight itself down her shoulders until it touched the floor, braided all over with flowers of every hew, and her eyes were as blue and bright as an August morning.

My mother said she could feel those eyes trying to melt her the moment she was brought before them.

My mother was not at court long. One day, the Summer Queen surprised her with a visit from her foster-father, and though he smiled at her, his eyes seemed grim and troubled. They traveled together down to the edge of the woods, far from the eyes of any in the castle--and there he took out the knife, carved all over with flowers, to cut out her heart.

(He claimed later, when the coup was over, and my mother restored to the throne, that he had only done so to protect his family, his own little daughter. My mother granted him the same pity he had shown her, and sent him into the woods, alone and unarmed. I do not know to this day if he fell to the animals or the cold that finally came, but by all accounts, he was never seen again.)

My mother, for her part, wandered for months alone beneath the boughs of the woods. The animals did not harm her, the woods knew its own, but she dared not venture near the edges where human souls still delt, fearful now that any might betray her to the Summer Queen. And as remarkable as she was, she was still only a child, and had never had to care for herself before, and she longed for the cheer and company of creatures like herself.

More than that, the heat of a seemingly endless summer wore at her. August passed into September and September to October and on, with nary a change to be seen. The leaves on the trees remained green, and did not fall. The rivers ran along as full and fat as ever, though there was no snow left to feed them. The sun felt like a great eye, searching for her beneath the sheltering shadows of the forest. Only at night did she find respite, and she longed for the relief of a winter that never came.

Farther and farther she wandered, seeking someplace where she might find some sign of chance, some shelter from the daylight that stretched longer and longer. At last, she found herself upon the slopes of the farthest mountain. Her feet were worn ragged from wandering, and her tongue was cracked from the heat, but with the last of her strength, she managed to stagger to the summit, and there, in a hollow tucked into the dark shadows of the peaks, so dark that even the hottest of summers could not fully touch them, she found snow.

And there her strength finally deserted her. She lay down upon the snow as contentedly as if it had been a feather bed, and might have slipped into the endless sleep beneath that cold coverlet, had it not been for the little men.

The frozen-beards, the valley people call them. Dwarfs that live in the fields of ice upon the mountains, having little to do with the valley people. They delight in the cold, they are said to be able to call up snow storms to hide their homes,and in winter they might be seen galloping along in the wake of an avalanche as happy as a child at play. But for all the ice of their beards, they are warm of heart, and they took the half-frozen child into their home as readily as if she had been one of their own.

For seven years, my mother at last knew peace. In the caves of the mountains she learned much of the songs and stories and skill of her new family. She learned the shaping of swords and the setting of gems,and the summoning of wind and fog, and was happy.

But nothing lasts forever, and at last, summer found her patch of hidden winter.

The king of a far-off land had proclaimed his intention to visit our valley kingdom, which had grown in renown-- and profit-- thanks to the summer that seemed trapped within the crown of our mountain valley. The rivers and Great Lake were never clear of vessels shipping goods out and bringing gold in. Both people and purses grew fat from the bounty, and basked in the seemingly endless sunshine.

There was one stain however, upon the glorious reign of the Summer Queen, though it was only spoken of in whispers, for it would not do to complain of such small misfortune within the wake of so many blessings.

The Draining Sickness.

It came on quickly, overnight in some cases. Those afflicted withered away, drained, pale and almost bloodless, like unwatered plants beneath the noon-day sun. No one knew how it spread, it seemed to only strike one village at a time; and oddly the most healthy and comely succumbed first, as if offended by their vitality and beauty.

Fate however, seemed inclined to some mercy. For each village that was stricken with loss soon found itself blessed with an overflowing of crops and commerce, as if Death felt some blood money was owed.

It was not only the young and lovely who were taken though. The old King, my mother’s father, was struck down on Summer’s Eve itself— along with seven young girls from each of the surrounding villages. But the grief over these deaths was short-lived, such was the glory of the days that followed, the golden sunlight drying the tears from the cheeks of the mourners even as they fell. Indeed, it seemed hard to grieve anything beneath the sun of that long, long summer. The Summer Queen, clothed in green and yellow and scarlet and blue, wore only a black ribbon around her neck for mourning, and none falted her.

It was then that the rumors came, rumors that the visiting king was not only there to see the beauty of the valley, but of its women as well. Indeed, those coming before his entourage said that he was seeking out one who was rumored to be the Fairest of them All.

The Summer Queen, shining almost to match the blazing endless sun, was more than happy to aid him in his search. And it was undoubtedly her efforts to ensure her own success in fulfilling the terms of his quest which led her to discover that my mother’s heart--which she thought she had devoured seven years ago, at the start of her endless summer --still beat it’s red,red blood within her snow white breast.

A grand celebration was proclaimed in the king’s honor, a festival of such magnificence as had never been seen outside of the old stories, and travelers came from all the surrounding lands to take part, ply their trades, and sell their wares. Up and over the mountains they came, and several passed by the cave where my mother dwelt.

Was it any wonder that my mother, still so young, having found a measure of peace in that snowy valley which soothed the burns upon her soul, and made her long to return somewhat to the world of men and look once more upon human faces, took in good faith the laces, brought by from far by the cargo boats; the comb, carved and painted so cleverly with a myriad flower; and finally, most beautiful blood-red summer apple, grown in her father’s own orchard?

