Customer Reviews

White As Snow (Fairy Tale)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tanith Lee proved herself a master of gorgeous prose many years ago; having enjoyed the short re-tellings presented in her collection Red as Blood: Tales From the Sisters Grimmer, I was thrilled to see a full-length novel based on Snow White.

Indeed, there are elements from the classic folk tale in White As Snow: the mirror (although rather un-magical in this novel), the dwarves, the flight to safety from the Queen...however, as a top reviewer mentioned, the novel is overflowing with metaphor and symbolism, some fairly accessible to the average reader and some obscure. In my opinion, Lee tries to dip her pen into too many inkpots in this novel - Greek mythology, Catholic doctrine, and God-Goddess rituals. Despite the help of a competent forward by Terri Windling, I think the general reader will be left confused by the numerous metapors, and ultimately indifferent.

If you're the type who loves digging into every reference in T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, you won't mind the overload of images from different cultures, times and lands. What I think no reader will enjoy, however, are the characters in this work. I don't think there is a likable one in the lot. Our two females, mother and daughter, are both self-deprecating and exceptionally arrogant at the same time, so depressed and disinterested (apparently) with humanity in general that you just wish they would go away. They mope more than anything else. It is hard to muster sympathy for them or become invested in their fictional lives. I found I did not much care what happened to them at story's end.

It's a tough read, not for the faint of heart. Pondering the numerous metaphors and symbols (especialy the symbolism of the mirror, I'd add) may be very rewarding for some and provide good discussion amongst readers. But if you're looking for a more old-fashioned tale - and by this I mean a story with strong protagonists, antagonists, and compelling plot line - you'd best look elsewhere.

I have to admit, I didn't enjoy this book =quite= as much as I'd hoped I would, but I still found it profoundly moving and thought-provoking -- even a work that isn't Lee's best is still pretty darn wonderful. Neither "Snow White" nor her mother are particularly "likable" characters, and yet you do feel for them in your bones even as you question their actions and emotions. The only pitfall is that Arpazia and Coira are so incredibly emotionally detached from the world around them, it creates a sense of detachment in the reader -- but nothing that will really keep you from enjoying this poetic, beautifully written book. Nothing is simple in this tale; it is as twisted and murky as the black wood. The way the classic fairy tale entwines with the Demeter/Persephone myth is novel and well crafted. If you're looking for an offbeat, challenging, emotionally wrenching rendition of the Snow White tale, I definitely recommend this work.

A maiden is kidnapped...a mother searches for her, disguised as an old beggar woman...a deadly fruit is eaten...the maiden dies but not necessarily for good...

Note that I could either be talking about the ancient tale of Demeter and Persephone, or about the fairy tale "Snow White." Tanith Lee weaves the two together masterfully in her novel, "White as Snow." As I read it, I kept reading a scene and then thinking, "Hey, WAIT a minute, that was the part where Demeter tries to make the little kid immortal", and so forth. It just fit incredibly well; the book followed both the myth and the fairy tale, making me realize just how much symbolism the two stories had in common in the first place. It is a testament to Lee's skill that after reading the book, I began to seriously wonder whether the fairy tale truly *is* a corrupted version of the myth, distorted through centuries. Whether there is any real connection, the world may never know--but Lee makes us believe there is.

And as I write this, I remember that in ancient times Demeter was associated with the mirror.

I deducted one star because I had trouble sympathizing with the characters; they seem emotionally cold throughout much of the book. It makes sense, given their traumatic pasts, but it doesn't make it any easier to relate to them.

Still, four solid stars for a richly archetypal neo-myth.

First, I am happy to see the Faery Tale series by Terri Windling back in publication. I was sad to see it disappear years ago. I hope to see more in the series soon!

Like Terri Windling's series, I am always excited when I see a new Tanith Lee novel. I had just finished reading Wolf Tower (which is a wonderful book) and saw White as Snow was due out soon...I waited with much anticipation for the book's arrival and I am happy to say I wan't disappointed by Tanith Lee's retelling of Snow White. This is one of her many reworkings of this particular fairy tale, but what makes this one different is that it is also a powerful and ingenious parallel of the Persephone/Demeter myth. As usual, Lee's prose is gorgeous and the story is challenging and unpredictable. There are a lot of layers to this novel and it deserves to be read and reread so that one can savor the imagery and emotion that this book builds. I particularly liked the dark psychology of the book--the war between mother and daughter, the war fought within oneself, the war between the sexes...everything resonates in this book and scenes continue to echo in my mind. This book belongs on the shelf next to Deerskin,by Robin McKinley and The Armless Maiden, an anthology by Terri Windling, for it is a powerful novel dealing with the more common, darker emotions of humanity.

The newest entry in Terri Windling's "Fairy Tale Series," this loose adaptation and borrowing from the "Snow White" folk tale is Lee's third visit to this story for material, her earlier retellings being the short stories "Red as Blood" and "Snow-Drop." Here the outline of the original story is largely removed, presented loosely and at a distance, elements such as the seven dwarves, the mirror and the murderous jealousy of Snow White's stepmother recontextualized to address darker and more modern themes, as well as explore the psychological aspects present in traditional mythology.

