boy, snow, bird. helen oyeyemi. (214)

i had seen helen oyeyemi's boy, snow, bird on amazon and the cover caught my eye.  later, i saw it as an ebook when i downloaded the app the library used.  however, i finally considered reading it when my friend juliana got a copy at bookcon.  then while browsing the beale library while waiting for my aunt and uncle i was surprised to find it with their new releases, i figured it would be out on request. i decided to amazon it's description, and came across this:

As seen on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was described as “gloriously unsettling… evoking Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Gabriel García Márquez, Chris Abani and even Emily Dickinson,” and already one of the year’s most widely acclaimed novels

garcia marquez!!!! haruki murakami!!! toni morrison!!! i had to check it out!!!

though i will say it did have some elements of the authors mentioned the writing did not fill me with whimsy like garcia marquez and murkami.  nor did i connect emotionally like i did with morrison's characters.  however, this was still an enjoyable read, my expectations had been raised due to the review.

*****spoilers beyond this points stop if you plan on reading this!!!!******

boy, snow, bird is set in the 40's, the first part is the story of boy novak who at the age of eighteen ran away from her (yes, she is female) abusive father.  her father worked as a rat catcher and was demented randomly hitting her and once leaving her to be attacked by rats in the basement.

boy ended up in a small town, flax hill.  at first boy was complete out of place in flax hill but soon made it her home.  she ended up marrying a widower, arturo whitman.  initially, they did not like each other but eventually he fell in love with her.  boy, however, married based on a strong connection she felt with his daughter, snow.  snow was a beautiful little girl and boy was entranced by her until boy became pregnant.

if you go on goodreads, a lot of reviewers bitched about boy, snow, bird, not being a worthy play on snow white.  i can see the strings that connect the fairy tale to the novel and those that want more, go watch abc's once upon a time.  

after the new baby is born, bird,  boy became a wicked stepmother.  with the birth of bird, arturo's family secret was revealed.  they were black, they had been passing as white in town though some individuals knew the truth.  bird did not have fair skin like her sister, snow.  as a result, the family treated her differently, they did not revere bird like snow.  also their reverence for snow came to light, it was not simply her beauty but the fact that she looked white.   boy began to resent snow for her whiteness and eventually sent her away to live wuth her aunt clara.  clara, arturo's sister, like bird, had a darker complexion and to avoid her revealing the family secret, she was sent away.  boy unable to deal with bird's complexion called clara so that she could send . . . snow away!  i was surprised by this, i thought boy was going to send away bird (which isn't any better).  boy sent away snow becaming an evil stepmother, she started to loathe snow based on the way everyone catered to her, just like snow white's evil stepmother!  

what broke my heart was that even though snow was revered this did not change how she treated bird.  snow was the only one that loved bird unconditionally.  it was so sweet to see snow being loving and affection toward her sister.  boy and arturo's mother, olivia, did not truly love bird and kept her at a distance.  snow was sent away because boy was jealous of the treatment she received and knew that her daughter would never be an equal.  this placed olivia as the enemy but really it was boy because she did not see bird as worthy of anyone's love.  snow was a constant reminder of bird's "otherness" and so boy had her sent away.

the middle part of the book was told from bird's perspective, who is now in middle school. from her we learn just how self-loathing olivia whitman was, not only racist towards blacks but also distant from her granddaughter.  bird was aware of her grandma's dislike for her, but thankful she was not completely damaged by it.

in this middle section, bird discovered that snow wrote to boy and later bird but boy never passed them on.  bird decided to start writing to her sister and they exchange a handful of letters between each other.  in their letters, we see the magical realism of garica marquez and murakami.  bird shared how she spoke to spiders and calmed them down once they heard humans knew the stories of ansai.  they also shared fairy tales back and forth about la belle capuchine.  bird sharing the story that her grandmother, olivia, fired for telling her.  it was the story of a slave that looked like her owner.  the slave was given privileges due to her likeness and this made her turn against the slaves.  one day a man came to free the slaves and locked the family up, when he came to release the slave, he mistaken the owner as the slave.  the slave asked another slave to help identify her but he turned his back on her.  while snow's la belle capuchine is beautiful but dangerous.  she has a garden that is deadly.

the girls also discovered that both are not always in mirrors.  boy also had issues with mirrors, always captivated by herself in them.  mirrors are utilized to symbolize identity.  snow can not see herself because her completely self is never seen by others, everyone thinks she is white but she is not.  bird can not see herself completely for the same reason, people take her only for her exterior and not her interior.  the reason for boy's mirror obsession is not revealed until the end.

