Spillway
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Beware
the Fairy Tale My Son
by Christine Fitzgerald
A review of The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles
Perrault, Illustrated by Sally Holmes, Newly Translated by Neil
Philip and Nicoletta Simborowski, Clarion Books, New York, 1993, and The Selfish Giant, by Oscar Wilde,
from the collection The Dragon,
Giant, and Monster Treasury, selected by Caroline Royds,
illustrated by Annabel Spenceley, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1988.
The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault has lovely
illustrations, and is translated from the French. It seemed very
classy when I started reading it to the kids. We read one, Tufty
Ricky, which was quite good. Then we got to Donkeyskin.
The beautiful wife dies, and the dad ends up falling in love with his
own daughter, who after all resembles the wife. Whoops. I
had to stop that one dead in its tracks. Then we get to Bluebeard.
I should have known better than that. Bluebeard had all the
former wives' bodies in a little room. He's slit their throats.
Mercifully, there is no illustration featuring the former
wives. We got through Bluebeard with some SERIOUS
editing on my part.
Then in the morning, I read The Selfish Giant as we waited for
the bus. It's by Oscar Wilde, and I marveled to myself about how
good the writing is for this children's tale, when towards the end one
of the children turns up with nail holes in his hands and feet, and the
Giant dies and is taken to Paradise by this child (who is not named in
the story). I think it is a bit shocking to have one of the
children in the story suddenly surfacing in the beautiful garden
sporting nail holes in his hands and feet.
Well, beware of fairy tales. You knew about the Grimm brothers
I'm sure. They are always having someone cut out of a wolf's
belly. But ALL fairy tales are suspect for me these days.