50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Short stories of tolerance, humility, and natural love, November 15, 2003
This review is from: Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (Signet classics) (Paperback)
Anyone who's seen the Oscar Wilde biopic starring Stephen Fry as the great wit will have noticed him narrating "The Selfish Giant" to his children. At first, I thought he was telling a story someone else had written, but when I heard a brief narration of a story in the movie Tesis, and discovered that it was from an Oscar Wilde story, I wondered if the giant story had been written by him. Discovery of this book confirmed that fact for me.
This collection comprises both the Happy Prince compilation and the House of Pomegranates compilation of Oscar Wilde's short stories. The Happy Prince contains these stories:
The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Selfish Giant
The Devoted Friend
The Remarkable Rocket
The House Of Pomegranates contains these stories:
The Young King
The Birthday of the Infanta
The Fisherman and His Soul
The Star-Child
These stories are suitable for adults as well as children. Wilde's adherence to Fabian socialist philosophy is seen in many of the tales here. Basically, equal distribution of wealth, accompanied by tolerance, humility, and natural love would lead to true individualism. Many figures will have to become Christ-like martyrs to achieve such a world, regardless of whether the receiver of the gift will appreciate their sacrifice, as is the heartbreaking story of "The Nightingale And The Rose."
Examples of this include The Happy Prince, where the prince, a living statue, gives up the jewels of his sword, the jewels making up his eyes to those less fortunate and finds himself happier as a result. The same motif can be found in "The Selfish Giant", who builds a wall around his garden to keep the children from playing in it; as a result, Spring never comes to the garden and it's perpetual Winter. The giant realizes his selfishness and tears down the wall. And like the giant, the title character in "The Star-Child" goes from being proud of his good looks and standing, adopting a philosophy like the Remarkable Rocket (see below), then undergoes humility and suffering when those are taken from him, and becomes selfless and repentant as a result of his suffering.
Other main characters never see beyond their selfish egotism. The Infanta in "The Birthday of the Infanta" is amused by a dancing dwarf, who is hunchbacked and ugly to behold. She and her companions are doubled with laughter at his entertainment. The poor dwarf, whom the Infanta has given a rose, thinks the Infanta loves him, and also, raised in the forest, is blissfully unaware of his countenance. It is only when he looks in the mirror that he dies of a broken heart. The Infanta then declares that no one should have a heart.
A denunciation to the upper class of the British Empire, who have an aura of self-importance around them, is given in "The Remarkable Rocket" The Rocket's philosophy, "the only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everyone else" is telling of the misguided romantic mentality of this upper class.
But only in the psyches of certain individuals does true social consciousness arrive, such as "The Young King" whose dreams of the horrible cost of ordinary people who have suffered so that the upper class may prosper, deeply distresses him to the point that he refuses wear the luxurious signs of power symbolizing the raiment of the king. "...on the loom of sorrow, and by the hands of Pain, has this robe been woven. There is Blood in the heart of this Ruby, and Death in the heart of this pearl." "Shall a man not eat bread till he has seen the sower, nor drink wine till he has talked with the vinedresser" adds the King, in a foretelling of the sweatshops and maquiladoras of today.
And BTW, for those who have seen Alejandro Amenebar's Tesis, "The Birthday Of The Infanta" is the story Chema tells Angela as they are walking down the hallway of the college's movie archives.
Reading these stories and realizing how the Fabian society's dreams of a compassionate world is far from been fulfilled should give one pause to think what kind of world we live in.
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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most beautiful collection of fairy tales in literature., July 8, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (Signet classics) (Paperback)
Thank you, Amazon!
I have been trying to find this collection for more than 30 years and have never been successful either at a bookstore or a library.
I first read this collection when I was in my early 20s and working toward a teaching degree. I never forgot the beauty of the images Wilde evokes and the way his little stories tug at the heartstrings.
I suppose this wonderful collection has been buried so long because of Wilde's sexual orientation. That's so sad because it means that millions of children growing up over the past several decades have missed experiencing these tales. I'm glad to see that the collection is back in print and that Amazon is carrying it. I hope moms and dads and aunts and uncles looking for beautiful stories for their children don't fail to consider these.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A touching collection of stories, March 15, 2001
This review is from: Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde (Signet classics) (Paperback)
A good friend of mine mentioned "The Happy Prince" as one of his favorite stories which he'd seen on TV as a cartoon Christmas special some years ago.
When I came across the book in a bookstore, my interest was piqued and I bought it up to take a look.
As I read through the stories, the memories came back to me of the short cartoon skits I'd seen as a kid. The cartoons never hit me as heavily as the book did. The impact of these simple children's stories is remarkable and I found myself profoundly moved by the various characters acting out of love, devotion and their sense of ideals. "The Happy Prince", "The Selfish Giant" and "The Nightingale and the Rose" were especially touching.
It isn't an easy job to write a story for children that carries over on another level when the reader is an adult, yet Oscar Wilde has done it with an entire collection. I'm very impressed and can recommend it to anyone.
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