In many ways this is a story that explores and reveals the damage caused by sexual and emotional abuse, both of women and of children, the psychology of victimization which, as another reviewer has stated, causes the main protagonists to exist in an uneasy narrative world of indifference and self deprecation. At times it is difficult for the reader to truly relate emotionally with Lee's characters, but I suspect this is in part the author's intention, to force the reader into the deadening psychological and emotional world of victimization caused by rape and emotional child abuse. While there is an overall and depressing tone of hopelessness and lack of empowerment throughout the narrative, the book's conclusion ends on a note of redemption, despite the ugliness and depravity attending its circumstance. This is not, however, a novel for the emotionally or spiritually weak of heart, and I imagine that the traditional reader of fantasy will not find this tale to their taste, offering a story that is slight of action and is neither obvious in its moral or thematic aspects---any heroic elements are hidden from easy and casual observation.

It will prove helpful to the reader for if they are familiar with the traditional and often disguised themes of folklore (in part here they will be helped here by the marvelous introduction offered by Terri Windling), as well as the symbolisms inherent in the Demeter/Persephone cycle of mythology, the triple aspects of the goddess discussed in Robert Grave's "The White Goddess," and the ritual of the king of the wood found in Frazier's "The Golden Bough," as well as Joseph Campbell's "The Masks of God," among other sources. Also, they will need some acquaintance with the Seven Deadly Sins, here associated with the seven dwarves. While I suppose the story can be read without a clear knowledge of these references, it is doubtful one will be able to fully appreciate or comprehend the author's intention without at least some knowledge of Lee's metaphoric and symbolic use of these story elements.

This is a tale largely bound to its use of metaphor and symbolism, requiring some mental exercise, and as such maintains a certain intellectual distance from its evolving storyline. Because of this, the narrative and story elements, combined with the author's choice of characters, remained to a degree emotionally aloof for me, never completely engaging. In terms of adult retellings or modern inventions of the traditional fairy tale, I much prefer the work of Patricia McKillip, where the narrative is not so subsumed by intellectual contextualization. Nonetheless, this is a well-written and thoughtful work, which will appeal to those who enjoy gleaning their reading through metaphoric staging.

To say the least, I am very skeptical in trusting the ratings on Amazon. SImply, everyone's opinion varies greatly- your all-time favorite book will get a 2, or a book you hate will get a 5. Now, I jot down the titles I'm interested in, go to the nearest Borders and review a few pages. It's better than buying a book and being disappointed. I leave 5 stars, because this fantasy is one of the most lush, eloquently and uniquely written book I have seen in a long time. It is also one of the most dark, intense and slightly macabre books I've read...if not perhaps, THE most fantastically macabre book ever. This is not for the fainthearted. (Spoiler) There is one rape scene- I hate reading and watching anything to do with it. Ever watch the movie, General's Daughter? I almost stopped watching it, but without that extremely prolonged scene (it seemed to me) it would not have been the movie it was. The same goes for this book. To quote Tim Curry in Legend, "What is light without darkness?" If you are familiar with the REAL Brothers Grimm fairy tales (meant for adults) and appreciate their value, then you may be interested in this book. Stunning and marvelous.

People forget that "Snow White" and other fairy tales were never intended for children--or, rather, not the sort of children Disney envisions, unable to grasp any concept but the simplest, coached in equally simplistic terms. The oldest fairy tales were morality tales for adults, passion plays with a trenchant intent--and an emphasis on passion. The original Sleeping Beauty wakes up not to the kiss of the prince, but labor pains from the twins with which he's impregnated her slumbering body. And Snow White, as Tanith Lee reminds us, is the tale of the Devouring Mother, the mature woman who views her child as her supplanter and rival to be destroyed.

In "White As Snow," the story takes place in an early-Christian-Europe setting. Arpazia is the daughter of a minor king, whose domain and life are lost to Draco the conqueror. Draco is a man whose life revolves around his desires for gold, power, and women. Arpazia is fourteen and an innocent. When Draco rapes Arpazia, she curses him--and to her horror the curse rebounds. "Black as the wood, white as the snow, red as your blood that under it flow--" The curse takes the form of her child, unwelcome, unacknowledged until its birth by Arpazia.

Draco appears only a few times more in this story, which revolves around the traumatized Arpazia and the child Coira. Arpazia armors herself against the world in her beauty and finery as Draco's unwilling queen; Coira sees and loves her from afar until a chance encounter reveals to her just how little she means to Arpazia. From that moment the two circle each other, aware of each other's existence, but never seeking each other out--until Coira reaches her teens and Arpazia in her madness decides the girl must die.

The seven dwarves still play a part in this tale. Given to a man who intends to kill what he thinks is some meaningless servant girl, Coira is befriended a troupe of dwarves who take the girl under their collective wing, but they are far from Disney's conception of fat, happy little people. They dislike "big people," even as they stolidly accept their mistreatment at their hands; Coira is nothing more than a freak to them, someone to be their token "owner" so they can work unmolested. Yet the relationship that develops between her and Stormy, the leader of the dwarves, is sweet and unexpected--or perhaps not completely, given that this is a Tanith Lee novel.

