How To Fracture a Fairytale by Jane Yolen is a collection of short stories from across the author's long career. I hadn't read anything of hers before I picked up this book, but I'd heard good things, so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy reading this book. I got a bit over half way before I decided to give up. This was not an easy decision, but I seem to keep promising that I'll let myself DNF books and in the end I figured it was time that I just put the book down, even though it's a review copy. Since it's short stories, I will still include my individual story reviews below and a bit about why this book didn't work for me.
Fantasy legend Jane Yolen presents a wide-ranging offering of fractured fairy tales. Yolen fractures the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets, holding them to the light and presenting them entirely transformed; where a spinner of straw into gold becomes a money-changer and the big bad wolf retires to a nursing home. Rediscover the tales you once knew, rewritten and refined for the world we now live in―or a much better version of it.
On the surface, these should be the kind of stories that I enjoy. For example, I am a bit fan of Angela Slatter's short stories, and a lot of those could easily be described as "fractured fairytales" (or shattered and twisted horribly...). Most of the stories in this book didn't stand up to those at all. I found most of the stories I read to be shallow and fairly bland. Some of this could be due to not standing the test of time well, but I don't think that applies to all the stories.
From the stories I did read, the best were definitely the ones drawing on Yolen's Jewish background. My favourite was "Granny Rumple", which was told in the style of a family story passed down a few generations. It had depth and feeling and more interesting characterisation than a lot of the other stories. To be fair, it was also a more lengthy story, but "Slipping Sideways Through Eternity" was short, involved the holocaust, and was also better than most of the other stories. The story I found most amusing was "The Bridge's Complaint", which was told from the point of view of the bridge and was an interesting take. The story that jarred me the most was "One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King" which was long and just boring. I would guess that it was based on a Chinese story (and the author's afterword confirms this) but I don't see what this retelling added in terms of making an interesting story.
There were "about the story" bits at the end of the book, which I didn't read (except the one I just mentioned above, and that was only for this review) and poems which I couldn't be bothered trying, given my general exhaustion with this book. Honestly, I am going to be glad to stop seeing it in my currently reading section.
I obviously don't recommend this book. There are much better "fractured fairytales" in the world. I would recommend starting with Angela Slatter's, but she's hardly the only choice.
~
Snow in Summer — A short Snow White retelling with a more satisfying end for the stepmother.
The Bridge's Complaint — An amusing story about goats, a bridge and a troll, told from the perspective of the bridge. I rather enjoyed it.
The Moon Ribbon — A girl acquires an unpleasant step mother and step sisters (much like Cinderella) and a magic ribbon from her late mother. There is no ball but the abusive relations get what’s coming to them. A more interesting read for how far it deviates from the original.
Godmother Death — A story about Death and her godson. An enjoyable tale.
Happy Dens or A Day in the Wold Wolves' Home — A story containing three shorter stories. When Nurse Lamb goes to work at Happy Dens, where older wolves are looked after, she is at first afraid of being among all the wolves but then hears some famous fairytales from the wolves points of view and feels better about it all. It’s a story about spin — positive and negative — and how people tend to make themselves the heroes of the stories they tell. I couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy about it. The stories told by the wolves were a bit too positive to be entirely believable (in the context of the story world)... or maybe it just hasn’t held up well in our current fake-news world.
Granny Rumple — I particularly liked this story. It’s told from Yolen’s own perspective and recounts a family story that has been passed down a few generations. The story itself is about a Jewish family, including a moneylender, living in a Ukrainian ghetto and some of their interactions with goyim. It is told as an alternate-perspective basis for the story of Rumpelstiltskin with bonus racism and a small pogrom thrown in. I feel like this story, trying to explore a similar theme of different perspectives to “Happy Dens”, does so in a much more compelling manner and I found it a much more engaging and confronting read.
One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King — Three brothers set out to save their dying mother by retrieving a magical ring from a dragon. It wasn’t a terrible story, but it was on the long side and, ultimately, kind of unremarkable.
Brother Hart — A sad story about a pair of siblings, one of whom turns into a deer each day. I couldn’t work out which side I should be on while reading and it didn’t end happily.
Sun/Flight — I suppose this was inspired by Icarus, possibly with something else thrown in that I didn’t recognise. It didn’t really work for me. Fine, but meh.
Slipping Sideways Through Eternity — I liked this story. It’s about a modern fifteen year old who is briefly transported to 1943 by Elijah, who I gather from the story is a mythical Jewish figure.
The Foxwife — About a man and his kitsune wife, whom he treats badly once he learns of her nature. It was OK. Didn’t feel that “fractured” though.
The Faery Flag — A young laird is led into faeryland by his dog, falls in love with a faery and... it doesn’t end badly. I guess that’s subversive but it’s not sufficiently emotive to be interesting either.
One Old Man, with Seals — The story of an old lady living alone in a lighthouse and coming across an old man surrounded by seals. I wonder whether this story packs a more significant punch of the reader is familiar with the source material? I am not and what seemed like the punchline wasn’t very punchy.
Sleeping Ugly — A children’s story but an amusing remix of Sleeping Beauty. The tone worked well for this one, I thought.
The Undine — A more depressing version of The Little Mermaid? I’m not really sure what we were meant to take from this very short story.
And that was all I read. I started the next story, but just gave up in psychological exhaustion. I list the rest of the stories below for some semblance of completion.
Great-Grandfather Dragon's Tale
Green Plague
The Unicorn and the Pool
The Golden Balls
Sister Death
Sule Skerry
Once a Good Man
Allerleirauh
The Gwynhfar
Cinder Elephant
Mama Gone
The Woman Who Loved a Bear
Wrestling with Angels
No star rating.
First published: November 2018, Tachyon Publications
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
