MN Opera and how my brain, it will not shut up.

I was privileged to attend the preview performance of Cossi Fan Tutti, the first of the 2011-2012 Opera season a week ago.  It was shiny and funny and love was bursting out all over.  I really liked the music. I loved the costumes. I decided that Desputina (the spunky maid who is force of chaos and wants to get herself some awesome lovin’) is my new hero of the world. 

It was written by Mozart and first performed about 220 years ago, give or take a few years so…as a play about women and men the ideas in it were…a little outdated.  But probably quite progressive for the time—the basic takeaway message is that “yes, women are terrible cheating monsters (and we can prove it by making them think we’re going off to war and then dressing up as FaaaAAAAbulous exotic men and wooing my best buddy’s girl while he woos mine), but you can’t really blame them because what the hell, we love the ladies and women are just like that. So we shouldn’t hate them for it.  Lets get married.”

And the ladies are just happy that the men, who spent the entire show deceiving them, making them think they’d go off and die in the war, and pushing them and pushing them to accept their advances and then fake-marrying their FaaaAAAbulous alter egos, are still going to marry them because, well, they’d be shit out of luck if they hadn’t. 

Basically, I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t help but be acutely aware that it was a dude who wrote this, and that his privilege was stinking up the joint somewhat badly.

See, to my mind, a woman of the baroque era had one choice.  Get married.  If you didn’t, hope you die quickly, because life will suck unless you have very, very generous male relatives after your parents die.

So, when our male protagonists decide to test their fiances on the advice of Mephistophel—ahem, I mean Don Alphonso, a philosopher who hates women, they decide the best way to do this is pretend to go off to war.

Now.  Here is the thing.  They are committed to these ladies.  It is heavily implied that these ladies have slept with these guys.  They are going to get married.  And now these two women are faced with a choice:  do I take the chance that my dude is going to come back from war, a) alive and b) in a state capable of supporting me, because god and the government knows (and insists remember!) that I cannot, or do I try to find another guy who isn’t going off to war, who is going to be able to support me, and risk being faithless and therefore worthless if my guy does come back from war.

These are Opera Ladies In Love, though, so they choose to remain faithful and wait for their men.  Their maid (Desputina!  SHE WAS AWESOME, OK?) understandably thinks this is ridiculous, because—hello?  Guys going off to war?  They might not ever come back, and even if they do, those guys are not going to be virtuous and virginal because soldiers get a lot of tail, even if they have to pay for it.  So she thinks her ladies should wring all the pleasure to be had, and look for alternatives, and if their men come back, they should just never tell them, because what’s the harm? And they’ll have no right to complain anyway.

Well, the Ladies are accosted by FaaaAAAbulous exotic men with FaaaAAAbulous mustaches.  Their dudes proceed to chase them, grope them, ignore them when they tell them to go away, press their suits, keep pressing their suits and shower them with presents, beautiful words, and all around do everything thing they can to get in these Ladies’ large pastel skirts.

The Ladies fall for the FaaaAAAbulous Duo—and why the hell not?  These guys, as far as they know, are kinder, HERE and not trying to get themselves killed, extremely wealthy, and profess their undying love every third word.  The Ladies don’t know it was all false, the Ladies don’t know that their guys never left, and that there is no chance of being left an old maid with no future if they don’t take these guys up on their offer.  So the Ladies gift each dude with a locket that symbolizes their affection.    The guys are crushed and decide to take revenge on them by starting a wedding and then “coming back from war” and proving to these worthless sluts that they had been played.

And instead of the Ladies throwing several sharp things at them…they beg and grovel and are quite relived when Don Alphonso convinces the Dudes that women are just like that, so everybody should be happy.  For the dudes, this was a harmless prank, the worst that could happen was that their woman was unfaithful and they’d have to find another, or just not get married and be bachelors and soldiers forever.

