an article by jeanette winterson
this is something i read awhile ago and wanted to share. it is written by Jeanette Winterson, whose written several novels (at least one of which is awesome, in my opinion ).
It’s summer time again, and I have been to Legoland.
My godchildren who are nine and six, had got tired of the 1920’s model village at Bourton on the Water, even though the miniature Baptist chapel vibrates its tiny walls with happy hymn singing. ‘You have to take them to Slough’ said their mother, she who must be obeyed, ‘that’s Legoland.’
And it’s great, yes it is, but what I want to know is why does Prince Charming need a mobile phone, and why is the Red Riding Hood wolf watching TV? All the fairy tale Lego has been modernised with gadgets. Result? Disaster. What was timeless has been manhandled into time. What was about the imagination has become a product placement exercise.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the changing word. I love cover versions of fairy stories. I write them myself. Angela Carter, Italo Calvino, Isabelle Allende, are just three genius writers who have re-worked folk, fable, and fairytale heritage to create new and delightful combinations. The huge popularity of story-telling evenings and festivals depends on new cuts of the old cloth.
Stories themselves, before they were written down, changed dramatically as they passed from mouth to mouth and country to country, carried imperfectly and exuberantly re-told.
The transformations at the heart of so many fairy stories – frog into prince, pumpkin into carriage, hovel into palace, mirror into lake, are reflected by the transforming nature of the stories themselves. Shifting and mercurial, they thrive on change. Yet
their survival, their longevity, is not only this adaptability, it is that they offer a route to the parts of ourselves that change very slowly, if at all.
The witch, the wood, the animal helper, the wicked king, the beautiful princess, the haunted river, the poisoned apple, the talking bird, the flying horse… these are their own language - particular symbols that speak deeply and mean more than the surface of the words.
‘Once upon a time’ is not a figure of speech, it is a signal that we are entering a different world; one where time as we know it, will disappear – a night can last a thousand years, everything important can happen in a single day.
That the stories are outside of time locates them in the boundless space of the imagination. They are not boxed into olde-worlde costume drama, nor do they need dragging into the digital age. The imagination is comfortable with multiple realities, and anyway, we always imagine our hero is like ourselves. Indeed, one of the unstated lessons of fairy tales is that the hero is yourself, and can’t be anyone else. No matter how many sprites spin straw into gold, or build impressive palaces overnight for you, they will be a price to pay, and you are the one who is going to pay it.
All of us understand what it feels like to be alone in a dark wood, even if we never go further than the shopping centre.
In the dark wood there is no phrase book for the language of birds and beasts – you have to learn their language by listening.
There is no one to call to ask for help; the mobile phone is useless here. You are on your own. Night falls. There are strange noises.
Urban kids, whose only contact with nature is found in the local park, respond instinctively to dark wood tales of lost children and forest sprites. Nobody ever walks to visit granny now, especially not through a forest – but Little Red Riding Hood has kept her appeal. Does she really need a TV watching wolf?
Are we afraid that the little bit of free-fall left in our children’s imagination is so dangerous that we have to signpost it? Mobile phones and tellys signal the safe, the known, the everyday, which is not the world of fairy tales. These stories are strange, and they should remain strange, and that is what the best re-workings respect. The recognition that we feel when we enter this strange world is recognition of ourselves as more than creatures of the present moment. It is a relief to stop staring your own life in the face, and to stalk it differently.
Relief, unease. Familiarity, strangeness. Art trades in these paradoxes. The art of the fairy tale does the same, and it does it best in its own language. The carpet flies, the solid hillside reveals a door, statues speak and puddings multiply. Who needs tonight’s TV and a mobile phone?
It’s summer time again, and I have been to Legoland.
My godchildren who are nine and six, had got tired of the 1920’s model village at Bourton on the Water, even though the miniature Baptist chapel vibrates its tiny walls with happy hymn singing. ‘You have to take them to Slough’ said their mother, she who must be obeyed, ‘that’s Legoland.’
And it’s great, yes it is, but what I want to know is why does Prince Charming need a mobile phone, and why is the Red Riding Hood wolf watching TV? All the fairy tale Lego has been modernised with gadgets. Result? Disaster. What was timeless has been manhandled into time. What was about the imagination has become a product placement exercise.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the changing word. I love cover versions of fairy stories. I write them myself. Angela Carter, Italo Calvino, Isabelle Allende, are just three genius writers who have re-worked folk, fable, and fairytale heritage to create new and delightful combinations. The huge popularity of story-telling evenings and festivals depends on new cuts of the old cloth.
Stories themselves, before they were written down, changed dramatically as they passed from mouth to mouth and country to country, carried imperfectly and exuberantly re-told.
The transformations at the heart of so many fairy stories – frog into prince, pumpkin into carriage, hovel into palace, mirror into lake, are reflected by the transforming nature of the stories themselves. Shifting and mercurial, they thrive on change. Yet
their survival, their longevity, is not only this adaptability, it is that they offer a route to the parts of ourselves that change very slowly, if at all.
The witch, the wood, the animal helper, the wicked king, the beautiful princess, the haunted river, the poisoned apple, the talking bird, the flying horse… these are their own language - particular symbols that speak deeply and mean more than the surface of the words.
‘Once upon a time’ is not a figure of speech, it is a signal that we are entering a different world; one where time as we know it, will disappear – a night can last a thousand years, everything important can happen in a single day.
That the stories are outside of time locates them in the boundless space of the imagination. They are not boxed into olde-worlde costume drama, nor do they need dragging into the digital age. The imagination is comfortable with multiple realities, and anyway, we always imagine our hero is like ourselves. Indeed, one of the unstated lessons of fairy tales is that the hero is yourself, and can’t be anyone else. No matter how many sprites spin straw into gold, or build impressive palaces overnight for you, they will be a price to pay, and you are the one who is going to pay it.
All of us understand what it feels like to be alone in a dark wood, even if we never go further than the shopping centre.
In the dark wood there is no phrase book for the language of birds and beasts – you have to learn their language by listening.
There is no one to call to ask for help; the mobile phone is useless here. You are on your own. Night falls. There are strange noises.
Urban kids, whose only contact with nature is found in the local park, respond instinctively to dark wood tales of lost children and forest sprites. Nobody ever walks to visit granny now, especially not through a forest – but Little Red Riding Hood has kept her appeal. Does she really need a TV watching wolf?
Are we afraid that the little bit of free-fall left in our children’s imagination is so dangerous that we have to signpost it? Mobile phones and tellys signal the safe, the known, the everyday, which is not the world of fairy tales. These stories are strange, and they should remain strange, and that is what the best re-workings respect. The recognition that we feel when we enter this strange world is recognition of ourselves as more than creatures of the present moment. It is a relief to stop staring your own life in the face, and to stalk it differently.
Relief, unease. Familiarity, strangeness. Art trades in these paradoxes. The art of the fairy tale does the same, and it does it best in its own language. The carpet flies, the solid hillside reveals a door, statues speak and puddings multiply. Who needs tonight’s TV and a mobile phone?
posted by matt iv at 8:20 PM
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