Customer Reviews

Black Thorn, White Rose

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Many people don't realize that the fairy tales we grew up on were not always stories aimed at children. As is discussed in the forward of this book, the original fairy tales were frequently much darker and disturbing than the ones we are familiar with today. Sleeping Beauty, for example, is not brought awake by the chaste kiss of Prince Charming but rather the suckling of the twin babies she has born, having been impregnated by the less-than-charming prince while she slept. It was only during the Victorian period, when realism became the fashion, that these stories were relegated by men to the domain of women and children, being sanitized in the process so as not to upset the more delicate sensibilities.

This anthology, along with its companion volumes, returns the fairy tale to its roots. In doing so it strikes a chord deep within us. The stories contained within are both familiar and strange at the same time. Because of this they are sometimes eerily disturbing, sometimes heart-wrenchingly poignant, always entertaining.

The one drawback of this collection, as with any anthology, is that style and quality vary according to author. The good news is that most of these stories are very well written and if you run across one you don't like, you can always move on to the next.

If you're looking for something enjoyable to read, you could do far worse than this collection. Overall I strongly recommend this book.

...Now, admittedly, I'm only halfway through the series. I've read _Black Heart, Ivory Bones_ and _Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears_, liked them both for the most part, and yet this volume (second in the series, chronologically) tops them both. There are so many wonderful stories...here are some of the highlights:

"Stronger Than Time", a poignant take on Sleeping Beauty, sad yet hopeful.

"Somnus' Fair Maid", Sleeping Beauty again; this time it's a delightful Regency romp. No supernatural elements, but plenty of magic.

"The Brown Bear of Norway", a touching teen romance between a lonely girl and her mysterious pen pal.

"Tattercoats"--this is what comes _after_ "happily ever after". The Princess has been married to her beloved for ten years, and their marriage has become a dull routine...but she is going to fight for it, with the help of three magical gifts. Sexy, sexy, very sexy, and also made me cry.

"Godson", in which a young man has the Grim Reaper himself as a mentor. They fall out over whether certain people should be spared. Darkly comic; the ending is hilarious.

"The Black Swan"--seems to be a blend of Cinderella, Swan Lake, and Pygmalion. A pretentious serving-man trains an awkward princess in social graces and gives her a makeover; this story is both a heartbreaking tale of shapeshifting, and a barbed commentary on beauty standards of any time.

And the trouble is, I just know I'm going to think of three more stories I loved as soon as I log off the computer. BUY THIS BOOK. All these incredible stories, and cheap! LOL...

The good AND bad thing about Datlow's anthologies is that they sort of lack a common theme in the selection of stories. Thus with each book you're bound to find some items which fit your tastes and capture you, and some which you'll find absurdely boring or uninteresting just because of some old grudge against a particular character or theme. Having said this, if you're even remotely interested in "mature audiences" fairytales, you'd better go and get hold of this and the other titles in the series.

This is the fourth anthology of Datlow and Windling's that I have read. If you've read any of the fairy tale anthologies and liked them, then you shouldn't be disappointed with this one. "Stronger Than Time" tells the story of "Sleeping Beauty" from an original perspective. "Godson" is a story about a young man whose "god"-father is Satan. "Sweet Bruising Skin" is an interesting and disturbing take on "The Princess and the Pea." With stories by Peter Straub, Roger Zelazny, Patricia C. Wrede and more, this is an anthology that's definitely worth the read.

Having read this shortly after "Snow White, Blood Red," I was pleasantly surprised to note a definite improvement. Though the first collection did boast a number of strong stories, overall, I thought that those in "Black Thorn, White Rose" were more consistently effective, meaningful, and well-written. A key improvement was the avoidance of the previous volume's reliance on sex and gore for shock value, the overall effect of which was to create the impression that the authors were trying too hard. Mature elements alone do not necessarily constitute an "adult" story - the authors here instead work largely with emotional texture and maturity, without losing the simple pleasure of innovation and recreation (or of a good sex scene, as needed!).

Although all the stories that I enjoyed are too numerous to list, a few of my favorites were the following:
- Daniel Quinn's "The Frog King, or Iron Henry." Though confusing at first (I had to read half the story before I could begin to understood it at all), the cumulative effect of its repetition and circular dialogue is deeply tragic. It would be wonderful to read it in complement with Gahan Wilson's "The Frog Prince" from the first collection - both elusive, ambiguous portraits of lost and lonely frog princes.
- M. E. Beckett's "Near-Beauty." Hilarious, quirky, and wistful. A wonderfully bizarre sci-fi Frog Prince (another good counterpoint to the previous story), featuring a talking cane toad.
- Isabel Cole's "The Brown Bear of Norway." A frustrated and lonely young girl finds, loses, and remakes a connection with her enigmatic Norwegian penpal. Not only one of my favorite slightly-obscure fairy tales, but beautifully and eerily told in language that is both personal and mythically poetic.
- Jane Yolen's "Granny Rumple." Definitely packs a punch - an exceedingly sharp Rumpelstiltskin retelling set in a Russian Jewish ghetto, with an edge I haven't seen in many other Yolen stories. It only falters when it unnecessarily pounds in the theme of Jewish victimization.