When my mother woke again-- to the face of my father, returned from afar at last to find the girl who had freed him from his curse, and had now freed her in return-- she was not so naive.

My father had brought many men with him, and the people of the valley had grown slow and complacent in their bounty. When his men came with their swords, and the frozen-beards called up their icy winds, and my mother rode down upon the capitol in a sleigh made from her own glass coffin, they were not prepared to withstand the onslaught. Soon enough all had either fallen to their knees —or fallen where they stood.

The Summer Queen danced at my mother’s wedding, in shoes crafted by my mother herself, in the art taught to her by her foster-fathers. Shoes which returned upon the Summer Queen all the heat of the sun which she had stolen by her sacrifices and bloody rites.

Then my mother took up her rightful throne, and winter came at last to the valley.

My mother and father were wed in the open courtyard, as the snow fell like diamonds all around them, and all agreed they had never seen a more beautiful sight. My mother’s foster sister, who had remained loyal to her true queen, was reunited with her, and wed to my father’s brother. Children followed both of them after, and for many years, the natural order of the seasons came and went.

It was on my seventh birthday that my mother found the mirror, tucked behind a tapestry woven with fruit and flowers, in the abandoned tower of the Summer Queen.

No one knows where the Summer Queen obtained the mirror. Some have claimed it was a wedding gift from her godfather, a fallen priest who had taken supper at the Scholomance. Others that she crafted it herself, from water and moonlight, on a witch’s sabbath. But my mother told me once that the mirror was only a shard of a greater whole, and that the Summer Queen had only happened upon it, and though her own powers were great, her vain and narrow mind only able to discover the basest powers of the mirror.

But my mother-- born of blood and snow and forest, learned in the lore of the mountain folk, the perfect inversion in shape and soul of the Summer Queen-- could feel at once what was before her. She had higher aspirations than to know of mere beauty. After all, why should she trouble herself over such trivial questions?

She was, and is, the Fairest of them All.

No, my mother asked for vision and clarity, and the mirror readily supplied, showing her the darkness that lay in the hearts of men, the twisted, choking desire she had already tasted in an apple grown of blood and summer heat, and she knew what she must do.

That night, on Summer’s Eve itself, the snows began to fall.

The winters lie heavy on our land now, as heavy as summer once did. Our borders have shrunken back to what they were before the days of the Summer Queen. The rivers she once choked with cargo boats and merry-makers now flow freely beneath the protection of their own glass coffins. The flowers that once crowned her traitorous head have not been seen in many a year. The mountains are eternally capped with snow, the frost-beards no longer trapped within their narrow valley. Our kingdom, once vibrantly flushed with the blood of those taken to feed an endless summer, is now white and pure, cleansed by the endless falling snow.

My mother saved her kingdom from a blood soaked opulence, from a land made rich and fat off the hearts of their own, and yet they still turned upon her. Called her witch, demon, and worse. In the end, as the purifying snows fell heavier and heavier, The Usurper-- covered in ash from the fires she’d set to hold the snows at bay-- besieged the capitol. With her brother at her side, with an army of thred-bare shop-keepers and merchants laid low, she came up the Great Road with as much pride and assurance as if the crown sat already upon her head.

My aunt, foster-sister of my mother, and others who remained loyal, who knew their true queen for the power that she was, fought back. Indeed, my aunt and the wolves that answered to her slew The Usurper’s brother upon the very threshold. But the faithful were soon overwhelmed. The few who survived were driven into the woods, seeking the shelter that had been granted to my mother. The Usurper had the trees set ablaze, calling out that the dark powers of the forest would not be allowed to aid the followers of a witch. Her army came right up to the palace gates. And my father, my dear, foolish, fearful, traitorous father, who’s heart had been turned by The Usurper’s treacherous lies--himself unbarred the door for her.

My mother did not flee, whatever they say. She who had vowed to never be driven by anyone again, she who had bent the very elements to her will. She did not flee before The Usurper’s feeble army of ragged townsfolk and treacherous palace guards,even as they tore up her portraits, burned her books, and smashed her mirror into a thousand pieces.

No,they were not granted that victory. When she fell, she fell of her own accord, and her white gown sparkled like snow-flakes in the sun as she dived, down from the window at which her mother had once sat sewing, down, down into the blazing, waiting embrace of the woods that had heard her mother’s prayer.

When the fires at last burned themselves out, they found my mother’s body, ash covered, but untouched by the flames, as if even they could not bear to besmirch her beauty. She was placed once more in the glass coffin that bore her name, and it sat in state for three days in the royal chapel. She was, after all, a king’s daughter, and wife of another. On the third day, it was gone. Some claim she was properly buried, far beneath the ground, with a hawthorn branch in her heart. Others say that the rebels took the coffin, and burned it till the glass was melted down into a lump as black as her hair had been. The faithful say that the frost-beards came in the dark of the night, and reclaimed their daughter, carrying the coffin up once more to the high valley where my father once found her, to await the day when she will awaken again.

If she has not so already.

