Here’s the fifth in my FAIRYTALE FANTASY posts!

TO REPEAT from fairytale fantasy post #1: the term “fairy tale” is misleading. What we typically call “fairy tales” are more accurately described as “folk tales,” or “traditional tales,” especially one coming from the oral tradition. I’m also not necessarily posting about the fae, although one of the books in this series of posts does have a strong fae presence. “Fairy”—“Fae”—They are synonyms (of a sort), and tales of the fae are an important fantasy subgenre, but again, I’m not using “fairy” necessarily in that sense. AND I’m not dealing with anything Disney (although I guess I kind of lied about that in the last few posts).

The fairytale fantasy novels

My top picks:

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. Based on the Grimms’ Brothers fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. Discussed in my fairytale fantasy post #1.

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. Based on the Senegalese folk tale Ansige the Glutton. Discussed in my fairytale fantasy post #2.

Other fairytale fantasy novels:

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan. Influenced by Chinese ghost lore. Discussed in my fairytale fantasy post #3.

Alice, by Christina Henry. Based on Alice in Wonderland. Discussed in my fairytale fantasy post #4.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire. Based on the French fairy tale Cinderella. DISCUSSED IN THIS POST.

Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Influenced by Mesoamerican folklore and myth.

Shadow of the Fox, by Julie Kagawa. Influenced by Japanese folklore.

For the Wolf, by Hannah Whitten. Maybe influenced by Little Red Riding Hood, but more closely based on Beauty and the Beast.

Today’s fairytale fantasy review:

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire’s 1999 reimagining of the Cinderella story, published by Regan Books (now reissued by William Morrow), is the second novel in which he used that technique. The first, Wicked, a reimagining of the Wicked Witch of the West character in The Wizard of Oz, is probably his best-known of these novels.

I figure a Cinderella-based novel is the best choice for Valentine’s Day! What’s a more iconic fairy tale, at least for Americans, than that, and it is the classic tale of a certain type of “happily ever after” love.

The fairy tale basis of the novel

Cinderella, as most American readers know it, has filtered through to them through (shhh. . . Walt Disney’s animated movie version from 1950) a number of English language versions. The real ancestor of the English-speaking world’s Cinderella, though, is Charles Perrault’s French version of the story from 1697, Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre (Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper). Through the Perrault version, the story acquired the pumpkin coach, the fairy godmother, and especially that glass slipper. (Why doesn’t the glass slipper break and cut Cinderella’s foot? It’s magic! It’s fiction! Don’t ask!) You can read a translation of the Perrault version HERE.

But the story is truly ancient. Scholars have traced it back to ancient Greece and the tale of Rhodopis (“Rosy-cheeks”). Think only scholars know that one? Nope. It makes an appearance in the MMORPG Everquest II as one of the sillier quests in the Rise of Kunark expansion pack. Among others, there’s an Italian version, a German version (the Brothers Grimm collected that one, Aschenputtel), and a number of Asian versions. A lot of versions, a lot of variations on the story and its details. Folklorists classify it as Aarne–Thompson–Uther type 510A, ” The Persecuted Heroine.”

Whatever its true origins, the tale really resonates for generations of young women, especially those who long to become a “Disney princess.” The implications of this longing were explored most famously by the feminist theorist Colette Dowling, in The Cinderella Complex: Women’s Hidden Fear of Independence (Summit Books, 1981). The book discusses the Cinderella fairy tale as the template for contemporary women’s longing to be swept off their feet by some powerful male and taken care of.

Maguire’s novel

One of the reasons I really like Gregory Maguire’s take on the Cinderella story in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is how he stands that “Cinderella complex” material on its head. As the title signals, Maguire’s novel isn’t from Cinderella’s point of view and doesn’t cast her as the protagonist. Rather, he focuses his novel on an ordinarily despised character, one of the “ugly stepsisters” who torment the beautiful and virtuous Cinderella in most versions of the fairy tale. This is Maguire’s signature schtick, so maybe that accounts for some of the features I don’t admire so much, as well.

