Customer Reviews

Grimm's Grimmest

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I must confess to ambivalent feelings about this book. The stories are sordid accounts of hideous people committing unspeakable acts with the basest of motives. Hannibal Lecter could step into the pages of one of these stories without even a change in costume. The idea that anyone, anywhere, any time, could have considered these tales appropriate for children boggles the mind.

Then why would anyone want to read them? Well, the archetypal human concerns woven into these macabre tales still pong home with disconcerting clarity, just as they did in feudal Germany hundreds of years ago. Loveless existence, infertility, betrayal, greed, jealously, incest, poverty, disaster; the stories read like a laundry list of the most tragic bits of the human experience and, sadly, the subject matter hasn't changed much, only the manner of expression.

The book opens with a comprehensive introduction by Maria Tatar, which provides an excellent frame of reference for what could otherwise be merely a jumble of surreal images. In the early 1800's two brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, collected and retold old German folktales. Discovering a lucrative market for children's morality stories, they created successive revisions targeted especially for children. Sexual content was suppressed, but violence was not. Whether by popular demand of due to quirks of their own, the Grimms in some cases even escalated the violent images.

Viewing the original folktales as allegorical teaching tools, designed to help adults cope with life problems, it all begins to make sense. Each story contains at least one rather heavy-handed lesson -- morality written large: "Greed will get you in the end." "Disobedient children are likely to die a hideous death." "Don't bemoan your childlessness or you may give birth to a hedgehog."

I was intrigued by the little secondary assumptions that are included in the stories and give clues to the cultural orientation. Oddly enough, there are a number of strong, independent female characters. Where did they come from? Children are expendable, not entitled to love, and the challenge seems to have been how to get as much work and as little aggravation from them as possible. For women, marriage was a huge, inescapable gamble. One must marry, but the bridegroom was as likely to turn out to be a cannibal as a prince.

Read these stories like a book of puzzles, looking for the main morality lesson and digging out the secondary assumptions, and they act as a mirror held up to our own society. What has changed? What is the same? What is better, what is worse? Horrific they may be, but vastly enlightening as well.

Liked the illustrations to this volume of the darker tales, especially Juniper Tree, which was an amazing story that makes you realize just how awful the stepmothers of fairy tales are. Some of the stories are familiar but quite a few were new to me, so this was something of an adventure.

I received this book as a Christmas present last year, and it has quickly become one of my all-time favorites. Okay, yes, the stories are pretty darn gory, with decapitations and/or mutilations playing a prominent role in quite a few of them, not to mention the incest and cannibalism and so forth, so you need to keep this book away from the kiddies. That aside, it's a wonderful and fascinating collection of tales. The illustrations are very nice, and there's a lot of them. Plus there's a great introduction at the beginning that gives the reader more of a background story on the Grimms and their work. Overall, a fantastic book.

I found the narratives to be engaging. The color illustrations were fine, but the black-and-white drawings were, uh, AWFUL. The book would benefit from the deletion of the black-and-white drawings, in my opinion.

Maria Tatar introduces the stories and some of the variations in different editions. She also delves into the politics that have helped some stories become well known and helped keep others obscure. There is a table of contents, but the stories are in no discernable order.

This collection takes readers closer to the original tales and include incest, sex, and graphic violence. The stories are rough and sometimes hard to understand. For example, I could not understand why the daughter who had fled the castle and the incestuous advances of her father, the king, later purposefully let her identity be known to him.

These stories are excellent reading that should help tellers understand these folk tales better. They may be tellable as written to an adult audience. However, I feel that an audience that is not well-versed in the oral tradition my need some help in understanding them or putting them into context.

The illustrations have a lurid quality that intensifies the feeling of uneasiness.

