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Author
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Comment
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tanaise
Registered User
(12/9/02 8:54:11 am)
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Review in the New Yorker
There's a review of the Norton Annotated Fairytales at www.newyorker.com/printab...rbo_books1
It's got a lot of things I hadn't thought about--in particular, the idea that "Having two dimensions, one good and one bad, is all that gives a poem, or a fairy tale, three."
Another bit that I found interesting was the idea that part of what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale is the idead that the fortune/magic in them is essentially random: sure, the old fairy gives one girl the gift of flowers and jewels as a reward, and another toads and vipers as a punishment. But the fact that the girl ran into the fairy at the well to begin with was completely random.
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Helen
Registered User
(12/9/02 10:18:58 am)
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Urk.
This is the kind of attitude that really infuriates me ... amused condescension. Gopnik starts out with the example of two unfortunate, deprived children who don't know anything about fairy tales at a play based on "the Three Bears" and "Little Red Riding Hood," accompanied by parents - one of them being, presumably, the illustrious Mr. Gopnik - who don't know quite how to explain them ("It's like "Bullwinkle," ... to quote Tabitha King, "some people got nothing to brag on but their ignorance...") and uses the anecdote as his basis for the thesis that fairy tales are fading away. To use his exact words,
"Although "Beauty and the Beast" and, perhaps, "The Little Mermaid" are part of the children's cultural baggage—or, rather, among their cultural parachutes; we [their parents] are their cultural baggage—the tales exist for them only in highly sweetened, song-filled forms. A thought crosses at least one parental mind as he shepherds the children toward the exit and the fried clams: Is it possible that we have actually come to the end of fairy tales as an available, rather than an archival, entertainment? Fairy tales, however many times they are transformed, depend in some part for their effect on an air of sincerity, of urgent seriousness. For the not merely wise but wised-up children of this new century, other tales and other, more skittish ways of telling seem to have usurped the old stories and styles. Which means that the fairy tale could be headed for the place where all our good used-up things go, America's Island of Misfit Toys, the college English department."
There are too many things wrong with that paragraph to examine in a single post, so I'll just stick to the two that stick most tenaciously in my craw. First off, this man is positing a certain level of knowledge of the field - he goes on to talk about popular trends in "fairy tale academe" - so how can he be unaware of the fact that fairy tales weren't generally intended for children until the 19th century? And second - and I realize that I speak in the aggrieved tones of a slighted scholar here - just exactly what is wrong with English departments? It's a kind of cultural chauvinism in reverse that I particularly deplore; that anything worthy of study is somehow no longer relevant. Hmm, that cuts out everything from Shakespeare to Sapphire ...
Personally, I find the fact that fairy tales have a growing adult audience and a newfound niche in academia to be heartening signs of their renaissance, and not at all symptomatic of a flagging vitality.
This is a very personal, immediate response ... there are some very insightful observations buried under the morass of misinformation and faulty reasoning, but all of the little jibes at the field of folklore on the whole and the feminist aspects in particular (someone feeling a trifle defensive?) bothered me enough to make time for a rant in the middle of a seminar paper. Apologies if any of the above views seem strong ...
Best,
Helen, Who Just Spent A Solid Hour Being Harangued by a Septuagenarian Professor About the Invalid Nature of Her Proposed Field of Study and Who is Thus Feeling Somewhat Oversensitive
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/9/02 10:41:22 am)
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Harumph!!!
An added Harumph from me, because I have spent the greater part of my adult life working in the folk and fairy tale field. And it seems to be thriving.
Jane
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MarkS
Unregistered User
(12/9/02 9:16:24 pm)
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Whew!
See what you started, tannaise? LOL! Thanks for the article - it was interesting as well as all the things Helen mentioned. As a music person, I've found many insightful points in articles by people who got nearly everything else wrong.
Hey Helen, you should mail this rant off to the New Yorker if anyone
who read the original article is going to be 'larned anything! His
comment about the English Department makes him sound like some MBA
Alex P. Keaton type. What the hell is he doing writing for The New
Yorker? Tear the guy a new a....