For though my mother’s crown sits on The Usurper’s head, and her daughters are to be sent to the far corners of the earth, in hopes the heat of the sun and the scent of the flowers will drive her from their hearts, the winter still lays heavy upon the land, and the wind has not ceased to blow since the day that she fell.

Father is sending us away tomorrow, and I do not think he shall be long in following. So many have left already. He longs for the shores of his youth, where the spring and summer follows after the winter. My uncle, his brother, has already returned there, with many of his children. The common folk are leaving as regularly as they can clear the mountain passes, which is not easy in these times. The birds and gentler animals left years ago. Soon, it will be only the wolves that prowl the dark woods, edging closer and closer into the towns as more and more people abandon my mother’s frozen kingdom. They say that the spectre of my aunt can be seen running with the wolves sometimes, when the moon is obscured by clouds, red cloak trailing behind her like blood on the snow.

They can send me away, but I shall find my way back. A thousand’s flowers scents could not make me forget the smell of the pines, a thousand bird’s songs could not drown out the howl of the wind. The bluest of skies cannot burn away the purest of snows. Not all the mirror’s pieces were ground to powder. I managed to save one, one single shard reclaimed in the chaos that shattered my childhood. I have kept it close, reworked and polished it, set it into a clasp on a chain that rests even now against my heart, hidden beneath my dress so that The Usurper cannot see. Already I have learned much, not as much as my mother, I do not claim that, but enough

And when the time is right, I know it shall lead me home. Past the guards that will be placed at the door, past the gates that will be barred, over the rivers and hills and far away, back to my mother’s mountain. And there I know I shall find her again, hair as black as night, lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow; riding in her sleigh of glass thru the eternal winter air to meet me.

[poppletonink]

Books That Are Fairytale Retellings

The Sleeper and The Spindle by Neil Gaiman

A Court Of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maal

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

The Girl In Red by Christina Henry

Once Upon A Time: A Story Collection by Shannon Hale

Lost In The Never Woods by Aiden Thomas

The True Story Of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

The Mermaid by Christina Henry

House Of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Girls Made Of Snow And Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

The Storybook of Legends by Shannon Hale

The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

Forest Of A Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao

Geekerella by Ashley Poston

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Storyland - Amy Jeffs / A Song of Sherwood - Alfred Noyes / Hansel and Gretel Return - David Ray / The Appeal of "Star Wars" - Miller and Spirch / Critical Role 2x75 / The Land of the Green Man - Carolyne Larrington / Inventing Aladdin - Neil Gaiman

[hello-god-its-me-sara]

there's been a bit of a renaissance of Neil Gaiman's work on the internet due to Good Omens season 2 but Coraline specifically has always had a bit of a cult following, specifically the movie (the story was already haunting a filled with mysteries and the movie which was made with such dedication added and expanded on what the novella implied)

a lot of people talk about the horror that the Other Mother/Belldam snatches children (she's kinda like an old fae, an old faerietale that was told to scare children into gratefulness and obedience)

but what I always found the most disturbing, the thing the fucked me up most as a kid wasn't the mere concept of a witch snatching children nor the Hansel and Gretel-esque funland she made but the fact that she specifically used the face of Coraline's parents

now admittedly I have a whole slew of attachment and separation issues, anxieties, and traumas that are particularly trigger by forced parental separation so Coraline was already primed to upset me in the worst ways

but for me there was something unsettling to my core that still viscerally upsets me to this day as a 22 yo that something could and would use my parents faces, use and abuse and manipulate my relationship with my parents to attempt to separate me from them

it t r a u m a t i z e d me as a child to imagine something that looked like my mom but wasn't my mom and furthermore for that thing that looked like my mom but wasn't to wish me any type of harm or distress (I mean I guess I'm still traumatized, I did say I'm still upset by this concept to this day)

[mybookof-you]

"I think if you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up. I think it is really important to show dark things to kids — and, in the showing, to also show that dark things can be beaten, that you have power. Tell them you can fight back, tell them you can win. Because you can — but you have to know that.

And for me, the thing that is so big and so important about the darkness is [that] it’s like in an inoculation… You are giving somebody darkness in a form that is not overwhelming — it’s understandable, they can envelop it, they can take it into themselves, they can cope with it.

And, it’s okay, it’s safe to tell you that story — as long as you tell them that you can be smart, and you can be brave, and you can be tricky, and you can be plucky, and you can keep going."

Neil Gaiman

[winningthesweepstakes]

Hansel & Gretel retold by Neil Gaiman,  illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti

Hansel & Gretel retold by Neil Gaiman,  illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti. Toon Graphics, c2014, 2023. 9781662665042 Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 5 Format: Paperback picture book/graphic novel hybrid Genre: Folk tale What did you like about the book?  We may think of “Hansel and Gretel” as a story about adventure, trickery, or bravery, but Neil Gaiman reimagines it as a…

[book0ftheday]

Hansel and Gretel reimagined by Neil Gaiman, illustrations by Lorenzo Mattotti. This edition published 2014.

[tomtefairytaleblog]

I know many people think of the Other Mother from the movie version of Coraline as less faerie than the book version, but I disagree. The deliciously macabre idea of a faerie's true form being a barely humanoid spider made of bone, cracked porcelain, metal needles and bug shells got me into the Faerie fandom in the first place. Thoughts?

