| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ellis is superb.,
This review is from: Fairy Tale (Paperback)
I have read only four of her books, but each one is a masterpiece. Once again Ellis creates an uncanny brilliant story, best described as 'supernatural comedy of manners'. The spiteful interactions of all her characters are spot on and funny. This is combined with the eerie story of being attacked by the fairy folk. Excellent authoress, excellent book.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Contains a Scene of Superb Comic Genius,
By
This review is from: Fairy Tale (Common Reader's Alice Thomas Ellis) (Paperback)
There are some comic moments in novels that I never forget and that make me smile and laugh when I recall them. This novel has one of those great moments in it. Part of the fun of the novel is in the slow move from realism to the supernatural. The story begins with a couple trying to make a living on a small farm in Wales. The novel's beautiful descriptions of Wales, of the quaint cottage, and the picture-postcard romance of the young couple's country life lull us into the fantasy of a return to older days and times when country people believed in fairies. The strange happenings in the Welsh countryside begin simply, and we are slowly sucked into the weird, eerie atmosphere of the novel. The addition of two wordly women to farming couple's life adds more tensions as social values clash. Humor and social satire increase along with the tension until you reach a most magnificent climax and enjoyable denoument.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I'm sick of the smell of fresh air.",
By
This review is from: Fairy Tale (Common Reader's Alice Thomas Ellis) (Paperback)
One of Ellis's most unusual novels, Fairy Tale is simultaneously bizarre and darkly humorous, intensely realistic and also fantastic, and magical but absurd, a combination certain to intrigue lovers of fine writing and keep them reading with fascination. Seventeen-year-old Eloise and her lover Simon have moved to a small country cottage in Wales where they are in touch with the flowers, birds, and the natural world, all beautifully described by Ellis. With tongue-in-cheek humor, Ellis describes the influence on Eloise of an older woman known as "Moonbird," with her ideas of a "woman's mission," which has resulted in Eloise's self-conscious awareness of the lovely, madonna-like scene she creates as she hand sews nightdresses and petticoats to sell in a shop in the nearby market town. Simon works as a carpenter.From the opening paragraph with its references to "watchers," Ellis establishes a sense of mystery, and as the action evolves, and Eloise is visited by her ditzy mother Clare and her mother's more realistic friend Miriam, who come to investigate strange goings-on at the cottage, the reader gradually realizes that Eloise is being courted by magical spirits in the form of four men who pay a series of visits to her. Ellis's trademark humor is revealed especially through scenes in which the silly Clare and the realistic Miriam try to understand and rationalize what is going on, and the reader gradually suspects that the house is haunted and that the men-in-suits have a special destiny in mind for Eloise. In Part II, when Eloise suddenly appears with a baby, who lives in a rush-lined, ancient cradle and never cries, the magic and its power become even more haunting. Black magic and white magic combine with religious themes as Eloise, Clare, and the other residents of this strange cottage come to grips with the unknown and how to deal with it--if at all. What makes Ellis's novel so unusual, is that in this novel the reader is also confronted with the reverse question--how do the supernatural beings themselves deal with reality? Ellis's suggestion of the dependency of the fairy spirits on humans is unique, to say the least. Entertaining and filled with ironic humor, this novel is also thought-provoking and unique. n Mary Whipple
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
|