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Jess
Unregistered User
(12/9/02 11:01:43 pm)
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Hmm
Seems to me that our dear reviewer is all wet. Not only are fairy
tales and folklore experiencing an adult renaissance as one previous
poster indicated, they have also found rejuvenation (is that a word)
in children's education. Fairy tales and folklore are as alive now
as ever in those bastions of childhood better known as elementary
schools - both public and private, but especially public. Many school
curriculum guides recommend using fairy tales and folklore not only
for their obvious literary content (a deferential bow to those English
scholars), but also for teaching children "multiculturalism"
(which I have yet to understand its true meaning, but don't object
where folklore is involved). My sons have enjoyed a wide variety
of fairy tales and folktales in school, including Grimms, various
African tales, Native American tales, Norwegian tales, and even
a few Andersen tales (those less religiously based). They have also
had Native American story tellers tell traditional tales to their
classes and discussed the oral tradition. My boys are only in 4
and 2nd grade! I feel for the reviewer that he is so out of touch
with what is really happening out there in the land of faerie.
By the way, for anyone who hasn't figured it out, I am neither a fairy tale scholar or writer, just an avid fan. Does that make me an anachronism?
Jess
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cpe
Unregistered User
(12/10/02 12:24:19 am)
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fairytales from the outside in
a tentative harumph here too for said review.... too, I was thinking that is a CERTAIN layer of culture in which ft's might be in "revival"... but, please read on and let me know what you think if you like...
JUST THIS VERY NIGHT, minutes before I read your messages on this topic, (I feel very sympathetic to your points of view) I was tapping out a response to an invitation to keynote a conference on "the new renaissance of faitytales." I want to be as decent as possible but the infuriation factor is on yellow alert I am afraid (grin) . I do not yet know if I will send this, perhaps a simple :I'm sorry but no, would do, but I keep dementedly thinking that if you offer to educate, people have a chance to see a different point of view that before...
.......here it is
"....I hold out hope that at your conference those gathered there might consider that to those of us Latinos, Jews, Native Americans, Euro-Americans, Asians and so SO many others who were born into, immersed in and purposely raised in the old healing traditions, that the existence of so-called ‘therapeutic storytelling’ has been for thousands of years alive and well on earth. It is not "recent," nor "new," nor "in sudden renaissance." To us, it is not an ‘emerging field,’ not something that suddenly has burst out, but rather a something that is holy, a something given from one hand to another over time, from one voice to another in our families, a something that emanates up through our religious faith, night dreams, hope for humankind, intellectual sufferings, grand dawnings, and all in all, requires far more than “telling a story that one likes and finds affinity with.”
"To us, it is not ‘storytelling’ that we do, but rather carrying a covenant of ideas, keeping an apothecary or boticaria, knowing the stories' strengths, their subtle applications, having insight into the person or persons before us, upon whose minds and souls we place the stories -- all of which may, at surface, seem to have some of the same features as ‘storytelling.’ But at the roots it is very, very different. For us, it is a mysterious endeavor in many ways; the least of which is generations' upon generations of voices distilled for our own time and spoken thourhg us.
" For us, folktales are not “once again being used as a means to help listeners understand themselves,” although I would agree completely were it said that better listening to the voices of inner life would be a useful thing for many persons. To us, our folk tales have been used and listened to for centuries. That they are available so whole and complete is because we have kept them alive for centuries.
" I would be very sad if the conference overlooked the fact that the old traditions have remained strong in this country for generation upon generation, and continue to be held and protected by an enormous population of rustic healers and religious and able pilgims of many kinds. I would not want the people who have protected this tradition, many of whom who have not had the advantages of education or economic status of fame, to be overlooked or not given credit for keeping alive a vital tradition within culturally connected communities, while much of the rest of the world went mad. I would be made even more squinty-eyed than I already am to see the academic community portrayed as monolithic with regard to stories, especially those deeply ethical protectors and progenitours of story who have given entire lifetimes to the work of both craft and creation
"I believe in this kind of work one cannot craete to the depths by standing safely on the outside. One must not onlyinhabit the inside of the story world, but must have practically drowned in the interior world at least once, have practically lost one’s life to it at least once, to have been swept away with or by it at least once, and to have returned thoroughly tested, bedraggled, bewildered, yet somehow wiser, stronger. One cannot do that from the outside, one cannot grasp these matters by immersion for an hour or so, or even a few days' worth. If I could say it to the best of my ability, it would be that a life spent in stories is different than stories about life. .."