No, you’re right, there definitely is a faerie vibe going on for the Other Mother in the film adaptation. Despite the alterations to the source material, that still persists in the film. Her being partly mechanical/doll-like still works for me, since faeries can change form, too.

For me, personally, the idea of the Other Mother in the film being “less faerie” may have more to do with the cultural translation: the original book was set in England, whereas the film, made by Laika, is set around Ashland, Oregon, in the United States Pacific Northwest. It’s not too bad of a setting translation (I have family and friends that I visit there and the forests, mountains, rivers, and weather really go well with the gothic fairy tale/horror/weird fiction aesthetic--it’s no surprise that shows like Grimm and Gravity Falls use it as a setting), but the United States generally has a different view of faeries than the United Kingdom and Ireland. 

I could be misremembering, but I recall interviews on the DVD where Henry Selick compares the Other Mother more to the Witch from Hansel and Gretel; I think the issue is that, based on my own conversations with people and experiences, people in the US associate faeries more with, say, Disney-type fairies, so the idea of a fairy being malevolent doesn’t cross most people’s minds (though that seems to be changing). American folklore also tends to default more to witches for these types of villains in stories (a lot of old American folklore comes from New England, where the Salem Witch Trials occurred), so in adapting Coraline into a United States setting, this type of imagery ends up becoming more prominent, if maybe subconsciously.

Like I said, though, I still view the Other Mother as a faerie. 

[adarkrainbow]

Masterpost 11: End of summer

This masterpost will be quite heavy compared to the previous ones, but since I hadn't made a masterpost in a long time I had a lot to put in here.

Ogre illustrations: Gustave Doré - Sleeping Beauty - Madame d'Aulnoy

Self-reblogs: Magical summer (Beginning and End) - Fantasy read-list (classical fairytales and more classical fantasy works) - Fantasy sights (Walter Crane - William Heath Robinson) -

Some fairytale movies (lost or to come): A Japanese trailer - Lost SyFy movies - The Scary Tales documentary (part 1 - part 2)

My opinion on Zenescope's Grimm Fairytales - The list of Zenescope's references

A French fairytale

Some thoughts and talks about the unreleased Disney's Snow White live-action: A video that started it all - Some posts about the Critical Drinker's flawed approach to fantasy - A first post about the movie - My answer to a sentence in the previous post - My second post about the movie - What I consider "bad woke" plus my answer to someone's discutable words

Some fairytale thoughts: The American corpus - Jacobs' Europa Fairy Book - The Russian propaganda's use of fairytales - About ball outfits in Perrault's Cinderella - Some thoughts about Jack Zipes - A document - Andersen hated being called a children author - The French origins of the Grimm fairytales - About the time period of fairytales

The Tales of Broca Street (old reblogs): Intro - The witch of Mouffetard street - Its cartoon episode - The giant with red socks - Its cartoon episode - The good little devil

Aulnoy's famous fairytales: The White Doe (part 1 - part 2)

Little Red Riding Hood (self reblog): The Perrault version - The Grimm version - The dark roots

Fables, the Ultimate Catalogue (incomplete): Part A - Part C

Some fairytale illustrations: A first post - A second post - A third post - A fourth post - A fifth post

An interesting video about "Into the Woods"

Hansel and Gretel: Why was Hansel to be the meal? - The "wolf in the house" variation - Analysis of the fairytale - Why I don't think the story of antisemitic - More variations - Johnnie and Grizzle - About the character dynamics - Neil Gaiman's Hansel and Gretel - An upcoming book - The Onion joke - Stephen King's It's Hansel and Gretel - A final important post

The Land of Make Believe map - England Under the White Witch - Tangled's conflicting Mother Gothel - Disney's The Princess and the Frog is NOT what you think

[mrskellylove]

...the edge of the great forest

…the edge of the great forest

This all happened a long time ago, in your grandmother’s time, or in her grandfather’s. A long time ago. Back then, we all lived on the edge of the great forest.

Hansel and Gretel, Neil Gaiman

For the first time in two years, I feel like I am finally back to my authentic self as a teacher, and am cautiously celebrating how wonderful this feels. Over two years ago, we (the PLC I was in at the…

[neil-gaiman]

Sorry, I love Good Omens with all my heart, and I also have no idea what this is about, and it shouldn't been taken to seriously, but as a german person, Hansel and Gretel instead of Hänsel und Gretel, (or probably transcribed Haensel and Gretel) blasphemy !

Given that it's a blasphemy that goes back over 150 years, and has been the common way that the names have been rendered in English since the first English translations of Grimm's Fairy Tales first appeared, back in the middle of the 19th Century, seeing someone grumble about it is like seeing someone grumble that English speakers say Munich instead of München.

Here's the New York Times reviewing a book of the same title by some bloke and genius artist Lorenzo Mattotti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansel_and_Gretel may also help.

[creativenicocorner]

Piggybacking off of @undeadchestnut​ ‘s wonderful thoughts in this post  (and decided to make my own post because although my thoughts are in the ballpark it might deviate from the posts original intention - and that’s not fair to op ) 

I am eternally glad I’m not alone in these thoughts! Because I absolutely believe Jim has never resolved his trauma both on screen and off. 

