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.

Here’s the second in my series of 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 novels:

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik—one of my two favorites. See the review here.

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord—one of my other two favorites, REVIEWED IN THIS POST!

Other interesting fairytale fantasy novels, to be reviewed in my next six posts:

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister—based on the French fairy tale Cinderella.

Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse—fantasy drawing on the folklore of Mesoamerica.

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan—fantasy using the ghost lore of China.

Shadow of the Fox, by Julie Kagawa—fantasy drawing on the folklore of Japan.

Alice, by Christina Henry—fantasy-horror retelling of Alice in Wonderland.

For the Wolf, by Hannah Whitten—fantasy based on Little Red Riding Hood (and Beauty and the Beast?).

In this series of posts, I will 1. discuss the fairy tale or folklore on which the novel is based; 2. review the novel; and 3. discuss other fantasy fiction related to the same fairy tale or folklore.

Here’s today’s post, reviewing one of my other top picks:

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord

Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo, published in 2010 by Small Beer Press, is a marvelous novel with a unique feel. It is based on a Senegalese folktale, Ansige the Glutton, which came to the Americas by way of Barbados. The novel won a number of prestigious prizes: the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award in the author’s native Barbados, as well as the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, the Carl Brandon Parallax Award, and the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award.

The folklore basis of the novel:

Ansige the Glutton is a folk tale well-known in West Africa. In the tale, Ansige Karamba, a notorious glutton, is married to Paama, a great cook. You’d think a match-up like this would result in the ideal marriage. Instead, Ansige drives Paama away with his demands and his ridiculous behavior. That wonderful resource, the TV Tropes web site, has a great discussion of the tale and its implications. Find it HERE.

In addition, Lord’s novel is chock-full of other wonderful West African folkloric elements, especially the djombe (god-like beings similar to ones found in West African and Afro-Caribbean spiritual beliefs) and especially the trickster spider Anansi. Like the Ansige the Glutton folktale, the stories of Anansi found their way to the Caribbean and the U.S. through West African slave culture.

Lord’s novel

If you’re the type of fantasy reader who demands a trope-y, fast-paced read, maybe look elsewhere. But if you love connecting with a unique voice, here’s your novel. It has a distinct literary flavor; it’s not cookie-cutter genre fiction. The writing is superb.

The story of wise, put-upon Paama, who first has to get rid of her annoying husband Ansige and then has to outwit a wily and determined assortment of gods intent on getting her to do their bidding, is fascinating in itself. But the voice! The narrator of this novel approaches the tale with a storyteller’s aplomb. We readers are always right at the storyteller-narrator’s elbow as she guides us through Paama’s journey, physical and spiritual.

The only disappointment in the novel is the ending. I wondered if I were too unsubtle a reader to “get it.” Paama’s story just ends. We’re told some things that result from her ordeal, but not shown them in that amazing storyteller’s way that has enchanted us through the body of the novel. The twist at the end is pretty enigmatic. I do see what happened, but I’d like to know more about how and why and what the consequences were. It’s a real tribute to this novel that in spite of my let-down and confusion at the end, I did love this book.

For the most part, readers seem to agree that Lord’s novel is a latter-day classic. Here‘s what The Washington Post had to say when the book became a finalist for the World Fantasy Best Novel Award. Here’s another review I found helpful.

Related works and fantasy-related fictions:

Let’s say you want MORE about Ansige the Glutton and Paama, his clever wife. The only place it’s easily available in English, as far as I know, is Harold Courlander’s children’s anthology, The Cow-Tail Switch: And Other West African Stories, which was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1948 but has been republished in 2008 in a lovely new edition through Square Fish, an imprint of Macmillan.

Another Harold Courlander book, A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore, might be a good place to explore these tales further, especially the tales about Anansi, the trickster spider—although actually, that much-maligned source, Wikipedia, offers a rich compendium of Anansi tales and is an excellent starting point if you want more Anansi—more! more! While Ansige the Glutton may not be very well-known in Western culture, the Anansi stories are, in many variations. The Brer Rabbit stories, for instance, are more or less the Anansi stories repackaged. Forget Joel Chandler Harris and The Song of the South. See Emily Marshall’s American Trickster: Trauma, Tradition and Brer Rabbit, especially chapter two, “Anansi and Brer Rabbit.”