I just couldn’t help but think that this was anything BUT harmless for the Ladies, because they truly believed that their dudes had gone off to war.  They were made to believe that they could be left with no future at all.  If they had remained virtuous, and the war had dragged on for years, they ran the risk of never getting married at all, which is about the worst thing that can happen to a 20^th century woman because she can’t DO ANYTHING without a dude. 

So…yeah.  I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t turn my head off and was just happy I could keep myself from yelling “no means no!” at the gropey-rapey bits where the Ladies are being chased around a garden by strange men who keep trying to kiss them against their will, using their superior height, and the fact that they aren’t encumbered by giant skirts of doom to catch them. 

The long awaited fangirl squeeeing about Baba Yaga.

              Hands down, my favorite character in fairytales (granted, one of the only ones that is a discreet character that appears in multiple stories and not just an archetype) is the character of Baba Yaga.  She’s the old witch in the woods, and sometimes she is a goddess, other times she’s a demon.  You can find echoes of her, (or perhaps the other way around) in tales with an old witch in the woods from all over Europe.  She is commonly translated as Baba Yaga here in the US, but she’s also been called Baba Roga, and Baba Jaga—all stemming from different languages and different traditions, but she’s always the same character, with the same house on chicken legs and the stable full of mythical creatures.

I love everything about this picture.

           

            Baba Yaga appears as the crucible part of the fairy tale, where our protagonists prove themselves to be worthy of their happy ending.  She gives the protagonists their three impossible tasks, and they solve them with their wit, their previous kindnesses, their piety (familial and religious), and/or their love for another.  Baba Yaga is almost always an evil and terrifying force of nature, who can’t be fought, only outwitted and persevered through, but she keeps her word, answers questions, keeps to the laws of hospitality, rewards the worthy, and punishes the unworthy.

            The staying power of Baba Yaga is partly related to the distinctive imagery that surrounds her--her house is a hut that has a pair of chicken legs, and the house itself is sentient.  The light in her house, and around her yard, wherever that may be, comes from fire inside of skulls—each of which is also sentient and capable of bringing down judgments.   Her stable has the Day, the Sun, and the Night, often along side the equine sons of the wind—be she doesn’t ride them.  She gets about in a giant mortar, steering with the pestle and sweeping away her tracks with a broom.  She is always described as a very old, very ugly woman, often with iron and/or pointed teeth—but strong and forceful in appearance and manner.  She’s the big bad that everybody is afraid of, but she is almost always not the Big Bad of the story—she often gives advice, sometimes she gives shelter and hospitality, she always challenges her guests and she always threatens to eat them.  Also, she’s really, really, really cool.  

Baba Yaga sees your broomstick transportation, and raises you a flying mortar and pestle.

            The best known Baba Yaga story is Vasilisa the Brave/Beautiful.  I’m sure I’ll be giving that one a go in several forms—writing it, performing it, and giving it a good analysis—so keep an eye out.  It is a Cinderella-type story—but instead of a benevolent fairy godmother or a ghostly mother giving help from beyond the grave in a kind manner from a tree with golden leaves—Vasilisa gets Baba Yaga.  Baba Yaga doesn’t really do pretty dresses; Vasilisa gets a horrifying, flaming, talking skull that kills her stepsisters and her stepmother and sets fire to her village when they turn on Vasilisa for being a witch with a horrifying flaming skull. 

She EARNED the skull.  It is now her friend.  It hates everybody else, but it LOVES HER.

Russian stories don’t mess around ya’ll.

            Baba Yaga is one of those characters that get transferred along with her stories—you can spot Baba Yaga in the stories that feature old witches from around Europe—sometimes in her stable of amazing horses, sometimes in the way her house moves about on legs, sometimes in her eating habits.  Watch for her as you read stories and tales!

           Speaking of:  Next update will be the Deathless review, another amazing book by Catherynne Valente.  It has Baba Yaga.  You know I was excited about this.

I waited for this book JUST LIKE THIS.