And what we see in ROTT is the unfortunate consequences of that, be it as an anxiety induced nightmare or not.

 It is a cautionary tale all the same.

The show has always had a sort of brushing away from trauma and skipping away from a moment to mourn (most likely to get to the next pretty thing or fart joke). It’s a little less in season 1 but still.

And yes, that choice could easily be an executive decision in trying to keep the target audience entertained and laughing - which is fair, but also not so fair. It would have been amazing - especially under the brand name of GDT monster lover extraordinaire - for a kids show to take the time to teach its audience that mourning and looking out for yourself is Important and Needed otherwise there’s a risk of self destructive tendencies developing and heightened stress affecting behavior and judgment [ point to slightly out of character Jim ]

Children should learn how to mourn, and know yes it is sad, and those feelings are okay and should learn how to navigate through them in a healthy way. Its just as important as occasionally scaring kids in shows - they are far smarter and cleverer than we give them credit for and sometimes showing sadness and scary things is beneficial! Just look at Inside Out! Or just any interview with Neil Gaiman on the importance of this!!

Gaiman confesses that the “Hansel and Gretel” fairy tale really frightens him, but he does believe that children must be exposed to dark stories. Gaiman thinks that “if you are protected from dark things then you have no protection of, knowledge of, or understanding of dark things when they show up. I think it is really important to show dark things to kids—and in the showing, to also show that dark things can be beaten, that you have power.” quote from here [x]

And while TOA had attempted this they never committed to it! And the attempts and commitments has, in my opinion, depleted since after season one.

Season one ends with Aargh turning to stone, and Jim watching Toby mourn, and in turn making a choice to go into the Darklands alone instead of taking the time to mourn WITH Toby. Season two after showing how Jim in the darklands alone was Not a Great Idea At All and wonderfully shown the teamwork between Jim and Nomura and was saved from Gunmar with the help of Jims friends. That sharing the burden leads to better results than carrying it alone. Season three we have Merlin going ‘no friends! only you!’ and thus begins the return of Jim’s hero Atlas ‘its gotta be me’ complex. Granted!! It’s not always there!! But the instigator sure is.

But I’m getting ahead of myself ldkjg What I’m underlining is Attempts have been made, these topics have been brought up, but there has been a lack of confidence in committing to it. Most likely due to executive and producer influence - which brings me to...

And while we can go as in depth as we want, we cannot ignore the cold hand of that ever present shadow of Capitalism and Showbiz Executives. The company has products to sell and watching kids cry is not going to sell little plush toys. Showbiz gotta showbiz, and when producers think fart jokes sell more toys than tears well..[vague hand gesture] you get some questionable disappointing choices.

But I digress.

ROTT could have had this wonderful potential in showing that Jim has finally learned and accepted that he doesn’t have to do this alone. Putting this immense stress on an individual and not showing how to share the burden leads to questionable choices!! Cue the previously mentioned self destructive tendencies and warped behavior.

The theme discussed as far back as season 2 is ignored, and instead we go digging even more into the whole Atlas spiel when the Atlas thing (I think) was more of a cautionary nickname given by Strickler. It was originally the Titan Atlas’s punishment to hold the heavens. What was a mythological condemnation is treated as Jim willingly putting the weight of every burden on his own shoulders and that’s not okay!! Not great for adults and especially not great for teens!! And while mythologically speaking Atlas does eventually get relieved from his duties with the Pillars of Hercules, Jim does not! He turns away time and again from a support system that could help ease the weight on his shoulders.  (yes I know the Pillars has multiple stories, but I’m choosing the power of friendship one on this).

Young Atlas does not choose liberation or Pillars of help in ROTT, he passes the burden of the heavens to Toby instead. Jim does not resolve his trauma but pushes it away, and hurts (unintentionally or not) those around him in the process.

The Krohnisfere - which is a very wonky way of spelling CRONUS or CRONOS or KRONOS (The Titan of TIME btw) - could have been used as a plot device in learning to take the time to process, resolve trauma, and care about yourself.

Which sounds potentially boring mixed in with a bunch of magic and robot mecha fights (well not to me lkjg) but it could have been done in an interesting and creative way!! Jim could learn to take the time tor process and accept help and we could still get the giant mecha pacific rim reference fights (and subsequently sold toys that looked like robots). What I’m Trying to say is, they could have done so much more with all of this and still get this message across. 

Anyways ROTT is a cautionary tale on what happens when you don’t take the time to take care of yourself, and subsequently hurt others and (intentionally or not) pass trauma onto others.  

So take the time to take care of yourself kids!! Because THAT is how “Krohnisfere will make right.”

Or as Strickler famously quoted Billy Joel’s song James in Season 1, Episode 1 said, “Do what's good for you, or you're not good for anybody.”

This is one hefty 2 cents on my part  and a very wordy way of saying HARD AGREE, but what can I say? 

ANYWHO I’m HCing Jim wakes up from this nightmare back at his house at the end of Wizards, and asks Barbara and Strickler about potential therapists he can see, and has a heart to heart, and Jim/Young Atlas finally finally learns to accept the Pillars of Hercules/his friends + support group. 