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sionlee
Registered User
(12/10/02 3:39:14 am)
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fairytales from the outside in
cpe, that sounds to me like exactly the sort of thing a keynote speaker should be saying to the entire conference ...
OT: is it just me, or is "new renaissance" a fairly daft turn of phrase? you can have an old one?
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/10/02 3:52:10 am)
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wow!
What they mean by a "renaissance of story" is simply that THEY have just discovered it!
CPE--that is one hell of an opening to a keynote, not just a letter. I would say, accept the invite, don't tell themall in the letter, and use what you have written here to rock the roof at the conference.
I also think it's the opening salvo for a new book.
Jane
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Helen
Registered User
(12/10/02 7:54:09 am)
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Precisely!
cpe, you've nailed it. When you said that "a CERTAIN layer of culture in which ft's might be in "revival"..." I felt as though someone had finally offered me a solution to that most frustrating of feelings, the tip of the tongue syndrome. On the one hand, I think that we are experiencing a certain revival in the sense that there are more fairy tales intended for an adult audience available today in Western culture then there have been since the days of the contes des fees. On the other hand ... One reason that I feel so unbelievably frustrated when I talk to naysayers who pooh-pooh the field is that they don't even realize *how much* material they're brushing off when they say that fairy tales don't matter ... perhaps *they're* thinking of the Western, bowdlerized, lobotomized, declawed, defanged, and neutered Victorian fairy tale (I don't mean the literary retellings here, I mean the folktales that went through the grinder on their way to being published). Put simply, they're talking about fairy tales that haven't mattered to *most* people in society since their unfortunate maiming. *I'm* not saying that those don't matter ... but, to keep things in perspective, sliced, nipped, and tucked as the majority of the poor things are, they probably have less cultural significance than, say, the Russian fairy tales rescued from oblivion in the 1860's by Alexander Afanasyev, slipped past the censors through subterfuge, and source material for a thousand dissertations and explorations of history, psychology, feminism, and every other field that one could imagine. These are stories that have enormous resonance within their societies, and that illustrate what we could be doing in this culture, if we had the energy, the drive, the motivation, and the encouragement. (Mr. Gopnik? That one was for you ...) But what does that matter? It's not like those stories, or their resulting research, are in *English* ... it's not like anyone (irony on that last word heavily intended ... but I feel that I'm starting to abuse the asterisk) is familiar with them ... What could possibly be learned?
I second Jane's motion(s). Your message would have an impact as a letter ... but how much larger would the audience be if it were an address?
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Gregor9
Registered User
(12/10/02 8:44:53 am)
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Gopniked off
First, Helen, you SHOULD send your rant to the New Yorker. Someone needs to kick them hard for this snooty assemblage of misinformation.
Reading CPE's (I hope) keynote address, I was reminded of the way the outside world looks at fantasy and science fiction literature and, often, writing fiction itself. There is a cultural exterior skin on this fantasy onion that seems to presume to know what the center is all about without having ever actually seen it, much less been immersed in it for a time. Gopnik seems to be someone who's read a handful of fairy tales, articles, perhaps no more than a few introductions to a few books, and on the basis of this is now a self-proclaimed expert. The world's full of 'em. Many go into politics or televangelism.
But it all seems to be a matter of drawing conclusions about the fading away of an art form on the basis of the subject not being on one person's subjective radar. I've made a few ill-informed gaffes in my time, but I hope not as egregious as Gopnik's.
Greg (going back to his Japanese folktale story now)
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Zanobia
Unregistered User
(12/10/02 9:58:58 am)
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Keep it coming!