               This is a good book, and I’m still processing my reactions to it, but I will assure you that it is awesome and you should read it.   It has Russian fairy tales and it is set in communist Russia and Baba Yaga is at her irascible, gluttonous, horrible best.

Out of the dark woods...

Hello!  This last semester was...ah...intensive.  The lack of updates here reflected that.  oops.

Anyway!  To celebrate the fact that I have free time again (oh, hey summer full of events and cons and ohgodneedtocatchupongodseeker) ok I lied.  I still don't have free time.  But!  I read some things!  YOU SHOULD READ THEM TOO.


Seriously fairy tale fans.  If you have not picked up one or both of the books I will be reviewing in the next few weeks, I judge you.


They are both by the same person: the lovely Catherine Valente.  She is awesome and reads her stuff awesome and will be in MN in less than three weeks and I will have to make sure I don't embarrass myself by fansqueeing all over her.

*cough* like i almost did at WisCon where I couldn't think of anything to say except "you write words good!" *cough*

First Review!

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland 

in a Ship of Her Own Making

Look at this book!  Its SO PRETTY!

 See that book?  Yeah.  I thought so.  This book is a really good book.  Also!  It is a really well crafted fairytale.  

This makes two things that I love, and they are all in one book.  

I bet you want to hear what about it makes it so good.  You want me to prove my assertions, don't you?

I can do this thing.  You see, the main character, September, is a little girl who is (like any good fairytale hero/ine) a bit bored by her life.  She doesn't care about washing tea cups and her parents aren't there--her father is off fighting in WWII and her mother works in a factory building planes.  September herself is "ill-tempered and irascible" and gets herself whisked off to fairyland by the Green Wind and a flying Leopard.  Fairyland is ruled by a Marquess who is terrible, but has a very fine hat.

September befriends a Wyvern who is half library on his father's side (named A through L), and he is awesome.  September will have adventures, lose her heart, save fairyland, confront death, fall in love and break the rules.

It is also a book about love and obsession and heart break.  It is a book about your heart's desire and being bound by rules and oaths and pain, but also joy and love and pleasure.  It is a book about loyalty and betrayal, and what you leave behind.  it is a book that allows itself to re-examine modern bureaucracy and how imagination gets left behind under rules and doubts.

Fairyland (and everything Valente has written that I've read, if I'm being honest) is beautifully written and at times it approaches lyrical prose.  I'll admit to being a bit wary of this sort of thing usually--the reader can end up feeling cheated by the world suddenly acting out of character or magic being introduced in such a way that makes the reader question what is real and what is not real and if the magic is supposed to be metaphorical or not and getting distracted by how the world works and why the author can't just come out and say what the hell is going on.  Or the lyrical prose ends up being pretty, but distracts from the story and gives the impression that the words and the author are the main attractions to the book instead of the plot and the characters and the story.  (Don't get me wrong, I can totally enjoy books like that--but if I'm reading for the story, I'd better not get the impression that the author cares more about sounding pretty then giving me a good tale, and I certainly don't much care for being surprised by it.)

Fairyland, I'm glad to say, does not fall into that trap.  It adheres to the fairytale logic and the rich world firmly (and consistently!), so the reader never feels like the book is cheating.  The narrator is allowed to be a character and the lyrical nature of the work adds to, rather than distracts from, the plot and the story.  The style is playful but takes the book and the dangers seriously, and feels like a mysterious stranger telling you a tale around a campfire in the dark woods.  I really want the audio book of this one, and failing that, I want to read it out loud.

There are references to other works--fairytales from all over the world, modern genre fantasy, Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories (another book you need to read!), Alice in Wonderland, the Oz books, and probably many, many others I didn't catch on my first read through.  Valente's Fairyland is dark, misleading, a shattered mirror image of our own, and full of wonderful lies and truths and logic and illogic.  Its funny and heart-wrenching and thrilling and YOU SHOULD READ IT NOW.