For maybe half of Maguire’s book, we’re reading an historical novel about the 17th Century Netherlands in the grip of its famous Tulip Bubble. In the 1600s, the mania for tulips was so extreme that tulip bulbs were selling at crazy-high prices. Then, as with all such economic bubbles, there came a tulip bust, and all the tulip speculators who had made tidy fortunes were reduced to poverty practically overnight. This strange incident out of history has achieved iconic status among economists. Maguire’s novel and its characters are very skillfully drawn, and he depicts their world with equal power. The experiences of English immigrants to Holland during this period, the tulip speculators, and especially the artists of the 17th century Dutch city of Haarlem are brought to fascinating life. Maguire depicts the lives of the women of that time with special sensitivity and power. As second-class citizens, they must be careful of their reputations and their economic status. Marry for love? Pffft. That’s a course that will lead a young woman to disaster.

BUT. (I suppose if you’ve been reading this blog, you may suspect where I’m going with this. . . ) But Maguire abandons this well-written and absorbing historical novel around midway through to layer the Cinderella story in there with a heavy hand. What a disappointment, especially since I think he could have easily alluded to the Cinderella story and its themes without going for some literal-minded recreation of the fairy tale. His writing is so good that I know he could have brought it off. And there’s an especially egregious and improbable twist at the end, too. So I have very mixed feelings about this novel.

Fantasy-related fictions of all types:

Cinderella is such an iconic fairy tale that many people have taken a crack at it, including many revisionist cracks like this one, and in many different forms. I don’t have room to list them all. For starters, think of opera. Both Rossini (1817) and Massenet (1899) composed Cinderella staples of the opera repertoire, and they’re not the only composers to take on the tale. Prokofiev composed the music for a Cinderella ballet (1940-44), and he’s not the only composer or choreographer to use ballet to explore Cinderella‘s power. Rodgers and Hammerstein produced a musical theater version on Broadway (1957), and since then, the musical has been revived in three other later versions based on their original. The pandemic willing, Andrew Lloyd Webber will bring his own Cinderella musical to Broadway in 2022. (cough) Disney (cough) is not the only filmmaker to bring Cinderella to the big screen (in animation and live action); there have been many others. In fact, a certain type of romance is frequently referred to as a “Cinderella story”–rags to riches in a particularly female form, the riches being acquired by proxy through some prince of a fellow. The movie Pretty Woman (1990), starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, is a prime example.

Here’s the fourth in my FAIRYTALE FANTASY posts!

TO REPEAT from fairytale fantasy post #1: the term “fairy tale” is misleading. What we typically call “fairy tales” are more accurately described as “folk tales,” or “traditional tales,” especially one coming from the oral tradition. I’m also not necessarily posting about the fae, although one of the books does have a strong fae presence. “Fairy”—“Fae”—They are synonyms (of a sort), and tales of the fae are an important fantasy subgenre, but again, I’m not using “fairy” necessarily in that sense. AND I’m not dealing with anything Disney (although I guess I kind of lied about that in post #3).

THE FAIRYTALE FANTASY NOVELS

My two top picks:

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. Based on the Grimms’ fairytale Rumpelstiltskin. Reviewed in post #1.

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. Based on the Senegalese folktale Ansige the Glutton. Reviewed in post #2.

Other fairytale/folktale fantasy:

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan. Incorporates Chinese ghost lore. Reviewed in post #3.

Alice, by Christina Henry. Horror-fantasy based on Alice in Wonderland. Reviewed in this post.

Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Based on the French fairy tale Cinderella.

Shadow of the Fox, by Julie Kagawa. Based on Japanese myth and folklore.

For the Wolf, by Hannah Whitten. Based on Little Red Riding Hood? For sure on Beauty and the Beast.

Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Influenced by the folklore and mythology of Mesoamerica.

Today’s fairytale fantasy review:

Alice, by Christina Henry

Christina Henry’s horror-fantasy novel was published by Ace Books in 2015. “Christina Henry” is the pen name of an author who has written several fantasy reimaginings of popular older fantasy, including several Alice books. Featuring Henry’s book in this blog series is kind of a stretch, because Alice in Wonderland is not a classic fairy tale and doesn’t come from folkloric origins. The beloved children’s book, which was titled Alice’s Adventures Underground, or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was written in 1865 by Charles Dodgson, a Victorian-era English mathematician. Dodgson used a pen name himself: Lewis Carroll. Alice has entered popular culture, though. Even people who have never read it are likely to know the story. It has become a kind of latter-day fairytale.