Great discussion guys!! I'm glad Tanaise got the ball rolling. Its so lucid to read people's thoughts when they're pissed off!
Please tell me how to become a professional folklorist! Where did you guys all study? I have a BA in history and I want to get an MA in some sociological, historical, cultural, artistic, philosophical, literary something! I don't know what. I need a direction. And an added difficulty to my task is, as if folklore studies wasn't difficult enough to find, I would like to focus on the Arab world. Ever since I've stumbled upon this site about a month ago I've been trying to find fairy tale parallels in the Arab oral or literary tradition. Its not easy, but its definitely fun. I would appreciate any help on where to get more info on this. Love, Z.
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Brenna
Unregistered User
(12/10/02 7:42:44 pm)
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What was he thinking?
As a young adult librarian, I have to wonder why he thinks fairytales
are no longer a part of the American youth psyche. Fairytale retellings
and motifs are a staple of YA literature and teen culture. Why else
would shows like Buffy and Charmed be such a draw to young (and
old!) adults? Why would authors like Donna Jo Napoli, Robin McKinley,
Charles DeLint and Jane Yolen continually come up on our best book
and recommended lists? Of course, he is probably someone who never
actually looks at the books his children read (If they read! Likening
parody to a Bullwinkle video makes me wonder.) and he probably would
not value them if he did. Certainly, literature for youths, especially
the young adult age group, is having a 'renaissance' of its own!
(Thank you, Harry Potter!) Many mainstream, literary authors are
now publishing for younger readers (or for readers of every age,
depending on how you view youth literature). Isabelle Allende's
new book, "City of the Beasts", and Carl Hiaasen new book,
"Hoot", are both filled with magical realism and supernatural,
fairytale qualities. For that matter more and more adults are reading
these books with their children (Phillip Pullman's "His Dark
Materials" series comes to mind). "Tithe", "City
of the Beasts", "Once Upon a Marigold", "Green
Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest", "Seven Wild Sisters",
"Hoot", "The Brothers Grimm: Two Lives, One Legacy",
and "Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits" were all nominated
for the ALA's Best Books for Young Adults list this year! Plus,
how can he ignore the number of New Yorker lauded authors who obviously
value fairy tales as a relevant literary tradition? (Hello, A.S.
Byatt!)
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/11/02 3:52:29 am)
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Degrees
While a number of us have folklore degrees, most of us do not, My degrees are in English (minor in religion) and Masters in Education. But I have studied and written extensively in the folklore arena.
Jane Yolen
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Helen
Registered User
(12/11/02 7:26:54 am)
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It depends ...
Dear Zanobia:
Much though I hate to engage in Clintonesque discourse ... it all depends on what you mean by folklorist. A majority of the people who I admire in the field have degrees in disparate fields, ranging from various languages (Jane listed hers above ... you can toss in Jack Zipes with his Ph.D. in German, Maria Tatar with *her* degree in German, Marina Warner - who doesn't list her precise background on her website nor on her book jackets, but whom I recall being described as having a literary background - Patricia Hannon and Lewis Seifert with their respective degrees in French, and so on, and so forth) to just about everything else under the sun. However, it depends on what you want to do, precisely, in the field of folklore. If you want to talk about literary fairy tales, crossing over into modern mythic fiction, you might be better off getting a degree in the literature of your choice. If you want to collect original material, or to discuss the socio-historical practices associated with folk customs and traditions, you might be better off with a degree in folklore. Whichever one you choose, be forewarned ... there's a good deal of inter-disciplinary discrimination. I chose the former option, on the basis of my interests: since then, I've been corresponding with one professional folklorist who's warned me that combining literature and folklore just leads to bad scholarship and worse folklore. I recently had a meeting with one professor in English who told me that combining literary criticism with folkloric theory just led to bad theory. Sigh. (Brief digression: I'm actually rather fond of the former gentleman, who's been very, very kind and concerned, though I do disagree with him ... the latter gentleman punctuated his conversation with points like, "You're never going to get published!" and "You don't have the right to say that!" i.e., I haven't "paid my dues" yet and therefore don't deserve an opinion. He also punctuated his speech with insincere statements about how he "didn't mean to be nasty..." I suppose that I must have looked fairly dumbfounded. I finally explained that I'd been hearing the *exact same arguments*, inverted, from a folklorist. He asked who, I told him, he exclaimed in delight and said that they were very close friends. Oookay ... basically, my point is that there are problems on both sides, as I don't imagine that straight folklorists could easily find work in departments of literature and language ... and, as there are only four of them, at least in the U.S., ideological decisions need to be made fairly early on.) Programs in psychology, history, and anthropology also offer connections to the field, each with their own set of issues to be considered. I believe that we've had several discussions about this in the past, as I, Catja, Laura (hi guys!) and a number of other people have all been going through the application process "on-board," as 'twere. If you search the Surlalune site archives, which Heidi has very thoughtfully labeled (as some of our headers tend to be less than descriptive - thank you Heidi!) you should be able to find them. Hope that this helps!