Ah.  I'm back to the fansqueeing, aren't I?

I'm sorry.  No, not really.  I want you to read it and then come back and talk to me about it so that we can go "and I loved that part!"  "and when she did that thing?!"  and "did you see what Valente did with the shoe bit?"  and then we will flail and devolve into quoting and you will want to hear it out loud like me.


So, fairytale fans, Alice fans, Oz fans, Rushdie fans: READ THIS BOOK, no buts, ifs or anything.  I do not think you will be disappointed.



Next Review will be Deathless by Catherine Valente.

A hint:  This book is the Koschei Tale set in communist Russia.  It has Baba Yaga.

I think you can guess how I felt about that book.  If you think I was incoherent with joy at this one you should have heard me reading Deathless.  I will try to make the next post more then BABA YAGA! KOSCHEI!  EEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!  *flail until falling over like Foaming-at-the-mouth-guy from Avatar the Last Airbender (TV show, NOT THE HORRIBLE MOVIE)* 

Edited to add: This Guy:

But no promises.  You have been warned.

YOU GUYS!

I'm speechless here, and mostly just being all flail-ly and squeaking.

This is what Russian fairy tales feel like!
Russian fairy tales, illustrated awesomely.

See?  This is awesome.  Go to Yana Moskaluk's page!  Tell her to do more fairy tales!  Give her moneys!  I WANT A PRINT!  I WANT ALL THE PRINTS!

Ahem.  I may be in need of more sleep.

:)

Story Time!

           Sit down, reader, and I'll tell you a story...

            Fairy tales come from an oral tradition—these stories have been told and re-told in different languages and by different people, all putting their own words onto older stories.  So, here is one of my favorites of Grimm’s tales, in my own words—A warning; it is ridiculous.  It makes very little sense.  It is a dumb story.  I really, really love it for no good reason.

The Boy Who Could Not Shudder

            Once upon a time, there lived a small family with only one son, who was considered a little bit dense—and he was, make no mistake about that.  He was also very unhappy, for he had always heard people tell of how this story made them shudder, or how the dark made them shudder, and he had never felt that way which upset him because it sounded like fun, I guess.  He just could not shudder or feel fear.  He whined about it so much to his parents that they eventually told him to go out into the world and learn to shudder so that he would finally shut up about it.

            So he did.  He has many terrifying adventures that he is unfazed by—he sleeps under a hangman’s tree full of dead people, and crawling with demons and then when the dead start to moan and curse him he…asks them to shut up so he can sleep.  When he is captured by bandits, he whines to them about not being able to fear, they decide to try to frighten him by showing off the heads of those they have killed.  He just sighs and tells them it’s no use, tries to leave, and has to fight them all.  Which he does.  I suppose that if you are going to be a whiny moron it is good to be able to fight well.

            He ends up all alone in a tavern full of dead people, bemoaning his sad fate of not being able to fear anything when the last person left alive tells him that there is a nearby castle, haunted by Hell itself.  If he can last a whole night there, the castle will be freed and, it’s said, the hero will marry the princess and become a king.  I suspect the bandit just wanted to get on with dying in peace.

            Well, the idiot basically says “oh fiiine.  At least if I can’t shudder I’ll be doing something useful.”  So he goes to the castle and prepares to spend the night.  The original story spends a great deal of time on the gruesome and fearful events of that night, demons eating the flesh of humans (“no thanks, I’ve got some bread of my own,” says our fearless nincompoop), and playing “ninepins” with human skulls and femurs.  Our hapless hero is very good at ninepins and has a grand old time gambling with demons and winning and never feeling any fear at all, and being grumpy about that fact.  Well, dawn comes, he hasn’t run off or become mad—so the curse is broken and he marries the princess.

            You’d think he would be satisfied, but…no. He spends the first year of his marriage to the princess complaining about how he still never learned to shudder.  One day, after she got fed up with it, she dumps a bucket of cold water on him.

