Helen Oyeyemi (of "Boy, Snow, Bird") on Writing the Wicked Queen and the Power Fairy Tales

By now, you've probably heard of Helen Oyeyemi's book Boy, Snow, Bird, a literary retelling of Snow White that deals with racial issues. It's caught the attention of Oprah and The New York Times and is quickly rising on the best seller list.

Let me quickly add the press release blurb, in case this is still new to you, before we move on to others things:

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi 

From the prizewinning author of Mr. Fox , the Snow White fairy tale brilliantly recast as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity.In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty-- the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman.
A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white. Among them, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold.
Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving , Boy, Snow, Bird is an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.

Since there are a lot of reviews and information about the book out there already (I recommend starting with Heidi Ann Heiner of SurLaLune and her review HERE), I won't go over the same ground.

Instead I thought I'd offer some different aspects on this retelling of Snow White. As a little bonus, throughout the post are a variety of proposed designs for the book cover, which I always find interesting as they give a different but valid emphasis to the book.

Here's a short but lovely introduction to the book by way of audio. You'll get an idea of the language the author uses as well as immediate immersion into the fairy tale.

You can hear the whole book for free right now HERE (via one of those 30 day trial deals).

And here are three (four, really) treats: Helen Oyeyemi sharing her thoughts on, not only her book and Snow White but fairy tales in general, as well as excerpts from a very different fairy tale aficionado review.

First up is an excerpt from an interview in Bustle:

What did you see as the most compelling characteristics of the wicked stepmother? 

HO: I like that in the typical fairy tale, the wicked woman is the one who makes trouble. The wicked stepmother in “Snow White” made me think a lot about beauty: how women interpret beauty and how these interpretations feed into our relationships, from envy to rivalry to protectiveness. It also made me wonder why in the original story different types of beauty can’t co-exist. 

What was the most challenging part of constructing the wicked queen?  

HO: The challenge of building the wicked queen was in not relying on Boy’s past for a complete explanation of the problems between Boy and Snow — for most of the book, Boy’s quite determined not to do any reliving. 

I don’t like retellings of stories where a woman is explained by her past — where her past is something that was part of her personality. I wanted to loosen the walls and try to figure out a new way to tell the story of the wicked queen.   

You can read the whole of the interview HERE.

And from NPR, who often presents a refreshing perspective:

On playing off of fairy talesI think that they're the purest form of story that you can get. They sort of strip down human behavior to the absolute basics. So with Snow White you have this story about envy and what the consequences of those are. And I suppose that when I'm reading a fairy tale I find it easier to rescue the characters than with other stories.
And I wanted to rescue the wicked stepmother. I felt that, especially in Snow White, I think that the evil queen finds it sort of a hassle to be such a villain. It seems a bit much for her, and so I kind of wanted to lift that load a little bit. 

You can hear the interview at the NPR link above or, if you're having trouble hearing the audio on your device, there's a transcript available HERE.

And here's a very short, but interesting video of Ms. Oyeyemi speaking about the power of fairy tales in a New York Times interview:

Helen Oyeyemi, whose new novel, "Boy, Snow, Bird," was inspired by "Snow White," says fairy tales allow us to focus on "the nature of stories themselves, and the curious power they have."

Lastly, here are a couple of excerpts from an interesting write up from a Polish blog. Auto-translate is responsible for the weirdness of the language, including the his/her mix-ups but I kinda love the rawness of it as well. I'm including the introduction (shown in bold) because it gives an interesting commentary on the resurgence of fairy tale retellings in recent years as well:

In recent years, pop culture has returned to the fashion of fairy tales and their modern interpretations. After the age of luscious, candy filming the stables Disney fairy tales again regained its adult nature and conquered the imagination of a new culture all manner of modern eaters. Finally, the air is filled with the spirit of the mad and cruel story of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, sadness and despair beautiful Andersen story or moral decency fairy tale by Charles Perrault certain. She returned even coquettish Scheherazade, flew Peter Pan, or the witches in "The Wizard of Oz". I must admit that the classic fairy tale I have a big fondness. My beloved since childhood, much misunderstanding parents are "Jednooczka, Dwuoczka and Trójoczka" The Brothers Grimm - the title already seen that from an early age, I felt attracted to the strangeness, and how to add, that history also includes burying raw liver under the porch, it knows where to splatterpunka love and gore. As you know, I love to interpret... and fairy tales give me a wide range of possibilities, depending on the time in which to be not taking. Because the fairy tale worth coming back and read again, customize and play with meanings.  

Universal potential and great symbolic force emanating from the classic fairy tale has used in his latest novel entitled "Boy, Snow Bird" by British author Helen Oyeyemi . The writer very subtly and intriguingly tangled in his story magic, supernatural elements and the classic fairy tale themes, creating one of the most interesting reinterpretation of this type in recent years. The basis of the plot used in building one of the most famous stories in the world, that cult "Snow White" The Brothers Grimm. However, "Boy, Snow Bird" reader seeking also find echoes of "Sleeping Beauty", "The Snow Queen", or even "Cinderella". Helen Oyeyemi chose only a tiny kawalątki these stories, and the history of Snow White in a turbulent and presses the uneasy reality of the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century the United States. She told them a new, thus creating a fresh, contemporary fairy tale. And as it happens in the classical fairy tales filled it with ambiguity and universal symbolism, which will long remain in the subconscious mind readers. 

..."Boy, Snow Bird" Helen Oyeyemi is a story that still deceiving me, weaved and sucked in the twists and turns of its plot, as in the forest depths. A small American town seemed mysterious land which seemingly charming and "as a picture" was hidden in the shadows of a dirty racial obsession, intolerance and concerns of closed communities which do not have access to extensive changes in other parts of the country. Family of the picture in the house Whitman, who for one shake a magic wand proved to be the arena fighting for the acceptance of women, both in the eyes of others, as in his own. I mean, how can you live in harmony with each other, even when the mirror shows that we are not to end? When even those closest to us sometimes seem not to notice? When every look we have the impression that in a mirror dimly?

You can read the whole of the blog entry HERE, as long as you either can read Polish, or have Google translate. :)

I'm looking forward to reading this at some point in the (hopefully near) future but if you've already managed to dive in, feel free to share your impressions in the comments below.

Kafka for Kids (Very Different Sorts of Fairy Tales)

It's Kafka for kids! Writer and video game designer Matthue Roth reads Kafka to his kids one night, almost by accident ("Tell us a story Daddy! No. A NEW story!..") and boom: an idea for a children's book is born.

And it's a good one.*

From TimesOfIsrael:

‘My First Kafka’ offers a new sort of fairy tale

Our infatuation with fairy tales is at an all-time high, from young adult novels like “Cinder” by Marissa Meyer to darker fare from Hollywood, such as the upcoming Angelina Jolie vehicle “Maleficent.” Of course, there’s a long history of grim (and Grimm) tales that have fascinated children, who are as delighted by the spooky and scary as they are by Cinderella’s mice. It’s just we’ve spent a long time Disney-fying them for modern audiences. 

Matthue Roth’s new book “My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs” fits perfectly into this genre of satisfyingly strange tales for children. Yes, they’re illustrated Kafka stories, which makes it sound like it’s the sort of wink-wink-nod-nod tchotchke you might pick up for a gift for new parents. When you talk to Roth, however, you realize “My First Kafka” is no joke.

The 34-year-old stumbled upon the idea after reading Kafka to his two daughters. “It happened because it happened,” he says over tea in DUMBO, Brooklyn. “I was sitting around reading Kafka, my kids wanted a story, we’d already read all their books, and I was like, okay, here we go! Here’s a story... 

Instead of unknown crimes and piles of never-ending paperwork – the more mundane, adult terrors of Kafka’s world – we’re given the sad tales of confused, lost creatures. Yet the grotesquerie of a man who is inexplicably transformed into a bug is exactly the sort of thing that would thrill a young audience.

But what exactly is this book about? Isn't Kafka well... Kafka?

Here's a synopsis from Amazon:

Runaway children who meet up with monsters. A giant talking bug. A secret world of mouse-people. The stories of Franz Kafka are wondrous and nightmarish, miraculous and scary. In My First Kafka, storyteller Matthue Roth and artist Rohan Daniel Eason adapt three Kafka stories into startling, creepy, fun stories for all ages. With My First Kafka, the master storyteller takes his rightful place alongside Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, and Lemony Snicket as a literary giant for all ages.

It misses this important aspect though, which brainpickings describes so well:

With stunning black-and-white illustrations by London-based fine artist Rohan Daniel Eason, this gem falls — rises, rather — somewhere between Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak, and the Graphic Canon series. 

As for the choice to adapt Kafka’s characteristically dark sensibility for children, Roth clearly subscribes to the Sendakian belief that grown-ups project their own fears onto kids, who welcome rather than dread the dark. Indeed, it’s hard not to see Sendak’s fatherly echo in Eason’s beautifully haunting black-and-white drawings.

Here's a good introduction to Metamorphosis, an illustration from which graces the front of this gem, from The Guardian:

Did you feel OK when you woke up this morning? Spare a thought for Gregor Samsa, that most unlucky of literary heroes. "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed … " 

Thus Franz Kafka opens one of the most resonant stories of 20th-century literature, about an ordinary man who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into an bug of indeterminate kind – an insect, a beetle, a cockroach – the original German "ungeheueren Ungeziefer" leaves his exact species ambiguous...

Here's the Google Doodle from this year, celebrating Kafka's birthday, showing how much appeal a man transformed into a "bug" can have (the image is static, but facts about Kafka appear below):
There is also a great little picture book called Beetle Boy by Lawrence David (and illustrated by Delphine Durand) that reminds me very much of this. When I finally found it in our bookshelves, I found that it was, indeed, inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis, the intent being to rewrite the story for much younger readers. I'm pleased to say this one is a favorite in our house, so this "Kafka for Kids" should fit in well.

* I nearly posted on the Google doodle on Kafka's birthday, thinking that Metamorphosis has a certain fairy tale quality, albeit with a difference. 

500 Rediscovered Fairy Tales & a Hollywood Article: Hollywood Fairy Tale Feeding Frenzy

There's not a whole lot of new information in the Hollywood article regarding the fairy tale films being made or what's happening on the small screen BUT there are some interesting theories on why we're having a fairy tale zeitgeist and it pays homage to the fairy tale's most exciting news this year - the discovery of 500 "lost"* fairy tales in Germany:

A quick aside: if you have not read Heidi's post on this great piece of fairy tale news:

       Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany: Collection of fairytales gathered by historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth had been locked away in an archive in Regensburg for over 150 years

-  and the Guardian article she's referring to, you should.

You can find it HERE.

I also like this neat and easy to read summary of the news from paperblog HERE.

King Golden Hair (from von Schönwerth's rediscovered tales) by Barbara Stefan

From Artinfo.com's article Hollywood Fairy Tale Feeding Frenzy: “Mirror Mirror,” “Snow White and the Huntsman”:

The discovery in Regensberg of 500 long-hidden German fairy tales assembled by Franz Xaver Schbnwerth (1810 – 86), which was  reported in The Guardian on Monday, is potentially excellent news for Hollywood. At the current rate with which the studios are racing to reformulate the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and other writers and collectors into modish, mostly live-action films, they will exhaust the familiar canon in two years tops.

[FTNH edit: May I just quickly interrupt to point out that one of the coolest things about these rediscovered tales is their rawness. Unlike the Grimm's who edited, revised, polished and essentially turned told tales into literary ones, these 'rediscovered' tales were faithfully recorded in their incomplete inaccuracies as retold by common folk, almost complete with "um's and ah's". While I would hope - would be excited to know - that there are directors, writers and creators in Hollywood who would happily be inspired and/or mine a story for a movie or series out of such stories, it's a lot harder than finding a book of tales [which is conveniently out of copyright] and remaking a version of those and so quite unlikely we're going to see these tales spawn Hollywood-happy material. I would love to be proven wrong on this.  

