Customer Reviews

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers

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Warner's text is huge, but thouroughly enjoyable, filled with cultural analises that range from obstetrics to hagiography and with equal respect for every approach between gynocriticism, materialism and psychoanalysis. The book is crammed with so much information and so many intersting details, that sometimes one wonders if these goodies are directly related to the topic, but the information is fascinating anyway, even when it does nothing to further her arguments. The first part concentrates on the tellers of fairy and wonder tales, who they were and under what conditions they told their tales. It also begins to explain the dual nature of fairy tales that will become the central issue of the second half of the book: how these tales, oral as well as literary, supported both subversive and consevative discourses, often within a single narrative. Potential readers should not presume that the only fairy tale studied is Beauty and the Beast, as the title seems to imply; many popular fairy tales have their own chapters devoted to them such as Donkeyskin, Bluebeard and The Little Mermaid. A few of the chapters, specifically the one on Angela Carter are a bit obscure, but the conclusion is brilliant, and the bibliography alone deserves special mention as an invaluable resource. The book is excellent for historians, folklorists, fairy/wonder tale scholars and feminists alike, but it will also enhance the enjoyment of those who read fairy tales only for pleasure.

Why do people pass on fairy tales from generation to generation? The tales are violent and seem sexist to modern eyes. Warner's book sets the truth about fairy tales into an historical perspective.

This contrasts with Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" which suggests that there is an opportunity for psychological exploration within each fairy tale if we identify with the various characters. In other words, there is a wicked stepmother, a forlorn orphan and a powerful prince etc within each of us. I found his ideas enjoyable and useful but I think Warner's historical analysis is more realistic.

She tackles such contentious issues as that of the wicked stepmother, pointing out the complex situation that was created for a woman marrying a widow who already had children. The temptation to treat those children badly in favour of her own children was quite real because of her financial dependence on her new husband. Hence the need for tales that warned against women behaving like that. There is a lot of other fascinating material in the book, such as the development of the image of St Anne (reputed to be Jesus' grandmother) into the image of dear Nan, from which we get the name Nana for grandmothers and for nannies as well. I didn't agree with Warner's analysis of the little mermaid and have posted my own one on the Amazon site for Hans Anderson's Fairy Stories.

Those interested in this kind of book might also like to read A.D. Hope's book " A Midsummer Eve's Dream". It is surprising how few fairies and elves there are in regular fairy stories - a case of art imitating life perhaps! But there are some, and Hope's book helps us to understand how the idea of fairies developed in England. It seems that it was the suppression of gods and goddesses by Christianity that gave rise to miniaturised images of them in the form of fairies. Hope regrets this but, from the number of descriptions he gives of midnight cavorts around fairy mounds, followed by sexual excesses of various sorts, I think the fairies were probably doing a lot to promote sexually transmitted diseases!

A book that I've lost but was invaluable was Catherine Brigges? Bigge? "A Dictionary of Fairies". It told you everything you needed to know about the subject. Should you thank a fairy? Not if you ever wanted to see it again. What is glamor? It's one thing with film stars and another with fairies. Planning a visit to fairy land? It's a more dangerous place than most realise. However if you love to wander in the fairyland of our collective imagination, then consider Warner's book or any of the other books that I've mentioned. They are useful guides to help you find your way around.

Disconnected facts and images slowly conjeal into a dreamlike portrait of fairy tales, and the roles that women hold within them. An easy read; though seemingly disjointed at first, Warner gradually hands you more pieces of the puzzle. My only request would be for a more panoramic picture.

If you love fairy tales and their backgrounds, buy this book. It's worth the read. Warner is an excellent author, and she makes a very good point regarding the role of women in the passing along of fairy tales to the next generation. This is a terrific book on fairy tales, and folklore in general.

Marina Warner's _From the Beast to the Blonde_ is a wonderful and engaging work concerning the cultural history of fairy tales. Warner explores the "stock characters" and stories of traditional tales, and in the process creates an excellent work of scholarship and criticism in an area of literature that has been relegated to the nursery, but didn't start there.

I read this book back in high school when I was just starting to get interested in fairy tale analysis. It's very indepth, well-written, and enjoyable. It's easy to understand and straightforward but offers so much information you're bound to learn something new. I highly recommend From the Beast to the Blonde to anyone that loves fairy tales or mythology.

Author Marina Warner has dug deep into the history and meaning behind the celebrated fairy tales I loved as a child. Well-written and alive with insight of the heroine's journey in these precious stories, I will continue to use this book to enhance and bring forth a deeper, complex character for the heroines I create in my own novels.
Kimberley Dehn
Author, Southern Exposure, Wings ePress,Inc.

Anyone who is interested in fairy tales, myth, allegory and related topics would benefit from reading this book. Marina Warner's knowledge base is amazing and at times a lot to digest, but her perspective is like none other. I read it through once to get the flavor of what she's saying and am now on my way back through noting things I want to look up and explore further. One thing I've learned is that there are a lot of images in our everyday life that harken back to the earliest days and we have no understanding anymore of their significance, for example the Stork or the figure of Mother Goose. The book is an eye opener in that regard.

Marina Warner writes absolutely beautiful prose, which alone is worth the price of this book. She is ... well, "enchanting" on the subject of myth as social commentary and psychological revelation.

Warner understands that much of our mythic wisdom is feminine wisdom -- and, like Jung, she appreciates that "feminine" and "masculine" are words that describe aspects of what is universally human, not contradictory or competing factions in society.

All human intellectual disciplines involve story-telling and myth. History, for instance, is filled with mythic twists on "true" stories. (See Warner's own book on Joan of Arc, for example.) Similarly the Western chronicle of scientific achievement is a collection of metaphors ("Newton's clock," "Superstrings") that are useful for a while, then get discarded. Accordingly, the literal-minded should pause to consider exactly what they mean by "truth": Iris Murdoch has suggested that: "You may know a truth, but if it is at all complicated you have to be an artist not to utter it as a lie."

The legacy of stories we have inherited were usually first told by women, often to children, in a world where both of these groups of persons lacked real power. The stories, unsurprisingly, reflect the concerns and fears of people in such circumstances, as well as the general interests and universal dreams of human beings always and everywhere.

We need them. We cannot live without them -- both stories and women, that is.