Probably the most famous recent use of the Anansi myth in popular culture is the character of Mr. Nancy in Neil Gaimon’s very popular American Gods. It’s a novel! It’s a graphic novel! It’s a Starz series! It’s an entire industry all to itself, and Mr. Nancy is only one part of the whole sprawling thing. The sequel, Anansi Boys, continues the Mr. Nancy saga.

Tis the season for posts about fairy tale-related fantasy. Originally, I was going to post one huge discussion, but there’s so much to say! I am breaking my thoughts about fairytale fantasy into eight posts.

First off, 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 context.

Second: although Walt Disney might spring to mind, this post will not deal with anything Disney. There’s the good Disney, the bad Disney, the downright ugly Disney, and occasionally there’s the brilliantly inspired Disney. All of it has its fans. I’m not going there.

I’m taking a look at eight fantasy novels based on fairy tale and folktale elements. Here they are, in the order I liked them. I’ll briefly summarize the fairy tale the book is based on, then explain what I liked or maybe didn’t like so much about the book, and after each discussion, add thoughts about a few other kinds of fantasy fictions based on the same tale or related in some way.

My top two co-favorites:

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik—very loosely based on the Rumpelstiltskin Brothers Grimm fairytale-TODAY’S POST.

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord—based on Ansige the Glutton, a Senegalese folktale, and other West African folklore.

Other interesting fairy tale/folktale-inspired fantasy:

Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse—loosely based on various Mesoamerican bodies of myth and folklore.

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

She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley-Parker Chan—partly based on Chinese lore about ghosts.

Shadow of the Fox, by Julie Kagawa—based on a whole body of Japanese lore about magical creatures.

Alice, by Christina Henry—a fantasy-horror version of Alice in Wonderland.

For the Wolf, by Hannah Whitten—the marketing suggests this novel was based on Little Red Riding Hood, but it’s as much about Beauty and the Beast as anything else.

On to the novel for today’s post, one of my two top picks.

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver, published in 2018 by Del Rey, is a wonderful novel, a work of historical fantasy set in a fantasy version of medieval Lithuania or some similar Eastern European/Baltic nation. It is also very loosely based on the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin.

The fairy tale base:

Novik has stated in several interviews that this novel, as well as several of her others, is based at least in part on the Polish tales she enjoyed in childhood, as well as her family history. The main fairy tale on which this novel is based, Rumpelstiltskin, was collected in 1812 by German folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. It’s about a boastful miller who claims his daughter can spin straw into gold. A king grabs her. He wants that gold. He locks her up and tells her to spin all the straw in her cell into gold before morning, or he’ll cut off her head. If she can produce the gold, he’ll marry her and she’ll become his queen. As she waits in despair for her head to be cut off, an imp shows up. He’ll magically turn the straw into gold in exchange for the maiden’s firstborn son. In desperation, she agrees. When the king sees the gold, he keeps his promise, and the maiden becomes queen. But when their son is born, the imp returns to claim his prize. He tells the queen that if within three days she can guess his name, he won’t take the baby. By accident, she happens upon his forest hut and overhears him saying his name, Rumpelstiltskin. So she outwits the imp, keeps the baby, remains queen, and lives happily ever after.

As with all of these tales, there are several versions widely disseminated around the world. The tale dates back around four thousand years. It’s classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther folklore index as tale type ATU 500, “The Name of the Helper.”

Novik’s novel:

This book is very well-written, and it would have to be, because it has multiple narrators, all first-person. Quite a feat for a novel to be able to distinguish among so many voices. As each section begins, the reader has to intuit who is speaking, and usually this happens very smoothly.

The “maiden forced to spin straw into gold” figure in the novel, Miryem, is a beautifully well-drawn character, and here’s where the novel draws on historical realities. She and her family are Jewish, living the restricted, stigmatized lives of medieval Jews in Eastern Europe. The setting is intimately and accurately described; at times the book reads like a fascinating historical novel about those times.

