Book: Dust City by Robert Paul Weston

Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

"I pad over and put out a paw. "Pleased to meet you, madam."
She blushes, the varicose veins in her cheeks swelling with blood. Instead of taking my paw to shake, however, she turns it over as if it's a piece of bruised fruit in a market. "Hmmm..." She pores over my palm, nodding like a fortune-teller. Her spectacles slide comically down the bridge of her nose, and when she looks up at me, her face is full of mock astonishment. "Oh, my! What big teeth you have!" She giggles and kicks her slippered feet."

Henry Whelp is the son of the wolf who killed Little Red Riding Hood. This has been the defining characteristic of his existence. He is currently in St. Remus juvenile detention facility for dropping a brick onto a moving truck (a Nimbus truck like the one that killed his mother). When a sudden death reveals some lost letters from his father, Henry must break out and discover the truth of his father's crime at any cost....


See the rest of the review on my other blog, Palimpsest!

Art: Edward Gorey's Three Classic Children's Stories

Hi everyone! Long time no see! Grad school does that to you, man.

Anyway, Io9, brilliant blog that it is, directed our attention to the fairy tale illustrations of Edward Gorey. The thing that I love most about Edward Gorey is his ability to depict something horrific without actually showing it to you. He shows you the before, or the after, or what is happening off screen, not the actual event itself.

Exhibit A:

From The Gilded Bat by Edward Gorey

In the book, Three Classic Children's Stories, Edward Gorey doesn't go quite as far as that, but he still has an fascinating way of choosing moments and framing. Of course you have the classing Little Red Riding Hood meeting the wolf picture: 

But then you also have this:

All you can see are the wolf's toes and Little Red Riding Hood's eyes. Somehow it is a little worse than your typical Wolf in Grandma's Clothing picture. It is a "just before" moment. You imagination conjures up the big eyes and the big teeth, and then the next scene where he eats her. 

For the Jack and the Beanstalk story, we have this picture:

It takes place either right before, or (a bit more disturbingly) right after Jack hits the trapped giant in the head with the shovel and kills him. Jack looks so jovial, and the giant looks so sad. It is a bit heart breaking. 

The Rumpelstiltskin images are what you would expect, until you get to this one:

This is after the queen has guessed Rumpelstiltskin's name, and he gets so angry that he stomps a hole in the floor and tears himself in two. The cloth disappearing down the hole is his sleeve, so it seems he just got swallowed up, but the peace on the queen's face and the oblivious king flavor the picture really well. 

There are lots more pictures over at Brainpickings if you want to check them out!

TV: Interview with Robert Carlyle on his Role in Once Upon a Time

The Daily Record posted this wonderful interview with Robert Carlyle, who talks about his experience on Once Upon a Time, his character, his family, his childhood in Glasgow, and fairy tales. (Full Article)

Highlights

On where his portrayal of Rumpelstiltskin came from: 

"Instead, he was inspired by son Pearce to perfect a role he calls 'the most theatrical of my career'.

Robert, 50, said: 'The voice came from my wee boy Pearce, who is six. He always walks around the house going ‘dehdehdehdehdeh’ in all these strange voices.

'Pearce goes into a wee world of his own when he’s playing with his toys. So that’s what I based the character on. This real childlike thing.

'That’s what Rumpelstiltskin is… he’s like a kid. So I thought, if I can find some kind of voice like that but also make it kind of creepy and bizarre.

It’s also a bit freakish when Rumpelstiltskin has that childlike quality then suddenly can turn and get very dark.'"

Why it is 'the most theatrical role' of his career:

 “These characters are very much larger than life so the playing of them has got to be that way too. You can’t walk on with a naturalistic performance. It just wouldn’t work. At drama school I did a lot of work with masks. You put one on and it frees you in a way. You’re able to change everything about ­yourself.

“So I look in the mirror and don’t see myself any more. That, ­combined with Commedia dell’Arte – Italian high end farce – and the way I move and strike poses as Rumpelstiltskin is where all that comes from.”