Of course, this volume still had its down notes - Ann Elizabeth Downer's "Somnus's Fair Maid," which had the enormous detraction of its ineffective and poorly-written (at least for a staunch Austen and Susanna Clarke fan) veneer of Regency language; Midori Snyder's predictable and frothily, forcedly romantic "Tattercoats;" and Howard Waldrop's "The Sawing Boys," which, though sustaining a fantastically funny hick-town resetting of the Bremen Town Musicians, eventually gets lost in its own conceit, rendering its melancholy ending somewhat sudden and awkward.

Overall, though, I much more consistently enjoyed this collection, and hope to continue reading the series; I'll be very interested to see developments in later collections.

As Datlow and Windling make clear in their foreword, fairytales were not originally intended for children. While I've never minded the Disneyfication of these stories - do we really want six-year-olds watching the ugly stepsisters hack off their own toes? - there is something marvelously gothic that is lost for the adult reader.

BLACK THORN, WHITE ROSE finds that gothic brilliance and twists it, exploring new tales in old stories that are heartwrenching, brilliant and entertaining, almost without exception. A few highlights:

"Stronger Than Time" by Patricia C. Wede retells Sleeping Beauty with a twist even I didn't expect, and a bittersweet beauty undreamt-of by Aurora and her Prince. Try a Jewish take on Rumpelstiltskin with "Granny Rumple" by Jane Yolen, or the strangely compelling "Godson" by Roger Zelazny. Peter Straub disturbs us with "Ashputtle" and its bizarre schoolmarm. "Words Like Pale Stones" is the best retelling of Rumpelstilskin I have yet read, with kudos to author Nancy Kress.

I didn't personally care for "Somnus's Fair Maid," another Sleeping Beauty that reads like a regency romance without the sex. There are many who would, however - it's just that regency isn't my bag. "The Frog King, or Iron Henry" by Daniel Quinn was a bit too repetitive, too circular for my taste, though that was obviously the point of it.

I think my favorite was probably "Sweet Bruising Skin" by Storm Constantine, a retelling of the princess and the pea from the queen mother's point of view - and we can see it her way. But the most heartwrenching is indubitably "The Black Swan" by Susan Wade, who follows Constantine with another story of women's attempts to remain beautiful and the price they pay for it. It closes this anthology with the perfect mix of sorrow and rejoicing.

The key is that each story was unique, a vision of the old stories that is so different as to render the underlying fable irrelevant. They may have been inspired by Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and that poor girl sleeping on the pea, but their execution is focused through the prism of the varied minds brought together in this book. The result is a fascinating anthology, definitely worth your time.

Read the full review in CultureGeek: http://bellevillenewsdemocrat.typepad.com/culturegeek/2008/06/bookgeek-black.html

I am done with Black Thorn, White Rose and overall I liked it. :) The stories I really enjoyed were Stronger Than Time (Sleeping Beauty based), Somnus's Fair Maiden (Sleeping Beauty based), Tattercoats (big favorite for adults, with some sexual scenes and a wonderful message about trying to keep love, passion and communication going in a marriage), Granny Rumple (Rumplestiltskin based with a twist about Jews), Godson (big fave - I think based on Cinderella and the fairy godmother), Silver and Gold (another big favorite; it's a poem about Little Red Riding Hood and the metaphorical dangers we meet everyday) and The Black Swan (based on the Swan Princess and females trying to meet the contemporary standards for beauty).

Some stories I didn't know before so I couldn't compare it in my head, but they were good stories in themselves. :)

I have to say I liked "Snow White, Blood Red" a lot more than this one. SWBR was edgier, more chilling, and with more beautiful storytelling. I was bored during a lot of this book, disappointingly, and only a few stories stuck out. And the stories were so different from each other, there was no "theme" to the book, which I guess is the point. But placing beautiful, heart-wrenching stories like "The Black Swan","The Brown Bear of Norway", and "Tattercoats" with disgusting, obnoxious tales like "Ashputtle" and dull, monotonous stories like "The Sawing Boys" was too much of a contrast for my taste. I'm going to keep collecting the series, but I hope the other books are better than this one.

I am a huge fan of fantasy. Most recently, Patricia Wrede's Goose Girl. It's her amazing contribution to this book that led me to buy it. Unfortunately, I found the other short stories to be unsatisfying. For the most part, they felt incomplete. They were abstract pieces of fiction rather than stories with a twist. Unfortunately, I am giving up on even finishing the whole thing. If there is another story in there that would be appealing to me, I'm frustrated enough that I'm not going to get to it.

For those interested, Black Thorn, White Rose has just been reissued in trade paperback by Prime Books with new cover art and design.