Source Notes: Selected stories from the 3rd ed. (1822) of Kinder- und Hausmärchen by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Reviewed by Karen Woodworth-Roman, MS Library Science

This volume collects a number of fairy tales recorded by the brothers Grimm, translated and illustrated to preserve all of the macabre aspects. Murder and mutilation to incest and cannibalism, there is a little bit of everything grotesque in these stories, which range from well-known tales such as Cinderella to lesser known stories such as Hans My Hedgehog. Tatar's short introduction makes up the sole elaboration and explanation of the texts--there is little commentary, little history, and little to put the grotesque elements in perspective. As such, this is a fine introductory text to the Grimm's stories as they originally appeared--the collection isn't huge, but it's large enough for the casual reader, and the illustrations pick out some of the best moments. However, this is not a complete collection and contains no history or commentary, so it may disappoint the reader that is already familiar with the grotesque aspects and/or is looking for a more detailed or more useful text.

Stepping far away from the singing mice and innocent maidens that fill modern conceptions of traditional fairy tales, Grimm's Grimmest presents original Grimm stories, translated into English, presented with illustrated plates (color and black and white), which preserve and even flaunt their more gruesome aspects. A stepmother feeds a murdered child to his father; Cinderella's step sisters cut off their toes to try and fit their feet in the glass slipper; a father cuts off his daughters hands so that she cannot sin. The storytelling is simple and repetitive, the plots and premises are at the same time macabre and magical, and the stories resolve to conclusions that are logical, often vengeful, and not quite happy every after. The story selection is fairly wide, including both famous and lesser known tales, the illustrations are simple and grotesque much in the same way as the stories, and the book certainly delivers the gruesome aspects that it promises.

For the price and the claim, however, this book is little more than a brief introduction to the original Grimm stories. To be fair, there are a decent number of stories in this collection (19, to be precise), but this is a small fraction of the 200-some Grimm fairy tales that the brothers published during their lifetimes. And, although the eight-page introduction is interesting enough, it is limited in scope and depth; without footnotes, individual introductions, or commentary, there is no detailed information on the stories themselves or the Grimm brothers, their collecting and writing process, or the impact of the books or their grotesque elements. It should also go without saying that the stories are translations, not retellings, and so they are short, have repetitive narratives, and forgo characterization and description in favor of the plot. In short, while this is an adequate and brief introduction to the Grimm stories in their original form, but it is not complete, complex, or particularly informational, and readers who are already familiar with the original Grimm stories or who are looking for more detailed information will probably find this collection to be disappointing.

Personally, I appreciate this book for what it is: a short, simple, but entertaining collection of dark and twisted stories. It is a fast, approachable read, the illustrations encourage a bit of lingering on the "best" parts, and both the magical and gruesome aspects make for a good read. But on the whole, what the reader gets from this book will depend on what he wants from it--those looking for a short and simple set of original grim Grimm's stories will enjoy it; those looking for a broader collection, more detail, or an updated storytelling style will probably be disappointed.

This book contains the collection of the Grimm's brothers original fairy tales, and mostly gruesome in nature, involving cannibal and gruesome acts. Fairy tales for adults and not for children's bedtime stories. It fills out the missing parts of the stories you read when you were a kid and fairytales genre lovers would denitely love to have their hands on this book.

If you're looking for a Disney version of your favorite fairy tales, you're not going to find it here. The Grimm's Grimmest is a fantastic compilation of some of the Brothers Grimm's darkest tales, as they were originally meant to be read. These tales illustrate a world where humans are suitable for consumption, sexuality knows no bounds, and two brothers let their imaginations run rampant. The stories themselves along with Tatar's brilliant insight make this one of the best books for fairy tale aficionados everywhere.

Tricia Psarreas
The Brighter Writer
[...]

These tales will be new and disturbing to readers only familiar with the more common Grimm's tales. Fairy tale collectors and enthusiasts will appreciate the quailty of this edition.

About the only fairy tale we will notice is the Cinderella story called Aschenputtal in this book. It is very different from the Cinderella we know. These tales are pretty good, but kind of dark and dreary. The gore is graphically and literally depicted. There are ninteen stroies and they are pretty well developed. They really give us a great glimpse into the past. The book is designed really well and the art in the book is excellent as well. The cover is great too. If you get the book and don't like it at least you will have a unique addition to your collection.