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Author
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Comment
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Leah
Unregistered User
(10/19/02 8:20:52 am)
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"The Discreet Princess" or "The Adventures of
I recently read this story by Marie- Jeanne L'heritier and greatly enjoyed it. It is about a perfect princess, who's name is Finette and her two not so perfect sisters, named Nonchalant and Babbler. There father gives them glass distaffs, designed to shatter when there virtue breaks, and locks them in a tower to protect them. An evil prince tricks Nonchalant and Babbler into letting him in and also tricks them into marrying him. Consequently their distaffs break. However he is unable to dupe Finette and she tricks him three times, once he falls into a pit, once she pushes him into a barrel designed for her and rolls him down a hill, and once she gives him his children through his sisters. Then she marries his kind brother, and saves herself from him killing her because of a promise given to his evil brother.
Nonchalant and Babbler die when they are forced to work, which I thought was wrong because they may have been idle, but they were hardly evil. It just goes to show that only the perfect can live happily ever after in fairy tales. Another thing I disagreed with was the fairys saying "distrust is the mother of security", although that may be true, if you live by that rule you will never trust those you love, and will never be at ease around them. Does any one have any comments on this story, or know of any similar ones.
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JenM
Unregistered User
(10/28/02 5:20:55 pm)
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The Discreet Princess
I love Finette! I was amazed and delighted to find a fairytale princess
with so much spunk. I think she's an excellent role model for the
girls of today...if a guy so much as thinks about pulling a move
on you, threaten to bash his skull in. You may be interested ot
know that L'heritier was the neice of authour Charles Perrault,
but you never see any of his princesses rescuing themselves like
that! I too felt that the elder princesses were more harshly punished
than need be. Rather than being truly evil, they were overly naiive
and too used to getting there own way.
Jen M.
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JenM
Unregistered User
(10/28/02 6:37:49 pm)
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I just remembered....
Assuming you haven't already read it, you might enjoy "Beauty
and the Beast and Other Classic French Fairy Tales" I found
a copy of it at a public library, and it has a lot of wonderful
tales I was not familiar with before, including the Discreet Princess.
Finette
Cendron- a different sort of Cinderella story -has the heroine
take control, using her intelligence and skill to get to the ball,
rather than feebly relying on a fairy godmother. Anyhow, I thought
it was a marvelous book.
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Leah
Unregistered User
(10/29/02 7:29:45 am)
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have the book
Actualy I rented Beauty and the Beast and Other Classic French Fairy Tales from the library to read a version of tufty ricky, which I am thinking of writing a shortstory retelling off, and found the adventures of Finette in it. I haven't read the other story you mentioned so ill have to read it, do you remember who the auther was? Thanks for responding!
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JenM
Unregistered User
(10/29/02 7:54:13 pm)
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Finette Cendron
Finette Cendron is a Cinderella story by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy. You can find it in the Beauty and The Beast and Other Tales book. In that particular volume, there were two versions of the tufty ricky story. Do you have a preference? That is really cool that you are thinking of writing your own retelling of such an interesting tale! I would love to read it if you do. You'll have to post it on the web and put the link up here! By the way, do you have any good book recommendations (fairytale or other)? I am always searching for a good read. Hope you enjoy Finette Cendron!
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Leah
Unregistered User
(10/30/02 12:41:35 pm)
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lots of lists
Actualy in my story i am going to write from the ugly twins point of view, so i will probably use Perraults version more. I like his version more for the most part, however i like that the other (I forgot the auther's name sorry) is more from a feminane point of view. I have a website for Patricia Wrede that eventrualy i plan to put my stories on, but until then you can give me your e-mail adress, i have completed three other fairy tale shortstories, but two need speel checking, ill send u a copy of those when they are done if you like. Actualy almost every thing i read is fairy tale related lol. here is a like to a list i made on amazon for original fairy tales,
www.amazon.com/exec/obido...43-3209468
and the second one is
www.amazon.com/exec/obido...43-3209468
for retellings here is a cool site
www.dimensional.com/~boar...tales.html
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Jess
Unregistered User
(10/30/02 12:58:54 pm)
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Rickett
Just a quick thought here. I am not sure why, but this tale reminded me of the short(ish) story "Flowers for Algernon." I think the idea of grown intelligence and understanding the consequences of losing that reasoning ability might have something to do with it. If you haven't read the story lately, it might be worth a quick re-read.
It sounded as if you are viewing the Rickett story from the orginally smarter sister's view. Great idea. That should be a very interesting tale.
Jess
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JenM
Unregistered User
(10/30/02 5:27:38 pm)
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Rickett
I like the idea of focussing on the ugly sister. I felt really badly for her...her posistion is one that would undoubtably be difficult. Thanks a whole bunch for the lists...I'll have to check them out ASAP. My e-mail is (grrr) temporarily down, so I'll have to give you my e. later.....I'm probably going to have to switch addresses completely (sigh). I like Jess's comment about "Flowers for Algernon" Now that I think about it, there are definately simmilarities. It does have an almost fairytale quality to it. It made me cry.
Jen
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leah
Unregistered User
(11/4/02 1:48:34 pm)
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added stories to my website
i figured out how to add my stories to my website, here are the two onces that are finished, tell me if you see any grammer errors, it has been checked, but i may have missed a few things. Hope you like it.
www.angelfire.com/wizard/...index.html
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Leah
Unregistered User
(11/4/02 1:50:11 pm)
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sorry!
I forgot to spell check my message. Sorry the spelling is so atrocious.
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JenM
Unregistered User
(11/5/02 6:10:23 pm)
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Short stories
You get some major gold stars for creativity. (The spelling and grammar appear to be okay, except in the Legend of M. 18th paragraph "good bye", not "good buy") I really enjoyed both stories. The Robin reminded me very much of the Frog Prince. My only complaint? I thought Ria should have had to do more than answer a riddle to get the guy, but I still really enjoyed it. In spots, it vaguely reminded me of the first of the dragon books by Patricia Wreade (which also rates high on me top ten list)
I write too, but I've never attempted to retell a fairytale (maybe I will after I wade through the essays for my english class...) mostly I write short vignettes and the like. How's Rickett coming?
Jen
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Leah
Unregistered User
(11/6/02 9:45:52 am)
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I love dealing with dragons
Actually Dealing with dragons is my favorite series. I really like how she writes, and got my idea to do an original fairy tale from her. So thanks for saying that my work reminds you of hers, I take that as a very high compliment.
The Legend of Mearlie is a short story that preludes a longer one, that I plan to work on eventually. The little girl who is hearing the story is going to be the main character when she grows up.
I am having trouble getting started on my tufty Ricky story, because it says so little about the ugly sister in the story, and it doesn't have a tone of excitement to work from. But I'll think of something soon. If you have any ideas I would be glad to hear them.
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JenM
Unregistered User
(11/6/02 8:12:28 pm)
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story ideas
Leah-
try starting from the middle of the story. If you begin your retelling from some social event in which the lovely, intelligent sister is outshining the ugly intelligent one, you can pull the reader in instantly by describing the ugly sister's hurt and loneliness at being left out, which leaves her free to then tell of how things used to be, and then how things became. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but I'll keep thinking. Let me know how it works out!
-Jen
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