Art: Minimalist Fairy Tale Art by Christian Jackson

From Strollerderby:

"Strip fairy tales of all their pomp, circumstance, princes and princesses and you have a very basic story. And each fairy tale has some kind of hook, some sort of iconic image, item or idea that is easily identifiable. The graphic artist Christian Jackson recognized this and distilled a collection of classic and famous tales and conveyed each one into a simple, very minimalist statement.

Of his children’s story series, Jackson stated: 'My life was thrown in very childish direction when I became a father a little over 2 1/2 years ago. I guess this series was my way of releasing some of that energy creatively. I can’t really say that I “decided on children’s stories” my lifestyle pretty much demanded it. When the idea for the posters came to me, the iconic images for each story just sort of poured out.'"

 

 
 

These are beautiful! I think my favorite are Little Red Riding Hood, Princess and the Pea, Ugly Duckling, Pied Piper, and the Wizard of Oz.

Book: Interview with J.A. Kazimer, author of Curses!: A F**cked Up Fairy Tale

 

From The Nervous Breakdown with the author of Curses! A F***ed-Up Fairy Tale: 

Imagine that Cinderella’s been murdered, distracted by a bluebird and run over by a truck in New Never City. Now imagine her stepsister calling on Rumpelstiltskin (stripped of his villainy as punishment for rage issues) to investigate. This is the premise of  J.A. Kazimer’s Curses!: A F**cked Up Fairy Tale.

Cinderella’s stepsister Asia, believing her sister’s death to be a case of foul play, shows up at what she thinks is Sherlock Holmes’s door. Only, he hasn’t lived there for a while, not since RJ, as Rumpel prefers to be called, stuffed him into the chimney and took over the residence. Asia, much better-looking then the original story had led us to believe, convinces RJ to help, but really he’s just doing it in hopes that she’ll sleep with him.

As the two dig deeper into Cindi’s untimely death, everyone becomes suspect: Prince Charming; the butler; Dru, the second and not-so-pretty stepsister; even Asia.

This book is described as Neil Gaiman meets Shrek, or Neil Gaiman meets bodice-ripper. It could be really fun, or it could be a fluffy trainwreck. I am leaning a bit towards the latter, especially since in the interview, she makes a joke about how Cinderella deserved to be hit by a truck because she wore glass slippers after Labor Day, and how as a child she dreamed that a prince with a foot fetish would save her from her evil sister. However, in the latter half of the interview, she has some interesting comments on the nature of villainy and fairy tales as psychological treatment which gives me hope:

Was there an influence? Something that got the ball rolling?
A book with a clichéd hooker with a heart of gold started me on the path to this novel. I began thinking about the cliché, and eventually formed the idea of writing a novel about a villain who suddenly must become a hero, and hates every minute of it. There is no heart of gold here. RJ is a villain. He loves being a villain, yet circumstances beyond him are forcing him to play nice.

You mention before that you re-read fairy tales as part of your research. Did you do anything else to make sure there was a sense of authenticity?
I knew I wanted to write a book from the perspective of a villain, to see if he was evil after he finished punching the clock. And if so, how does that affect things like Sunday family dinners or simple things like going to the grocery store? I also wanted to use a mesh of characters and tales. As you can imagine researching villainy was difficult. I had to steal candy from babies and trip old ladies as they crossed the street. Writing is not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.

Do you have any thoughts on the deeper meaning of fairy tales?
While getting my master’s degree in forensic psychology, I had a class with a professor who used fairy tales as a treatment tool. I love the idea. Fairy tales have survived and, recently, thrived as a medium for a very important reason; they reflect the psychological health of a society. I won’t bore anyone with my theories but if you have a moral or ethical dilemma, look to fairy tales for an answer. The answers are there, in black and white. These are cautionary tales handed down through the centuries to protect societies. (Full Interview)

Here's hoping this book will be a fun, clever, irreverent romp through Cinderella, and that the rest of the series she is planning on will be just as successful!