Admittedly there’s no fairytale or folkloric basis for this book. But there is a fascinating backstory. Dodgson was a shy bachelor whose family friends had a young daughter, Alice Pleasance Liddell. Dodgson and a friend rowed Alice and her two sisters up a river, and during this excursion, Dodgson made up a fanciful story for the girls. Alice wanted a copy, so Dodgson wrote it down for her. Eventually, Dodgson published it as a children’s book, with famous illustrations by John Tenniel.

Fleets of literary critics have worked overtime to analyze this seemingly simple but actually very complex tale. Some have considered the characters to be fantasy versions of Dodgson and people he knew; others write about the puns and wordplay, and especially the mathematical puzzles and concepts that Dodgson inserted into the story. Still others have explored the Freudian aspects of the story. Most acknowledge that Alice changed children’s literature, taking it away from preachy tomes and into the realm of nonsense and fun. This article gives a good quick introduction to the whole Matter of Alice.

Henry’s novel

Henry’s version of Alice begins with blood and screaming. You know instantly that you’re in the world of horror, but probably not yet that you’re in the world of Alice in Wonderland. Let me backtrack. Yes, you do, because the cover tells you that. But the first chapter places you in a horrifying Victorian madhouse, where Alice is mistreated by the attendants. Aside from them, her only human contact is a fellow patient, Hatcher, an axe-murderer. She has communicated with him for years through a hole between their locked rooms–essentially cells. She soothes him through his most deranged episodes, and he gives her companionship. It’s soon clear that Alice has been locked up as “insane” because of behavior unbecoming a properly brought up young Victorian woman. Things heat up (literally) when the asylum catches fire and Hatcher helps Alice escape into the “Old City.” At that point, the reader realizes that while the setting seems Victorian, the novel takes place in some alt-Victorian dystopia.

Unfortunately, after that promising and intriguing start, the novel goes downhill into a series of mechanically-plotted adventures that slavishly adhere to horror versions of Alice in Wonderland characters and situations. Some of it really has to stretch to fit the Alice tropes. Meanwhile, I was getting annoyed, because I wanted more about Alice the character and her relationship with Hatcher. Oh, well.

Many readers love these books, so don’t take my word for it that this one is somewhat of a disappointment. Here’s a glowing review. And here’s another one. But some think the characterization is thin, the magic not very convincing, and the writing not very developed. Here is one of those. I’m afraid I’m in their camp.

Other readers have reservations about these books for a different reason. Several reviewers think Alice is too full of violence against women. Here’s one of those reviews. I would not put Henry’s novel in this category, myself. Although I never approve of gratuitous violence against women (or anyone), this kind of violence does happen in actual life, and fiction–unless it’s completely sanitized–does deal with the hard parts of life. And should. So if it’s well-written and it honestly confronts the situation it depicts, I don’t care what the content is, or how tough. In addition, part of the horror genre involves body-horror of all types. You may not enjoy horror. I’m not the biggest fan. But well-done horror is its own delight.

Digression: As I say, I don’t mind violence in fantasy IF it is well-done and necessary to story and characterization. That’s a big IF, though. I know one fantasy novel highly regarded by a lot of fantasy readers (Lord Foul’s Bane, if you’re interested) that I just can’t admire–and won’t finish the series. I’m amazed I finished the novel. Even though the novel has some interesting features, the rape in that book is gratuitous, the protagonist unrepentant or not very, and the reader apparently intended to shrug the whole disgusting episode off. Not cool in my book. (Its purple prose also annoys me.) On the other hand, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, while one of the most unpleasant novels I’ve ever read (and studded with some pretty purple prose), is also one of the most brilliant. So there you go. That’s what you need to know about me the reader.

Related works and fantasy-related fictions:

Henry’s Alice is the first book of a series, so there’s more Alice material if you end up liking the novel. I’m not continuing it. Henry has also taken on other well-known children’s classics, such as Peter Pan. Re-imagining literary classics is a whole subgenre, and not just in fantasy. Underneath the fantasy tent, though, many successful novels have taken on similar material. I’m thinking especially of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz‘s Wicked Witch of the West–probably because my next post is about another novel of his.

Alice in Wonderland, as I’ve mentioned, has left its origins to spread out into numerous genres and forms. It has inspired a ballet, a stage play, toys and games and products of all types, and a number of movies (including several. . .shhhh. . . Disney versions, one of them the iconic animated version of 1951–probably the version from which most Americans get their visual impressions of the characters, not the famous Tenniel illustrations).