Because no one should be condemned to hold up the heavens alone. You’re not alone. 

Best Wishes,  Nico

[yume-fanfare]

list of fairytale adaptations or things w fairytale vibes i like and think are good in no particular order (barbie movies not included bc you already know them):

fantasy maiden's odd hideout: doubles as my favorite piece of media about vampires, indie horror rpg maker game initially based on hansel and gretel but with vampires and scary things. very good

the tale of princess kaguya (2013): the studio ghibli movie. has a beautiful animation style that's nothing like any of their other movies and it's so charming. the story (the take of the bamboo cutter) is so nicely told too

princess tutu (2002): magical girl anime, mostly uses concepts from the swan lake ballet, but has pieces of many others + it creates its own fairytale too it's super good

ringmaster clause: this isn't quite an adaptation of anything but i love it with my entire soul and is a big part of the reason why i'm here writing this post so it goes here bc i'll talk abt it any chance i get. rpg maker game with some horror elements, sort of has some pinocchio elements? the "becoming a real child" part comes into play more during the second game but this one goes first. it's about a living doll called clause and yeah there's a circus and god this game has the prettiest graphics i have never seen anything like it please please play it

the sleeper and the spindle: neil gaiman book, illustrated by chris riddell, adaptates sleeping beauty and it's rly rly good. i would've liked another type of ending but it's seriously so good, the concept is amazing (girls)

might add onto this at some point bc these were at the top of my head but yeah

[daylightsun]

What I Learn from Years of Reading and Collecting Books and Letting Some of Them Go

These past few days, I "KonMari" my room and decided to rearrange my bookshelves. While sorting out all of my belongings, I discovered a box filled with books I manically collected during my college years sitting underneath my bed. After opening it, the books seem to be staring at me while I stare back at them like we are having a confrontation of sorts. For a moment, it made me reflect on my life as a reader and book collector, and this sense of nostalgia hit me.

After snapping out of this nostalgic state, the fact remains that my shelf space and room space are precious and limited, and I only want to fill my life with things that “spark joy” within me. I need to decide which books would stay and which would eventually go to the bin. So in honor of literature month and the books I am about to throw away, I would like to write some piece to honor my journey as a reader and book collector.

Starting Years as a Reader and Book Collector

My fascination with books started early in my childhood. I remember holding my small hardbound fairytale books, a book set with stories like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Three Little Pigs. But it was the illustrations at first that engrossed me. It's like my eyes can't get enough of the colors and drawings. I look at them again and again, committing them in my memory. Then there was my childhood best friend Grimm's book of fairytales. The book was enormous and heavy. It contained more words and the occasional one to two pages of illustrations, like the naked butt of the king in The Emperor's New Clothes, the candy house of the witch in Hansel, and Gretel other beautiful illustrations inside that book.

However, it is in my teenage years that I started to enjoy reading literature, and book reports ignite my interest in book collecting. Books like Ella Enchanted, The Little Prince, and Thieves of Ostia were carried inside our classroom boxes after boxes. A sheer excitement overcame me, forgetting the fear I felt days before asking for extra money to buy something outside the average family expenses, even if it is for school requirements.

I did not grow up in an environment that encourages me to read books outside the typical academic obligations. It is usual for Southeast Asian households to be thrifty, so buying books for leisure is a luxury. Moreover, since it does not involve cleaning and moving around the house, reading for my parents is a lazy activity. Not to mention what damage it can do to your eyesight, they would add. However, I continued to read in secret and went against the general expectations.

I have read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while holding a flashlight while everyone in the house is sleeping at night so no one could scold me. I read with my friends at school. We exchanged novels, particularly stories about young adults. I bought my first novel, L. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, in a book fair inside my school using my savings. And even after my childhood best friend, who was four years older than me, went away to college, I marched to their house and borrowed books from her mother like Louisa Alcott's Little Women.

Reading helped me to cope with my deep-seated feeling of isolation and loneliness because of being an adopted child. I found out pieces of the truth through indirect hints and silent whispers between adults and childish banter between cousins. So I was left alone on my own devices to understand and stitch the truth. But in reading, I started to find solace and identity with the people I meet in stories. Books became for me houses I visit to explore and get to know the people living inside. And sometimes, I leave too early out of boredom or just out of an inability to comprehend the house. But sometimes, even after the visit, a piece of my heart stayed inside those pages. When I read, I have companions, and when I buy a book, I have something of my own.

Moreover, in books, I found girls like me, like Anne in Anne of Green Gables or Mary in The Secret Garden. Orphaned and neglected at a very young age and adopted, they were able to find acceptance and love. In those stories, they eventually mattered and belonged to the people around them. And in my heart, I wanted the same assurance these characters have that I am going to be OK despite my "oddness."

Not encouraged to read, buy books for my leisure, and being an adopted child in her young adolescent years made me want to form a personal path of rebellion. I decided to be a bookworm and persist in reading and building my book collection even if I am discouraged! Talk about being brave and revolutionary. Though I developed a deep affection for reading and books by this time, this "rebellious" way serves another personal purpose, and that is instead of being single out because ofbeing an adopted child, I can be single out because of my "bookish-ness." This identity gave me a powerful feeling of being significantly different from the crowd. I am somehow special but without the burden and constantly feeling the need to fight the pity of the people around me.

