Fairy Tales: T is for Thoughtful Transformations

For T, I read About the Sleeping Beauty by P.L. Travers and a collection of Russian tales by Tolstoy.

Despite the urban fantasies of P.L. Travers and the occasional fantastical motifs within Tolstoy, neither are writers that I associate with folklore.

 

P.L. Travers' book interested me because it reminded me of Vivian Vande Velde's collection of fantasy short stories surrounding The Rumplestiltskin Problem.  

 

Like Vande Velde's collection, P.L. Travers' collection presents a discourse on the tale though Travers' discourse comes after her retelling and before the various versions she has collected, from Grimm, Perrault and others.

 

Vande Velde focuses on the inherent inconsistencies of the original tale and Travers does the same in passing (Why not invite the thirteenth fairy?!). However, while commenting on Sleeping Beauty, she comments on fairy tales in general. The quotes are worth presenting in full:

 

"Is it not true that the fairy tale has always been in a continuous process of transformation? One cannot say of any of the Sleeping Beauties in this book that here is the sole and absolute source, if, indeed such a thing exists." 

 

The best-known version "is as though the tale itself, through its own energy and need, had winnowed away everything but the true whole grain." 

 

"[My version] was written not at all to improve the story...but to ventilate my own thoughts about it." 

 

"[W]e must not forget that there has to be a story...and once we have accepted the story, we cannot escape the story's fate." 

 

"The Thirteenth Wise Woman stands a guardian of the threshold, the paradoxical adversary without whose presence no threshold may be passed...she, not the heroine, is the goddess in the machine" [I love this line: the goddess in the machine]. 

 

"No amount of rationalising will bring us to the heart of the fairy tale." 

 

Like Vande Velde, Travers does attempt to explain some loose ends, such as the king (or sultan, in Travers' version) wiping out a cottage industry in order to protect his daughter. Travers has the spinners turn to other occupations and the merchants make a bundle importing fabrics from other kingdoms!

 

While I'm not generally a fan of the Mary Poppins' books, I admire their intense fantastical reality. Though I didn't find Travers' version of Sleeping Beauty all that unique, I did find it engaging. Travers knows how to write!  

A look at Tolstoy's fairy tales will follow next week.