Alice has been issued as a children’s book with illustrations by many different artists, in many different styles. I find these pretty intriguing. Here are a few:

a Salvatore Dali version!

Yayoi Kusama’s pop art version

Here’s the third in my FAIRYTALE FANTASY reviews!

TO REPEAT from fairytale fantasy post #1: the term “fairy tale” is misleading. What we typically call “fairy tales” are more accurately described as “folk tales,” or “traditional tales,” especially one coming from the oral tradition. I’m also not necessarily posting about the fae, although one of the books does have a strong fae presence. “Fairy”—“Fae”—They are synonyms (of a sort), and tales of the fae are an important fantasy subgenre, but again, I’m not using “fairy” necessarily in that sense.

AND I’m not dealing with anything Disney.

THE FAIRYTALE FANTASY NOVELS:

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. Based on the Grimms’ fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin. Reviewed HERE in Fairytale Fantasy post #1. One of my two top picks.

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. Based on the Senegalese folk tale Ansige the Glutton. Reviewed HERE in Fairytale Fantasy post #2. One of my two top picks.

Other fairytale fantasy novels:

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan. Incorporates ghost lore from China. Reviewed in this post.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire. Based on the French fairy tale Cinderella.

Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Uses folk motifs from Mesoamerica.

Shadow of the Fox, by Julie Kagawa. Based on folklore of Japan.

Alice, by Christina Henry. Horror-fantasy based on Alice in Wonderland.

For the Wolf, Hannah Whitten. Based on Little Red Riding Hood and even more closely, Beauty and the Beast.

Today’s fairytale fantasy review:

SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN, by Shelley Parker-Chan

Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun, published by Tor in 2021, has gotten a lot of buzz, a lot of it well-deserved. It could easily be described as an historical novel about the first Ming emperor of China, but with fantasy elements. In fact, I think I would have liked it better if the writer had thought of it that way, and included the ghosts as entities the characters believe in, but not necessarily the reader. There’s a really fine line here, and I wish the author had had more faith in her 14th century Chinese characters’ perceptions of reality rather than packaging them for us as fantasy. I kept wondering whether fantasy was the author’s intention, or just the way the book was marketed. Reading interviews with Parker-Chan, who is Australian-Asian, an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and a big fan of Asian fantasy, I’ve decided no, she did want those fantasy elements. And anyway, the ghost lore really is fascinating, whichever way you want to read the novel.

The folklore basis of the novel:

The fantasy elements in this novel are pretty thin, but ghosts play a prominent role. A second fantasy element presents the idea that a “mandate of Heaven,” manifested in bursts of mystical light, guides the main character, Zhu Chongba in her destined path to becoming Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor of China. I don’t know about the mystical light, but Parker-Chan’s ghosts derive from a main feature of 14th century Chinese culture. Reading Parker-Chan’s novel led me to find out more about the ghost lore. Here are a few accessible sources: University of Chicago professors Judith Zeitlin and Patrick Crowley discuss the topic HERE. Zeitlin comments that ghosts in this era were generally supposed to have returned from the dead to right some wrong or solve some problem, and that’s certainly the role they play in Parker-Chan’s novel.

My investigation also turned up two important Ming Dynasty literary works that provide a lot of source material for Chinese ghost lore. Xu Zhonglin’s Fengshen Yanyi (also known as Fengshen Bang), which can be translated “The Investiture of the Gods” or “The Creation of the Gods,” is part of a flourishing “gods and demons” genre of fiction from 16th century China. Another 16th century Chinese novel,Wu Chen’gen’s Journey to the West, considered one of the “Four Great Classical Novels” of Chinese literature, is also full of Chinese ghost-lore and other folkloric tales and elements. Here are two accessible versions for Western readers: Katherine Liang Chew’s Tales of the Teahouse Retold: Investiture of the Gods, published by iUniverse in 2002, and Julia Lovell’s 2021 Penguin Classics translation of Journey to the West.

Both of these classics of Chinese literature have hugely influenced Chinese popular culture, including numerous later works of fiction, stage plays, movies, comics, and video games. Parker-Chan herself has said in interviews that she first envisioned her novel as a Chinese television show and a “melodrama.” Thanks to Parker-Chan’s novel, the allure of this lore has captured Western readers who might not have been familiar with much of it before.