The entire ensemble of characters could in lesser hands distract from Miryem, and sometimes does. Not very often. There are three main characters, all young women, from three walks of life, embodying three different fantasy tropes. Miryem is the smart, plucky outsider who can outwit her opponents. Irina is the plain, overlooked girl of the nobility whom everyone shunts aside. Then she wins the marriage prize by becoming tsarina. Wanda is the sturdy salt-of-the-earth Christian peasant girl. She’s despised and underestimated by everyone, but she has innate value, insight, and brains. Each of these women is pretty similar to the others in that they are all bright and undervalued, and they all have to fight for what they want. I don’t think this would have worked at all, given the similarities, except that Novik is so skillful at depicting each of the women in the setting of class, family, and religion.

Into this already heady mix steps the Staryk king, this novel’s version of the fae. He is one of the intriguing male points of view in the novel. He has power, he’s cruel, and he wants what he wants: Miryem’s power to create gold. At the outset, her ability to make money is completely practical and mundane. She has taken over the business side of her family from her weak father, and she’s doing well. But in the hands of the Staryk, things turn magical. I’d be interested to hear what other readers who love the fae trope think of the king and his subjects. Fae fantasy is not my favorite. This is the book that could change my mind.

The tsar to whom Irina is wed is another male supernatural creature. From birth, he has been possessed by a demon. Irina needs to prevail against him, but how can she? The demon inside him seems too powerful. In his cruelty, magical abilities, and disdain, the tsar too could have become indistinguishable from the other male lead, the Staryk king, especially since he too comes to us through a first-person voice. But again, Novik’s powers of characterization are so good that we don’t make that mistake.

Several other first-person male narrators are also important, especially Wanda’s two brothers. They and Wanda are great allies, and each one of the three has her/his unique voice that keeps them separated in our heads.

The end of this very satisfying novel hangs on a really ingenious mirror-image device that works on both the symbolic and the fantasy-trope level. This device brings all the moving parts into alignment, an amazing feat of writing. At the very end, I confess to being slightly confused, so much so that I had to re-read the ending to make sure I had gotten everything straight. But for the quality of the writing, the world-building (especially combining the realistic with the magical), the characterization, and the intricate, interlocking plot, I call this one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in recent years. The tale of Rumpelstiltskin hovers in the deep background—and so do other figures from folklore, such as the Chernobog, but you could read the book without even knowing or even particularly liking that tale or knowing about any of the other folklore, and come out fine.

Every reader hasn’t loved this book as much as I do. Here‘s a fairly negative review. This one is much more positive, but faults the book for slipping into the “younger woman has to break from older controlling man” trope. Here’s one that lines up more with my own view of the novel. And another one. Everyone seems to place this book in the YA category, and I suppose it is, but really, I didn’t even think about that as I read it. It’s just a really interesting novel. Call it YA, call it fantasy, call it something else, I don’t care. It’s good!

Take a look at this excellent interview with the author, Naomi Novik, about the process of writing the novel and what and why she handled the fairy tale material the way she did.

Similar fantasy and fantasy-related fictions:

I don’t know if Disney has dealt with the Rumpelstiltskin story in any way, but a number of films, live action and animated, have been based on the fairy tale. The most well-known are two in the Dreamworks Shrek animated franchise. Both Shrek the Third (2007) and Shrek Forever After (2010) feature Rumpelstiltskin. He’s a walk-on in Shrek the Third, but—pretty thoroughly transformed as a character—plays a prominent role in Shrek Forever After.

I don’t know of any other outright fantasy novels or other types of fantasy fiction that are based on the Rumpelstiltskin tale. If there are, and you know about them, please mention it in the comments! I do know that one of the best recent novels of magical realism, Melmoth, by Sarah Perry, based on the legend of Melmoth the Wanderer, reminds me in some ways of this novel. A whole post needs to be devoted to the topic of how/where/whether magical realism intersects with fantasy, but Perry’s novel is interesting in the way it weaves a very realistic story about the Holocaust into the legend of Melmoth. I find that pretty similar to the way Novik is able to entwine magic and a gritty and realistic historical setting.

NEXT UP: Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo