Grimm Tales: For Young and Old (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

Product Information

After the eighth month had gone, she called her husband and said to him, weeping, 'If I die, bury me under the juniper tree.' Pullman retells his fifty favorites, paying homage to the tales that inspired his unique creative vision—and that continue to cast their spell on the Western imagination. It's getting the rating it does because these were advertised as "retellings," when they are really no such thing, and Pullman isn't really clear why he selected the ones he did. In my opinion his commentary didn't really add much, and in one case, it was just weird: he detailed a Jungian analysis of a fairy tale that sounded quite interesting, before dismissing it as "twaddle" and saying it's just a coincidence that this fairy tale fits a formula and it's better without thinking about all that stuff anyway. I was like, "O...kay?" I know hardly anything about Jung so I don't really feel fit to say if it's twaddle or not, but finding patterns and going through the psychology of things is, to me, actually fun. To dismiss psychological analysis or symbolic imagery of fairy tales because "they're fairy tales" seems like things are kind of being sold short. At Marburg they fell under the influence of Professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny, whose idea that law grew naturally out of the language and history of a people and should not be arbitrarily applied from above turned the Grimms to the study of philology. Through Von Savigny and his wife Kunigunde Brentano, they also made the acquaintance of the circle around her brother Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim, who married Brentano's other sister, the writer Bettina. One of the preoccupations of this group was German folklore. Their enthusiasm for this subject resulted in Von Arnim and Brentano's Des Knaben Wunderhorn ( The Youth's Magic Horn), a collection of folk songs and folk poetry of all kinds, the first volume of which appeared in 1805 and immediately became popular. PP: Uh, yes. That’s pretty much where I am. If we all gave all our goods to the poor, the church would fall apart. If we all hated our father and mother, as Jesus told us to, there’d be an end of the church’s emphasis on the family as being the one important thing holding the whole society together. There are all sorts of ways in which the church’s teachings contradict directly what Jesus says in the Gospel.

I came to this edition of Grimm purely as an accompaniment to Shaun Tan's The Singing Bones a wonderful book of sculptures that illustrate these tales. I must admit to initially being more inspired by the illustrated history of Grimm fairy tales than the fairy tales themselves. However, Philip Pullman has done a nice job collating and "sprucing up" 50 of these stories. MJ: It’s clear why some of the old versions have fallen out of favor with parents. “The Robber Bridegroom,” for instance, is pretty disturbing. At what age would you say they’re appropriate for kids?

It's unclear exactly what Pullman has done. He pretends to some level of academic credibility, but fails to provide it. I get the feeling he's read a few versions of each story and cobbled together his favourite bits into something he finds personally satisfying, but his notes are rather smug and self-serving. He claims that these stories are not "texts" in the way a modern novel is a text, implying that they are some kind of oral-historic truth, existing on their own as some weird narrative Platonic ideal. And then he proceeds to "improve" them, thereby invalidating his claim.

While there is nothing wrong with Wilson’s short plays, two grouped series of five and seven classic fairytales, the likes of: Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and other less well-known stories like, Thousandfurs, Donkey Cabbage, and Faithful Johannes, there isn’t a whole lot to commend them either. With straightforward split dialogue, minimal stage directions, and simple suggestions for costume, setting, and props, there is a lot of room for personal interpretation, which would be fine for a newer work, but begs the question why adapt these stories at all when play versions of them already exist, if the playwright isn’t going to bring more of themselves into the adaptations? The plays, as they are can be fluidly interpreted, but I fear the audience’s boredom by the last third of each set - unless some very dynamic and different interpretations are undertaken, there is a certain feeling of continuity to them.Hacia el final del libro encontré The Goose Girl at the Spring, que es extraordinario. El escritor narra el cuento, pero es solo hacia el final del mismo, que el lector se da cuenta que el narrador está dentro de la historia, y precisamente se le olvida la parte final, que de alguna manera tiene que ser completada por el lector. Este es un cuento de origen Austríaco, de 1833. Spot on! I have no time for all of this sub-Jungian twaddle either. The point is that this entire ponderous explanatory superstructure is not just so; this is just so much extraneous rubbish; this is the tendentious uses of enchantment school. Pullman believes that most of the interpretations offered are little more than seeing pleasant patterns in the sparks of a fire, doing no harm. Well, perhaps, though for me much of the over-intellectualising is little better than a verbal form of the Emperor’s new clothes. There is simply nothing there.

A number of people have been disappointed with this book, because they start out expecting the normal Pullman fantasy. However, living as I do, on an island with a great tradition of folk tale story telling, I was most interested in his introduction about the writing of folk stories, and how they are formed. This was a fascinating insight into the dos and don'ts of story telling in this genre. I know, I'm so mean - I'm talking about a book you'll have to wait OVER A WEEK FOR. If you're in the UK (or, um...anywhere served by the Penguin Classics based out of the UK), you can buy this now. It just has a different title and cover. You'll be looking for Grimm Tales for Young and Old and I'll be cursing you under my breath because I totally want the cover that comes with your version of the book.These are the tales that show Pullman's dexterity and wit, concise, without massive characterisation, but told sparely and with an eye for a moral.