            He exclaims, “Oh! That’s so cold I’m shuddering!”  (Seriously. He really says that.)  And he realizes that he can shudder.

            And then he lives happily ever after.

            Hahahaha.  Seriously, I can make the case that a lot of fairy tales originally had a purpose, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what that one was there for.  There is a pretty good rendition of that one in the Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. 

BTW:  If you have not seen this series DO EEEET.   I mean, you really can't go wrong.  Greek myths! Fairy tales! Muppets!  If you have Netflix, it is available streaming online.  I'll do a full review at some point, but until then, check it out!

Welcome to my world!

     Once upon a time, a young girl who loved books a little too much discovered a forgotten shelf in the back of her middle school library with oversized, strange books that each had a color in the title.  The Big (pick-a-color) Book of Fairy Tales.  She liked the color Green, so she picked up the Big Green Book of Fairy Tales and went home with it.  There were some familiar stories, to be sure, but there were many more that weren’t. When she was finished, she read the Red book, and the Fuchsia book and the Blue book, until she had read all of the books on that shelf. Fairy tales, before the big green book, were stories that ended happily, and were mostly animated bits of fluff and music.  Now, they included non-endings, dark, frightening woods, and terrible revenges—and she started to notice patterns in the stories that echoed through to her beloved modern books.

            She could not help but notice that the tales in those books, while never actually repeated, were often retellings and adaptations of each other across cultural boundaries. She started thinking about the whys of these tales, why these stories were able to adapt to new cultures and travel around picking up bits and pieces as they went.  She began to ponder the why of the fairy tale archetypal characters, and look for them in the rest of her media consumption.  She noticed that the characters that populate fairy tales are characters that are pretty dang universal across the world, from Africa to England, Asia to North and South America. 

            The Fool, the Crone, the Priest/Shaman/Monk, the Princess, the Prince/Warrior, and the Absent Mother.

*** ***

            Good story, yes?  It may not be as obvious as I would make it in a fairy tale of my own, so here’s the deal.  I’m that girl.  And I love fairy tales. I love their absurdity, the matter-of-fact way they dump strange people and places on the reader and just assume the reader will go along with it.  I love the way modern movies and stories all use the same archetypes, even when they don’t mean to.   I love the way these stories are adaptable and fluid and move from culture to culture, era to era.  I love that these stories have probably been around as long as we’ve had people telling stories—and as far as I can tell, that means we’ve been telling them as long as we’ve been people.  I even love the bizarre and arbitrary way we separate Myth from Fairy Tale and Fable.  I love that I can find a story that we Americans would call a “Cinderella” story in just about every country.  I love the fact that Cap ‘O Rushes became King Lear, which then became Ran, a samurai movie by Kurasawa. 

            I love fairy tales because they speak to me about Story as a concept, rather than a thing.  Fairy tales tend to be simplified stories—all plot, no character development, no explanation.  They become, in this way, our archetypal stories, and we tell them a million different ways.

            I seek out these modern retellings, authors who play with the characters and clichés and conventions.  I love Disney movies, I am fascinated at the way they needed to trim and lighten fairy tales for modern audiences and how those re-tellings have completely altered the way most folk think about those old tales. 

            This blog then, is a place for me to explore my thoughts on fairytales and story and flail about excitedly (and hopefully coherently) so that my wife doesn’t have to listen to me ramble at her as much about what makes Baba Yaga SO FUCKING COOL.  I’ll tell you stories about what fairytales mean to me, and I’ll tell you the old tales that you may or may not have heard. 

I will probably swear, and I won’t shy away from the gruesome aspects of fairytales—I may, in fact, actually focus on them from time to time—I think it is interesting the way these tales have been sanitized and cleaned up for modern consumption.  So, consider this your fair warning—this blog is probably not for kids or people who get extremely concerned about bad language.

            Have fun, stick around, keep a bowl of popcorn ready, and settle in!  Story time!