After summarizing what's coming to the screen Reporter Graham Fuller goes on to mention the two Little Mermaid projects that I haven't seen anything on for quite some time and speculates what else may be coming:]

Joe Wright (“Atonement”) will direct a live-action film of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Shana Feste (“Country Strong”) is prepping the film of Carolyn Turgeon’s comparatively dark 2011 novel “Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale.” 

Thirty-six years after the flowery British musical “The Slipper and the Rose” and 14 after the limp “Ever After,” a new “Cinderella” can’t be far behind, whether it’s based on the Greek version recorded in the first century B.C., the ninth-century Chinese one, the 1634 Neapolitan one, Perrault’s, the Grimms’, or Turgeon’s 2009 “Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story.”

[FTNH edit: I greatly appreciate that there was quite a bit of research that went into this article but I especially like what he has to say toward the end as it's a point of view I haven't seen put forward before. :]

The fairy-tale craze – which TV, too, has exploited with ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” -- was triggered by the massive success and prestige of Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” and the three films adapted so far from C.S. Lewis’s “Narnia Chronicles.” After  a wave of bland but violent period adventure films in the nineties, “LOTR” and then “Narnia” opened the doors to “romance” cinema – by which I mean medieval or medievally inflected stories and their ilk, as opposed to stories of romantic love. They depicted great deeds of heroism, invoked mysticism, deployed state-of-the-art special effects, and, crucially for grabbing the attention of female tweens and teens, had women or girl warriors. “King Arthur” (2004), with Keira Knightley as an aggressive proto-feminist Guinevere, extended this idea less convincingly, though the film was a global hit.

He's particularly referring to Snow White and the Huntsman here but I think this may play a part in the reason fairy tales are so popular right now. I don't think it's the reason it was "triggered" as he says  but I think it certainly may have helped it along.

You can read the entire Hollywood Fairy Tale Frenzy article HERE.

While we're on the subject of the re-found tales, what Hollywood people MAY find interesting is the unvarnished versions of familiar tales reported to be in the collection. From The Guardian (emphasis in bold is mine):

While sifting through Von Schönwerth's work, Eichenseer found 500 fairytales, many of which do not appear in other European fairytale collections. ... However, the collection also includes local versions of the tales children all over the world have grown up with including Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin, and which appear in many different versions across Europe.

While I'm excited to see the new tales, I'm very interested to read unedited, raw versions of tales we already know - the popular culture versions of the time. My wish list now includes: a fully translated-to-English version of the whole collection, a book in which the raw tales are printed alongside the literary ones and a children's illustrated book of raw pop-culture tales from the mid-1800s (yes - like a children's storybook, only using those tales and having the artists use those as the source of inspiration). That would make for a fascinating reflection of society among the common people (like you and me) both then and now. (You know I'm not the only one wanting new illustrations!) The last on the list is a book in which a modern day "recorder" goes around and writes down familiar and not-so-familiar tales of the common/average people of today and contrasts it with the source (with illustrations please - children's stories today must have illustrations if they are to reflect how things are at present). I think we could learn a lot about ourselves, about our past and about fairy tales. Anyone up for it?

Mr. & Mrs. Vinegar at Home by Arthur Rackham

And for those that read Heidi's post and the Guardian article but not the comments posted on the Guardian article, I suggest giving them a read too, HERE. Among some superior comments and silly ones there are some useful insights, some great links and other useful notes. I'm including one that caught my eye by "Mercurey":

There is some interesting work being done my anthropologists on the cultural life of street people. And there, the oral tradition is very much alive. As a source of entertainment and as an education to those entering that world.
Very much like fairy tales once did for children.
Theater company called Cardboard Citizens well worth looking out for.

The 'homeless children' aka Hansel & Gretel, of ABC's Once Upon A Time

It reminded me of the myths told by homeless children in Miami, discussed years ago in the SurLaLune site boards HERE. The original article, Myths Over Miami, can now be found archived  HERE. It's an amazing read but I have to wonder, did anybody ever go and write them all down - as a collection of tales, I mean - or was it just recorded for study purposes only and eventually summarized for an article? If this BIG NEWS on rediscovering 500 fairy tales tells us anything, it's that we should be careful not to lose the treasures we already have. I would suggest that this very thing is happening too easily right now. It's the age of information overload but somewhere, somehow we need to distinguish what's important and find a way to record it - in a way that won't be lost - for future generations and history to grow upon.