College Years

When I went to college, I develop an unhealthy impulse of excessively buying booksbut not reading them. There is a Japanese term for this impulsive behavior called "tsundoku." My obsession with buying books can be attributed to two main culprits. First, I started to attend and participate actively in church, and second, the store Book Sale.

In our church, we have a statement I wrote in the tablet of my heart with great faithfulness and love. It goes this way "Great leaders read books," which is a remarkable statement unless someone went overboard with trying to read books by purchasing them. This someone is, of course, is me. Ooops.

On multiple days within a week, I would visit and sit on the SM Baguio's Book Salefloor, hunting and obsessing over books. I would gladly move stacks upon stacks of books desperately looking for a purchase treasure. And most of us know, books are sold at Book Sale at a meager price. It became a standard for me to go home to my boarding house with three to five books. And oh boy, the stacks of books in my room just grew and grew. By the end of my seven years in college, the heaviest of my baggage is the one enormous box where I managed to fit all the books I have acquired.

Even though my college years were a time of my compulsive and unhealthy behaviors in reading and book buying, these were also the years I familiarized myself with what types of storytelling I would enjoy and who are my favorite authors. Neil Gaiman and Haruki Murakami cast their spell on me, and I would read again and again stories like The Little Prince, Memoirs of A Geisha, and The Last Time I Saw Mother.

But what I am most thankful for reading around this time is the opportunity it gave me to connect to other people through knowledge sharing. When I read an excellent book that gave me a lot of insight, there is an internal urge to pass it to someone else or talk about it with a friend. So I either talk about it or give the book. Giving that well-written book will sting a bit. Still, the disappointment of not having someone to undergo the experience of reading it is more painful than letting it go because I've discovered that there are types of books that cannot stay only in one pair of hands but have to travel to the next pair to be held and read. Some stories and books are personal to me, and they will stay on my shelves as long as they can, but there is another type of book that the knowledge they contain needs to be passed on and shared.

Working Years

Buying books using the allowance from your parents are far easier than using your own hard-earned money. Being a young professional and just started to manage my finances made the reality of my unhealthy addiction hit hard. I can not longer afford to go to book shops without thoroughly thinking if the book I am picking is something I should buy. "Adulting" has forced maturity in me.

Putting some healthy breaks on my general attitude towards reading and book collecting is just one part of the exciting times ahead of me as a bibliophile. Going back to my hometown and having more personal freedom have opened the doors to uncharted territories. As a reader and book collector, I've been officially and finally introduced to book fairs and Philippine Literature.

When I talk about book fairs that I participate in this time, these are the mega fairs that involve many publishing houses. Book fairs with book launching, book signing, live-reading, and writers' meet and greet events. The Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) and Big Bad Wolf are an example of these fairs. The experience was exhilarating and magical, and I would like to think that every reader and book collector would agree that book fairs are sort of heaven or nirvana on earth.

But so far, the greatest book fair I get to experience must also be the most challenging endeavor I undertook professionally, the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019. Imanaged to be a part of the team that organized the delegation that represented the Philippines in the largest international book fair. FBF is annually held during October in Frankfurt, Germany, with participants worldwide and boost to be the most extensive platform for digital and printed content. So even though I did not personally go to Frankfurt, being part of this massive event as a production assistant and being part of the early planning stages to post-prod was a dream come true. Seeing over 500 books published by the leading publishing houses in the country and written by Filipino authors showcased in the entire world in a beautifully designed stand made me very happy and proud.

Working in a government agency that primarily serves the Philippine publishing industry also gave me a closer look into the local literature. Unfortunately, I did not grow up reading books written by Filipino writers. Aside from the usual piece of local literature my Filipino textbooks in high school and college courses offered, Philippine literature did not become part of my early reading and book collection. But my ignorance of Filipino authors and literature ended when  I worked at NBDB and when a friend lent me Philippine literature books. As I started to read the literary works of Eliza Victoria, Nick Joaquin, Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak, and other amazing Filipino authors, I felt both shame and relief. I finally got to experience my national consciousness and Filipino identity through literature by Filipino authors for Filipinos.

But my bad habits in college still are present and had managed to erode my psyche. Surrounded by so many book-related things, I got back to the same dangerous pattern. I acquired more books but have no diligence and genuine interest in reading. In the process, I become a hoarder like the Businessman from The Little Prince, who cannot stop owning and counting every star he sees in the sky but never understood its value. After all, what is a book without its reader?

And as a result, something bad happened. The words in the pages started to leave me, I slowly lost the ability to build worlds in my head, and my insatiable thirst for knowledge had dwindled. Then one day, I lost all of my interest in books. For one and a half years, I would not touch any books on my bookshelves and stop actively reading and looking for books to buy. I had enough.

                                                           *** Going back to the present time and Marie Kondo, she mentioned in her best-selling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (and yes, I have the book), that the KonMari method encourages only to keep around thirty books. Thirty books seem to be awfully few, and how can a person who loves reading and collecting books find the courage to let go.

But as the book explained, you need to ask oneself the fundamental question of the KonMari method, "does this spark joy?". Does this book spark joy? Have I read this, and if I happened to have, does it aroused my intellect? And I have asked these hard questions to every book in my belongings.

It is almost four years after my time at the university. I am currently in a work-from-home setup which is a very fortunate situation while in the middle of a global pandemic. And yes, I am about to throw books, a lot of them, which you might think is a waste, but deep down, I know I will never reread these, nor will I ever start to read them again.

Honestly, I cannot remember the exact day I pick up a book on my shelf and read again, nor the reason behind it. But having the courage to declutter and purge my book collection, I realized a few months ago that I started again to read and purchase books, but this time there is an effort to be mindful with every reading and purchase made. This subtle change in behavior gave my reading and collecting a better sense of purpose and direction.

My life is composed of limited time, meaning I can only read books that much. But I've been in a relationship with books for many years now. Collecting books became a form of personal art, and reading stories helped me become a better person. It healed me, became a catalyst to learn a couple of life lessons, and taught me to give. And I do not see myself stopping at any point in my life. So might as well keep and read books that only truly capture my spirit, challenges me, and, if I was lucky, changes me. Because that is the thing about it, books are powerful.

[americangodstalk]

If you liked American Gods, you might like... Fables

Fables, the American comic book by Bill Willingham. It is part of DC Comics’ Vertigo (the same line which published Neil Gaiman’s famous comic Sandman)

First released in 2002 (just one year after the release of American Gods) and its main series ending up in 2015 (but not without spanning several comic book spin-offs, a video game and several (ultimately abandonned) series and movies projects (though ultimately one of those abandonned series project was turned in the television series “One Upon a Time”), Fables became a classic of modern fantasy comic book. 

The plot is simples. The fairytales are real. They happened in another world, inhabited by the “Fables” (the characters of said fairytales), but then this other world was invaded by the dark lord called The Adversary. The Fables, fleeing the carnage and destruction, settled in a world seemingly forgotten by the Adversary, a world without magic - the world of the Mundanes. The human world, our world.

Now, the Fables (such as Snow Jack, Prince Charming, Rapunzel or the Big Bad Wolf) live as (almost) regular humans in a private neighborhood of New-York City known as “Fabletown”, while all the Fables that are unfit to live with humans (such as dragons, the three little pigs or the bears of Goldilock) hide in The Farm, a magically protected area of the countryside of upstate New York. 

While Fables inspired the television series Once Upon a Time, it is much more adult and darker, death being regular, blood and sex often popping up in the stories, and ranging from heartwarming love stories and family episodes to the horrors of war or of magic gone wrong, as only the original form of fairytales could do. 

What is quite interesting here is the relationship between the Fables and their fairytales, which is never quite fully explained in the comic but merely hinted at. While what happened to the Fables in their original dimension caused the creation of fairytales and legends in our world (because as time goes by, are included in Fables not just fairytales, but also famous legends, mythologies and even more modern literary works such as The Jungle Book or the Land of Oz novels). BUT and here is the similarity with American Gods, the Fables depend on the popularity of their stories. The more a Fables’ story is well known and part of popular culture, the stronger they will be and the harder they will be to kill. (A forgotten Fable can die like a regular human being. A popular Fable can survive being shot in the head, though they still need to recover.) And several times, this idea is mentionned in the stories: there is an unnamed witch who became very powerful by abandonning her own identity to become the wich of several fairytales (Rapunzel or Hansel and Gretel, it was all the same witch) ; Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk) powers himself by having a series of blockbuster movies based on his fairytales created ; and Rose Red has a grudge against Snow White because while they started in the fairytale “Snow White and Rose Red”, Snow then went to have her own stories and become very popular while Rose Red was forgotten. 

Fables is also quite interesting because it explores some cultural significance of the characters - the Fables being archetypes more than true individual characters. Jack of the Beanstalk is the “Jack” character of all fairytales (Jack and the Giant Killer, Jack and Jill, Little Jack Horner, Jack O’Lantern, Jack Frost... he is all of them), the same way Prince Charming was indeed the husband of Snow White, Cinderella and Rapunzel.  [And note that in American Gods, Jack the Cornish fairytale figure appears as the entity meeting Essie near the end of her life]

That being said, one specific spin-off might appeal more to the American Gods readers: Jack of Fables. A spin-off comic centered around the character of Jack I mentionned above. While the main series is located in a triangle of places (The Farm/Fabletown/the Homelands, the original dimension of the Fables), Jack of Fables takes the shape of a road trip through America, at first through real-life America (where he meets several loose fables, like Lady Luck who now rules over Las Vegas), then through the Fable dimension of America, aka Americana which contains all of the literary cliches, cultural concepts and folklore elements of the American continent. Jack of Fables also talks a bit more about the nature and evolution of fairytales, notably through one of the numerous plots, which involves the “Golden Boughs Retirement Village”, a supernatural prison (imagine a supernatural version of The Village from The Prisoner) which is ruled by Mr. Revise (the embodiment of censorship and rewriting) and traps all the Fables deemed in need of being “revised” (from characters deemed racist like Little Black Sambo, to just cultural jokes such as Carl, the fourth little pig)