in the second section, snow finally returned home and the tension and stress of this was discussed.  a surprise visitor also appeared in this portion.  frank, boy's father, came and took bird not realizing she was his granddaughter. he then told bird how boy almost did not live, for after birth she was sick.  he also told her that boy was evil.

the last section has a crazy surprise ending.  mia, boy's friend, discovered that frank is actually boy's mom!  it is discovered that frances was a lesbian and raped by a man.  she became pregnant and lived in a shelter but was eventually kicked out.  then one day as explained by mia, she looked in the mirror and there was frank.  she then became frank.

i was not anticipating this at all, i was expecting boy's mother to turn out to be black, not that her father was transgender.  i admired oyeyemi for this plot twist drawing parallels between racial prejudice and sexual orientation prejudice.  though it was disheartening to see people on goodreads bash the ending though i think it's their own fear of  transgenders.  a surprise twist was not unexpected, as mentioned i was anticipating her mother being black so it's not like a twist could ruin it.  the negativity has to be the fact that her mother was transgender.  most people thought it was ridiculous and unbelievable but i think it is plausible, transgender people have existed thoughout all of history, but it's just that now with the lgbt community being more visible that everyone is coming out of the closet.  i mean time magazine recently did a cover about transgender with the cover title "the transgender tipping point". i thought it was an interesting twist and did not lessen the story.

in the end, boy decided to rescue her mother.  boy enlisted snow, bird, and mia to help her save her mother.  the story ended with their leaving flax hill for nyc.  though these is no resolution i believe that they save frank.  having a family that sees you for who you truly are and accepts and loves you, fixes everything. 

fairy tales from the grimm brothers. philip pullman. (94)

a while back, i remember learning that the fairy tales, we all loved as kids and prolly still love as adults are not as sweet or lovely as disney made them out to be. for example, cinderella wore a fur shoe instead of a glass slipper. due to this i have always wanted to read the "original" stories. and just like the issues i have had with translations, i wanted to find the most "authentic". so when i read about philip pullman's "fairy tales from the brothers grimm", i had to check it out! (note: i want to say all of the authentic fairy tale talk mentioned before was due to that brothers grimm movie with matt damon and heath ledger. i always wanted to see it to learn about the "true" tales but never did).

before i go on, how great is that cover?!?!? it's an illustration called "the children in the woods" by c. lucy. i love that it has this sinister vibe with the blackbirds. i also enjoy that is retro looking.

so philip pullman did all of this research to present his version of the brother grimm's fairy tales. he shared 50 fairy tales and at the end of each section shared: the tale type, what similar stories there are in other countries or within the grimm canon, the source the grimms got the story from, and then his quick analyze of it. it's interesting how countries share similar stories, i think that would make for an interesting book, to know what in human nature causes us to create similar folk tales or how those folk tales spread. (i should google. this book prolly already existed.)

and as much as i would loved to share my analyze of all 50 fairy tales in the book, i thought i would share the "real" version of disney classics and also my favorites fairy tales.

some of our beloved disney classics were in this but sadly the best parts were taken out to make the stories more kid friendly.

cinderella-
in this version the evil stepmother had the stepsisters cut their feet to make the shoe fit. one stepsister cut her heel and the other her toe! also during the wedding ceremony, each of the stepsisters get an eye pecked out by the turtlesdoves that helped cinderella go to the ball.

snow white-
instead of just taking snow white's heart, the huntsman was to cut out her lungs and liver as proof that snow white was dead. in addition to that the evil queen ate her lungs and liver! (more cannibalism is to come) also the evil queen came around, a handful of times to try to kill snow white when she lived with the dwarves. also the dwarves had no names (but if you saw that one "saved by the bell" episode, you already knew that.) finally, the poisoned apple worked. the dwarves put snow in a glass coffin. one day a prince came and asked to buy snow because he had fallen in love with her and would treat her with honor and respect as if she were alive. (creepy, right?!?!) the dwarves gave snow to prince and as his servants carried her down, one tripped which shook the coffin and dislodged the apple and snow white came to life! they then marry. at the wedding, snow white's evil stepmother showed up and they put her in hot iron shoes in which she danced until she died.

