I love Jane Yolen.
The only one of her books I ever read was Briar Rose. Which I may have a copy of, or I may have actually sent it to Stacey, as I'm fairly certain it was a gift for her. I forget things. Degenerative brain disease.
Technically, the book is a Young Adult novel, which in the U.S. means it's better-written, and written at a higher grade level, than novels supposedly aimed at adults. I found this paradox amusing once, but after dealing with the adults those novels are aimed at, it doesn't seem as funny anymore.
Any road up, here's what Kirkus Reviews thought:
The latest in the Fairy Tales series begins with a provocative premise: retelling the story of Sleeping Beauty as a Holocaust memoir. Rebecca Berlin (Becca), the sweet young heroine, fondly recalls the odd version of Sleeping Beauty that her grandmother (Gemma) often told her and her sisters. Although Gemma always identified strongly with Briar Rose, the sleeping princess, no one had thought it anything but a bedtime story--but when a mysterious box of clippings and photos turns up after Gemma's death, hinting that the accepted version of Gemma's origins is untrue, Becca begins tracing the real story, which bears striking resemblances to Gemma's fairy tale. The trail finally leads Becca to the site of an extermination camp in Poland.
Actually, if you hit the link, the review itself is fairly negative, but selective editing is your friend.
Ms. Yolen's site also offers advice from an award-winning, published author, if you're looking for that sort of thing.
For Writers:There are writers who believe that writing is agony, and that's the best anyone can say of it. Gene Fowler's famous words are quoted all the time: "Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead." Or Red Smith's infamous screed: "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."
But by God that's a messy way of working. And blood is extremely hard to get off of white paper.
Personally, I'm not.
About the title: there are people who react badly to portrayals of the Holocaust in fiction, feeling such things lessen the impact of the actual events. Reasonable people can disagree about this.
Jane Yolen rocks! I did an undergrad thesis on fairy tale; she was someone I read a lot of. For a nice marxist, feminist analysis of fairy tales try Jack Zipes, if you are in to that kind of thing. ;-)
Zipes is unfortunately programmatically Marxist [check out his dissertation!] and "feminist," however. I shudder to think what he would say about Zizek- a neomarxist with his head in the right place. Judith Butler [not necessarily a model herself] would undoubtedly find his "feminist" work useful, but unnuanced.
Do not ever attempt to email the man for information about his research, either; he is incredibly rude. I believe his words about "Harry Potter" were something to the effect of "pablum." [Not Shakespeare, but come on!]
That said, I do teach w/a number of his pieces. He can be useful in the correct doses.
Thanks for the info. Sorry to hear that he a rude man. I hate that! I hadn't thought about Zipes that way...and I haven't thought about him in over 10 years since I did that paper. He was by no means the only source I used, but I was pretty limited in resources at the time and it was an undergrad thesis.
However, I really loved doing that thesis. It was an analysis of the Cinderella tale from its oral forms to its current versions.
Samantha, I assure you I am a complete and utter fraud when it comes to reading/understanding/debating theory. I'm from the "What good is a book without pictures or conversations?" school of thought.
Thanks for the recommendations, both of you. Neo, I really want to audit one of your courses one of these days. Just looking at the expressions on the poor wee undergrads' faces should make for hours of entertainment.
My sis bought a copy of the ancient, ancient Muppets tv show "Hey Cinderella" a few years back. Muppet technology has improved immesurably since it was made, but it was still funny.
Not as good as "Frog Prince", because no Sweetums, but still.
Yah, I probably should try using Zipes on Cindy instead of Zipes on Little Red Riding Hood. Trying to get students to recognize that it Is, in fact, a rape narrative makes their heads, as Aaron says, go 'splody. [I usually get 1 or 2 that figure it out, though- makes it worth the effort.]
I'd love to have you sit in on a class, Aaron, but on the other hand, someone that got All my jokes might make My head go 'splody. Wanna team-teach sometime?
One of my Swahili instructors -- the one actually from East Africa, not Poland -- told us a very disturbing local variant of Little Red Riding Hood. I've blocked the details, but could look it up if you really want to injure the children.
There's no interview process involved in the teaching, right? People in interviews always ask me questions I can't answer about "qualifications" and "references" and "convictions" (not the same as indictments, if you were wondering).