Best,
Helen
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Kerrie
Moderator
(12/11/02 9:13:35 am)
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Educational and career paths....
Here are links to old posts that may help:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...lable.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...c_pg1.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...page1.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...page2.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c..._talk.html
There are also several posts on using fairy tales and folklore in teaching, if that would help...
Sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
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Helen
Registered User
(12/11/02 9:38:25 am)
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Oh, my ...
Good gods ... what a rush of memories. Suddenly, I remember how ecstatic I was to have found this place, and how simultaneously hopeful and scared to hope I was that something so wonderful could last ... now I hope that I haven't been taking y'all for granted! Kerrie, thanks for finding these. I know that there's at least one more where we all talked about dissertation topics ... Now I'm off to hunt the archives myself. This is *so* much better then writing on Kafka, after all ...
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Kerrie
Moderator
(12/11/02 12:49:14 pm)
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Dissertations...
Here are some on dissertation topics (the longer ones):
www.surlalunefairytales.c...tcont.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...r_pg1.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...myths.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...t_pg1.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...dvice.html
Graduate programs:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...grams.html
Possibly the introductions thread:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...s_pg1.html
Conferences:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...ences.html
Definition of folklorist:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...orist.html
Oh my- I just found this old post:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...ticle.html
Sounds familiar, eh?
Or was it another more specific topic, Helen?
Sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
(who does more research than writing lately)
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Helen
Registered User
(12/11/02 1:46:31 pm)
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Wow ...
Kerrie, I take off my hat to you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou! The one that I had in mind was the "Graduate Programs" one, and I couldn't manage to find it before end-of-semester guilt dragged me away. Where would we be without the research? You're a lifesaver. (And, btw, congratulations on the moderating position for the Writers Board!)
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zanobia
Unregistered User
(12/11/02 6:24:21 pm)
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Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Helen and Kerri thanks so much!!!! I'm overwhelmed with gratitude! Really, what a fabulous site this is and I'm so glad I stumbled into it!!! I feel like I've found a hidden treasure. ANd its so very thoughtful of you to mention the dissertations discussions. Who knows, maybe someday I'll have my own dissertation on board. Love,Z.
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Kerrie
Moderator
(12/12/02 11:20:23 am)
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No problem...
Thanks, Helen and Zanobia! It's absolutely no problem! Researching
posted questions has been helping me figure out my next steps, so
please keep them coming! And thanks for the congrats- I should be
thanking Heidi more for giving me the post!
Sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
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ChrisCalabrese
Registered User
(12/12/02 8:40:04 pm)
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"You never know" Jaqueline Kennedy
Gopnik: the magic of fairy tales is the pagan magic of fortune, rather than of virtue, and of fate, rather than of faith, or even grace. The moral of every fairy tale is not "Virtue rewarded" but "You never know"
Jaqueline Kennedy said that life is happiness and tragedy. . .you just never know when.
I'm certain that she didn't consider her virtue unrewarded, her life pagan, without virtue, without faith, or without grace.
Fairy tales are real.
Chris Calabrese
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