I felt the author gave a fairly in depth account of the many reincarnations of the so-called children's fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood [LRRH]. The language of the discourse was at college level and was fairly incisive, although as other reviewers have pointed out the author did repeat herself on some points. Yet, I found it more helpful in making her points well understood than merely belaboring a point. She discussed how fairy tales and especially LRRH were quite bawdy and written for adults originally. However, the author correctly points out the universality of the fairy tale theme crediting the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp with pioneering the study of the fairy tale and breaking it down into a small number of central characters, a universal plot line, and all with similar endings. The fairy tale begins with a heroine [while a MYTH typically features a hero and is grander in scope] who leaves home; she is given an always given a warning about something or someone, she pays no attention to the warning, then the villain of the tale/myth attempts to contact the heroine/hero and obtain information about her/him which the villain uses to trick the heroine or hero further in the story. Invariably the heroine [read LRRH here] is harmed or injured by the villain. The endings to the tales/myths originally had gory conclusions, but were updated for modern tastes to include more saccharine finales. The endings vary with regard to whether the protagonist is a heroine of hero. The heroine is always helped by a male figure [as the hunter who cuts LRRH and granny out of the wolf's belly and fills it full of stones while he sleeps], while if a male is a protagonist, he must find a way through guile and tenacity to save himself. It was Charles Perrault who added the red scarf to the heroine of the original tale PETIT CHAPERON ROUGE, while the Grimm Brothers made it popular as LITTLE RED CAP, which has been morphed into the more modern LRRH.
As other reviewers have noted there have been numerous twists to the story over the years from bawdy and pornographic to the moralistic and doctrinaire. All in all, I thought the author did a great job in giving a brief synopsis 289pp including an index and extensive section of notes [for those wishing to study the topic further] to a story form which has certainly been the work of many masters thesis and doctoral dissertations. The author does give her own psychological interpretation to some of the works of Bruno Bettelheim and Erich Fromm and their take of the interpretation of fairy tales. I think the book is certainly worth a read for the serious minded adult wishing to do an intermediate level of study on fairy tales and LRRH, in particular. The book was quite enjoyable and enlightening at the same time, but is certainly not meant to entertain children.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2010
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