Parker-Chan’s novel

The most stunning aspect of this novel is how it re-imagines the gender roles of the main figures in a tumultuous period of Chinese history. During this period, the Mongol grip on China was weakening, and a young monk from a poor background saw his opportunity. Through skillful political maneuvering and battle tactics, he attained the emperorship of China. Parker-Chan’s premise—that this young man was not a man at all but a woman in disguise—works brilliantly, and the author didn’t need fantasy to convince me to willingly suspend my disbelief. Zhu Chongba, the monk, meets her match in Ouyang, a court eunuch. Both are smart, both are driven, and both are reaching for their destiny. The strategizing and power politics, including the gender politics, are nothing short of thrilling. The characters, Zhu and Ouyang for sure but a number of others, are beautifully developed, and Parker-Chan pulls no punches and does not sentimentalize. This is the part of the novel I loved.

In the end, though, in spite of my admiration and all of the many laudatory reviews I read, the novel didn’t become an instant favorite. A long tedious part in the middle of the novel nearly lost me. The beginning of the novel was so intriguing, though, and the end of it was so absorbing, that I stuck with it.

Reading a novel, especially a long novel, is so dependent on personal and outside factors that I have to wonder how I would have reacted if I had read Parker-Chan’s book under other circumstances. I had just finished Cecelia Holland’s brilliant historical novel, Until the Sun Falls, about exactly those Mongol overlords that Zhu defeats, and I’m wondering if I might have been hungry for more pure historical fiction on the subject. Also, I had fairly recently finished Nicola Griffith’s Hild, another brilliant historical novel re-imagining the complex politics surrounding a powerful young gender-ambiguous protagonist. I’m wondering if my experience reading those two novels (with their stunningly beautiful prose) might not have made me impatient with Parker-Chan’s fantasy elements. I might have been thinking, Let’s get to the good stuff! (I know that sounds strange in a fantasy blog!) But Parker-Chan ultimately comes through with the good stuff, leaving me a very satisfied reader.

Here are some informative reviews of Parker-Chan’s novel: Greer Macallister’s Chicago Review of Books review; a Locus Magazine review; and this very astute review by Lee Mandelo for Tor, the publisher.

Related works and fantasy-related fictions:

For more about the historical elements: I’ve already mentioned Cecelia Holland’s brilliant novel, Until the Sun Falls. Her novel is about the heirs of Genghis Khan and their near-invasion of Europe. The invasion ended when dynastic squabbles sent the Mongol warriors back home to China, where Genghis Khan’s heirs, most notably his grandson Kublai Khan, had established the Yuan dynasty. This is the dynasty that Zhu Yuanzhang (Zhu Chongba), Parker-Chan’s protagonist, defeats to become emperor. Holland’s genius is in making us feel that we are there with the people she writes about. From the reader’s perspective, these aren’t historical figures but living, breathing people whom we come to know and understand.

For more about the fantasy elements: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Chinese folk-heroine Hua Mulan, known through many sources beginning in 6th century China, and—like Parker-Chan’s Zhu—a woman who disguised herself as a man to achieve power. The studio-that-shall-not-be-named (Disney) has made both an animated and a live-action movie about her, and she has become hugely popular to Western audiences.

Nevertheless, many Westerners might be completely unaware of the flourishing Chinese pop culture that Parker-Chan drew upon when she wrote her novel. I just dipped my big toe into it, and I was amazed at the variety and vigor. Take a look at this list of the greatest Chinese television dramas of all time. Among the offerings: shows based on Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West! And here’s a word every Western reader/viewer should know (and many younger readers/viewers already do): wuxia. These are stories of martial arts, heroic deeds, and fantasy. The amazing movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), directed by Ang Lee, brought this type of fantasy to the attention of Western fantasy consumers. It’s a favorite of mine! Now that I’m thinking about it, I want to watch it again, right now. . .

And finally! Have a kid in your life who might want to know more about Chinese folklore? These middle-grade books by Grace Lin are just wonderful: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (a Newbery Honor winner), Starry River of the Sky, and When the Sea Turned to Silver, the most recent and a finalist for the National Book Award. My grandson loves that one. I give it The William G-K Seal of Approval.