Note: I have, of course, added Franz Xaver von Schönwerth to the board of Influential Fairy Tale People I have on Pinterest. I now have 73 pins of fairy tale people you should be aware of and be thankful for but and know I'm still missing some key people. While I don't have a picture of von Schönwerth I found his signature, which will have to do for now. :)

*There's some speculation about the "lost" thing. It appears they weren't really out of complete circulation (there are German texts available of some of the work online). They just weren't widely available or known. There's also no known English translation of the full collection but once that changes - go Dan Szabo! (this Munich based translator is working on it right now)- they won't likely fall out of circulation again. 

Cabinet des Fées Fairy Tale Journal Issue #8 is Live

The September 2009 issue (#8) of fairy tale journal "Cabinet des Fées" is now live online.

If you're not familiar with this journal you'll be pleasantly surprised by the variety of offerings and new fairy tale based works in these collections.

Rather than try to describe the content, I'll quote from their website:

Cabinet des Fées is an online journal begun in 2005 as a result of our love of fairy tales in all of their manifestations. We’ve seen two issues in print with a third on the way, but now are online only. Scheherezade’s Bequest is our tri-annual offering of fiction and poetry. We keep our editorials and announcements, plus other news we come across that we think our readers might appreciate in Our Grim(m)oire, where you’ll find Storytellers, live readings of the fantastic in literature. We also present essays from and interviews with respected authors, editors, scholars and other assorted personalities in the fields of fairy tales, folklore and myth.

Here's the content line-up for this issue:

Fiction and Poetry:

Rapunzel Considers the Desert by Jeannine Hall Gailey
Harp by Alex Wilson
In the Ashes by Gerri Leen
Dahut’s Curse by Jennifer Lawrence
Basic Biology by Caren Gussoff
A Wolf’s Lament by M. Lynn Johnson
The Bear and the Bicycle by Catherine Knutsson
All Underneath the Eildon Tree by Joshua Gage
Connla mac Lia and the Kingship of Eriu by Amal El-Mohtar
The Courtship of Caoilte and Yvaine by Jessica P. Wick
Anthology by Sonya Taaffe
Faithful by Brittany Warren
Stone Flowers by Mike Allen
Envy by Grace Andreacchi
Cry Wolf by Adrienne J. Odasso

... and a whole lot of book reviews.

Cabinet des Fées is also planning on having more regular online content so, while not reverting to a blog, there will be new fairy tale content being added regularly to the site from now on.

They also have two journals in print and available for purchase (a third is currently in the works). Click on the covers to be taken to more information and purchase options.

Submissions for the next issue will re-open on October 1st (guidelines are HERE).

You can find the online journal HERE.

Fairy Tale Review White Issue now Available

EDITED FOR CORRECTIONS ON 6-25-09 (at 7:30pm) - Additional text are in italics and colored red. (Thank you Kate!)

This literary publication was solely founded and edited by Kate Bernheimer, a writer and fairy tale scholar well known to those who study fairy tales. [She edited the wonderful book "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales", and has written a number of fairy tale based novels.]

From the website:

Fairy Tale Review is an annual literary journal devoted to contemporary fairy tales. The journal hopes to provide an elegant and innovative venue for both established and emerging authors of poetry and prose. Fairy Tale Review is not devoted to any particular school of writing, but rather to fairy tales as an inspiring art form.

A summary of the contributing authors for this issue and some previews are here. There is also a CD of the white issue being made with lots of music contributions as part of the presentation.

Previous issues - blue, green and violet - in addition to being available through their website and through the co-publisher, University of Alabama Press, are now available to buy through Amazon.com (please note the journal is housed independently and has no other affiliation with the University)

For more insider information check out the Fairy Tale Review blog.