Customer Reviews

Fairy Tales: Traditional Stories Retold for Gay Men

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The quiet power of these tales is as mystifying and timless as the originals from which they are spun. By recasting and reshaping both favorite and obscure fairy tales from our youth with gay themes, Peter Cashorali has given gay men the myths and legends on which empires are made. Queit, pensive, reflective, moral, funny, entertaining, sexy, thoughtful and just plain fun are the words I'd use to describe this collection. The 17 stories are easily read in one sitting (some only a page or two long), but are hard to forget. I chose to read one a night, right before bed. If you have a lover, reading them to one another makes for great bedtime stories. Each is begun with a simple line drawing that forshadows events to come. A nice design element is each of these drawings are picked up on the jacket cover. If you happen to not know the tale on which a particular story is based, it is refrenced on the bottom of each stories first page. This makes it really easy to find and read the original to see just how much Cashorali has reworked it. I espicially loved the range of gay life portrayed; from girly boys to butch boys, S&M, AIDS, aging, looking for lasting love and dealing with a loss, this book covers it all. And don't forget the manditory enchanted objects, talking animals, handsome princes, frogs, ogres and withces needed for any good fairy tale! All are included and no one feels left out.

Fairy tales give us a shared history, something to aspire to, and to learn from. Finally - finally gay men have their own! I can't recomend this book enough. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Cashorali. I'm sure the Brothers Grimm would be proud as well. Buy it and I'm sure you'll savor it's rich tales for years and years to come!

In this book, Peter Cashorali takes familiar folk tales and recasts them with gay men and boys in the starring roles: finally, a world where it's the gay man who finds love or fulfills his dream or solves the problem.

As I read these stories, I felt emotional blocks inside me falling into place, having been suspended for decades; as a child, I had read the original versions of these stories, but I could not identify with the heterosexual protagonists and so felt a certain distance from the stories. Those stories weren't about me.

But now, I have this wonderful set of tales, filled with humor, wisdom and compassion. The archetypes are there for me too, now--I can my heart resonating when the prince loves a boy, when the outcast gay man ends up succeeding. I believe that every gay man will benefit from reading these stories, to repair his childhood tapestry that included no gay figures.

The stories work well when read aloud, too. The sources of the tales are given, so that you can trace them. The illustrations are charming and delicate.

I would say that sometimes the humor of the texts is a little cheesy--for instance, getting a laugh by introducing some anachronistic detail like a car--but not enough to really detract from the effect. It's also worth noting that a quite wide spectrum of gay life is represented here, and Mr. Cashorali is brave about playing with stereotypes, subverting them and showing the nuggets of truth inside them.

(I have to confess--I have not read a couple of the stories yet, though I've had the book for a year. I couldn't stand to reach the end, so I have saved two of the stories... I also bought the sequel to this book, which is equally good.)

This book, and its sequel, are the only books I would unhesitatingly recommend to every gay man.

it is funny and it is moving and it is profound.

the retelling of these traditional stories from a gay vantage point is nothing short of brilliant. some of them, like "beauty and the beast" will stay with me forever.

i have sat and read passages aloud over the phone to friends, and everyone seems to agree this is a classic book.

and the sequel (still not in paperback, god knows why!) is just as good.

if you are a gay man with a sense of humor, and a need to understand where and how you fit in, cashorali's book is for you. and it makes a great gift!

I'm glad to see that there's finally *fairy* tales out there for gay men. And, although I prefer the romance, being the starry-eyed dreamer that I am, it pleases me seeing tall aspects of life in these stories: love and loss, youth and aging, rags to riches, on and on...

The anachronisms like cars, gyms, office buildings, etc, made the stories sag a bit. It really took something away from that whimsical, fairy tale quality... but not too much to dampen the stories!

Turning "s*** into gold" in Rumpelstiltskin? I couldn't help smirking at that! I was expecting something other than hair in "Romaine"("Rapunzel"). And It's wonderful to see the gay male rise above adversity and find true love! I would so enjoy reading this to my prince charming!

I bought this book because I liked the concept of retelling folktales in a gay context. The intro offers some interesting insights about tale telling. However, what the intro promises and what the pages deliver are entirely different things: 20 or so traditional stories dressed up in the most shallow of gay cliches -- all the boys make beautiful flower arrangements, Hansel spends his days at the witches house putting on make up and reenacting Sunset Boulevard, no reference is left out to Judy Garland, hairdressing, pink flamingos, Broadway musicals... the parade never ends. Also, all the boys are portrayed as traditional princes but they live in what appears to be modern times, which may be cute at first but quickly becomes annoying. Finally, what's most grinding is the repetitiveness of all the stories (whether this is due to the tales that were chosen or an inherent characteristic of folktales I don't know). Here are the best lines in the entire book (the final lines of "Beauty and the Beast"):

...To his amazement, the person standing before him wasn't a beast at all, but the handsomest man he had ever seen. "Beast," he said in bewilderment. "Were you under a spell all this time?"
"No," answered the Beast."You were. Now the spell is broken, and you're free. You can leave or stay -- you can do anything you want.
"I want to stay with you," Beauty said, and he smiled."On one condition."
What's the condition?" the Beast asked.
"That tonight, after dinner, " Beauty replied, "you'll be Beauty, and I'll be the Beast."
"Anything you want." the Beast promised him. And as beasts do, he kept his word.

i really loved this book it was alot of fun to read and i have fun reading it to my fiance we both enjoy the storys. its a great take on all the other stories like puss in boots and rupunzle. i loved it and i am so happy that my brother got me this book its a great book to by gay or bi or questionint teens who want some storries that apeal more tords them. i kno if i ever adopted any kids i will read them both stories from this book and from traditional story books

The stories I found emminently readable, especially in a bedroom setting, cuddling with a lover. Reviewers have commented on the infusion of contemporary motifs (S&M, AIDS, modern gay cliches) but I found that this only added to the humor value, which I think was the intent. Some are cute, some are deadly serious, which in my book makes for a balanced mix of fairy tales worthy of Grimm. I hope more will be forthcoming.

I found the whole anthology an enjoyable read. I finished this book in a weekend; I could not just put it down. It has its share of flaws though. One thing that bothered me was the mixture of the fairytale like setting with a contemporary setting. It sort of threw me off at some points, but not enough to turn me off of the story. One other minor flaw was the use of some stereotypes. However, these are fairy tales, and they almost always use archetypes and cliches. I found myself sighing in satisfaction after each tale. The stories also have a serious undertone relating to the issues and adversity that the LGBTQ community goes through in life, but it's not too exclusive (anyone could relatively relate to the characters). A few popular stories include Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, and The Ugly Duckling.

These stories are comforting because they're normalizing, but some of the magic of the original folktales is diminished because the author feels compelled to bring in cliches of the gay world. Cliches such as S&M type characters, AIDS and various yuppie-lifestyle references (the gym, designer clothes ...etc). However, I would still suggest looking in to it because it offers a beginning of homosexuals themselves looking at themselves - as normal, just people in the world. I found about an equal proportion of the book tacky as I did touching, but it's a book I'm sure to revisit. A few of the stories had some thoughtful lessons to them.