Arpazia does come after her daughter; Coira does die and is revived by a prince; but Lee's version of this story is full of painful twists and insights. Arpazia is not wholly a villain; she is, in her way, still a child, bewildered and horrified by the violence wreaked upon her and by the world's insistence that she accept it as normal. And Coira is not entirely a heroine, in that she is a passive force almost to the end, save in her love for Stormy. Mother and daughter are halves of a whole, yet like matter and anti-matter the two cannot survive together.

I wasn't satisfied with the ending of this novel, but I can accept that Coira intends to break the cycle of self-loathing she and her mother inflicted upon themselves. My only other complaint is that it's far too short. Lee could have written chapters more about the two, and still had an engrossing story.

"White As Snow" is a tale of suffering and forgiveness, but the reader will have to bear a great deal of the characters' suffering before reaching the point of redemption. The cathartic intent of Lee's tale makes this more than a mere retelling of an old myth and bedtime story.

I so badly wanted to give "White As Snow" five stars. At first it reminded me somewhat of Gregory Maguire's better novels. Of course, Lee tends to write far darker fiction than Maguire. But both have put their personal spin on fairy tales to create, in many cases, a more interesting story.

While "White As Snow" is definitely interesting, it is full of unbelievable characters who tend to fit into only four types: Passive females (Arpazia and Coira), cruel and inhumane males (Draco, Hadz and others), window dressing (old crones, maids, dwarves, etc.) and two unbelievably saintly males who don't exist in the real world (Klymeno and Hephaestion).

Both Queen Arpazia and Coira (Snow White) are victims which seems to cause their passivity. On a pyschological level I see what Lee was doing. Their behavior is not that uncommon amongst survivors of abuse. It does not, however, make interesting fiction to read about two women who are so utterly passive or void of personal motive except for, perhaps, jealousy (Arpazia).

The strongest characters in the book, the evil men, are easily the most rounded. Lee got that part right.

The window dressing characters, for the most part, belong in any story. It's just that here there are so many â€" far too many in fact. Arpazia is helped by the woods people - why? What is their motivation? Because the plot demands it? Coira's nurse maids and servants are flat as a pancake. One maid, Ulvit, goes out her way to help Coira as she matures and grows. We never find out why. In the end Coira distrusts Ulvit, the one who helped her the most, and she is discarded on the heap of multiple other "unimportant" characters.

The two positive male characters in the book - Arpazia's Klymeno and Coira's Hephaestion - are characters straight out of a romance novel. When Klymeno first meets Arpazia he sexually pleases her over and over and never receives pleasure in return. When she seeks him out a second time he literally asks permission to pleasure himself. He is so utterly "perfect" that he never protests when she aborts his child. Hephaestion, although more filled out and therefore less saintly, suffers the same result. Even though he _wants_ to be a father he tells Coira, before stating his desires, that she is obviously free to abort her child if that is her wish. It seems obvious that Lee is pro-choice. I don't have a problem with that. What angered me was that Lee seemed so intent on insisting that abortion was so completely a woman's choice that any thoughts or feelings from a man are utterly unimportant. Doesn't a man have a right to say, "I would like to be a father to this child . . . but the choice is ultimately yours?" Lee wouldn't let these two men even this small amount of personal desire.

The issue of abortion is certainly not the focus of the story. However, it is a symptom of Lee's weakness in this novel overall. Far too often characters and developments within the story are there because the plot demands it or it appears to be Lee's own personal personal view. The characters themselves seemed to have been squelched by Lee, as if she possibly didn't want to hear what they had to say.

OK. I must not be a fan of dark fantasy. Maybe that's my problem with this book. However, I am a fan of Terri Windling's Fairy Tale Series. I bought this book in hardcover because it was a part of the series--although the fact that it was written by Tanith Lee gave me some serious qualms.

I can admire that Lee is a talented writer than can truly mine the depths of darkness to write a fantastic story. However, even while I recognized Lee's talent when reading this book, I was repelled by it. One of the professional reviews stated that she explored the sex and violence of the Grimm version of "Snow White." That's true. However, this book simply went too far for me. If memory serves me correctly there were at least 10 separate acts of rape. Very likely I'm underestimating that number.

If you like dark fantasy and/or Tanith Lee, you'll think this book is fantastic. If you're at all squeamish about reading about rape, I recommend walking away from this novel.

I've loved several books in the Fairy Tale series, especially Tam Lin. I started reading this book ready to really enjoy it, but my assessment kept dropping as I went, and finally I put it down unfinished less than 2/3 through. The characters were completely unengaging, every relationship (and all the sex, including the stuff that was supposed to be fun) was depressing and sleazy, and the slightly adjusted mythological names were annoying (if you're going to use them, use them). I didn't care about any of the characters, and everything they did seemed like just another bit in a string of events, rather than a personally shaped life. Parts of the book seemed promising, but overall it struck me as a lengthy and pointless ordeal. I'm sorry to have liked it so little, and hope other work of Lee's is better.