rapunzel-
tangled was definitely the g-rated version. so rapunzel's birth mother wanted some rapunzel from a witch's garden so her birth father stole some. he was caught and as a result he had to give up their daughter. (this seems horrible but really he shouldn't have been stealing in the first place!)

so the witch put rapunzel in the tower and had her put down her hair so she could climb up. a prince discovered rapunzel in the tower and they fall in love.

however in this version, the prince knocked her up! pullman lets us know because rapunzel's clothes became
tighter. the witch was outraged and banished rapunzel and her two children (she has twins) to a strange land. the witch then waited for the prince and threw him from the tower. he landed in a thorn bush and is blinded. he wandered the earth and miraculously finds rapunzel and the children. her tears cured his blindness and they live happily ever after.

oddly the premarital sex thing is not an issue. though she was banished for a while so that could have been it. ps rapunzel is an abortifacient. so odd that rapuznel's mom was craving it while she was pregnant.

briar rose-
the main difference was that the spell was for a hundred years, not just the short time in the disney movie. (i will add i do love the disney version more because of maleficent!)

but i wanted to give this story to discuss, as pullman did, about bruno bettelheim's
theory that "the sleep of a hundred years that follows the unexpected loss of blood 'is nothing but a time of quiet growth and preparation, from which the person will awake mature, ready for sexual union'". that is a interesting take on this fairy tale, it being a hidden moral that one should wait for both mind and body to be mature before being come sexually active and not assuming the body is ready because it has it's period.

my favorites:

"the juniper tree"-
this is the story of a man and a woman had a son but the wife died and was buried under a juniper tree. he remarried and has a daughter. the stepmother hated the son and one day killed him but chopping off his head. she did it by slamming the lid of a chest on his neck when he was looking in it to get an apple. then she tied the head back on and acted like nothing happen. then the sister goes to the brother and when he didn't respond the stepmom told her to hit him and his head fell off! (how horrifying!!!) then the mom chopped up his body and put it in a stew. when the father came home, she told him the son went to visit his family and then fed him the little boy stew!! the little sister gathered his bones and buried them under the juniper tree. the boy's spirit than became a bird and he had a beautiful song about his fate. using his song he had a goldsmith give him a necklace, a shoemaker give him shoes, and an apprentice give him a millstone. he then went home and sang his song. when his sister came out, he gave her the chain, then the father the shoes and finally the stepmother, the millstone. the millstone crushed her to death and the boy magically appeared to live happily ever after.

seriously a fairy tale with cannibalism?!?!? but surprisingly not the only one, in "the robber bridgegroom", a bride discovered her husband belonged to a band of robbers that ate young girls. and of course there is hansel and gretel's child eating-witch. (which i never got until i started subbing, seriously kids can be so frustrating that one could eat them out of anger. though they are usually gross and germ-y so i could not imagine them
tasting good). random sidenote: everyone knows the tale of hansel and gretel but i had forgotten why they were lost in the forest. it turns out because their family was so poor and the stepmother got rid of them so she wouldn't have to feed them. plus there would be more food for her! parenting at its finest!

thousandfurs-
this story is a little different because instead of an evil stepmother as the villain it's a disgusting father. there once was a king and when his wife died she had him promise that he would not marry someone less beautiful or with less golden hair than hers. he promised and as a result could not find anyone to marry. until his daughter came of age, she looked just like her mother. he decided to marry her. the daughter was horrified and told her father that she would marry him if he made her three dresses, one golden like the sun, one silver like the moon, and one glittery as the stars. she also wanted a coat made of a thousand different furs (she thought this would take him a while . . . but it didn't). the day before they were to be marry she took the dresses and put on the coat and ran away.

she was hiding in a tree when the king and his huntsmen came across her. they thought she was a beast because of her coat but when they discovered she was a girl they took her set her to work in the kitchen. she started to cook for the king and leave random items in his food like a ring.

the king would hold balls and thousandsfur would sneak into them after cleaning up (of course) and wearing one of the dresses her father made for her. of course, the king fell in love with her but she always ran away early before he could find out who she was. on the last night as she left, he slipped a gold ring on her finger.

the next day when he found a gold bobbin in his food, he called for thousandfurs and saw the ring on her finger and proposed to her. they lived happily ever after!

gambling hans-
what i enjoyed about this story is that it treated the lord, st. peter, death and the devil like regular people. to the point where it was almost like a bad joke, think "the lord, st. peter, and the devil walk into a bar . . "

so gambling hans is a gambler. and one day the lord and st. peter come to him because they need a place to stay. of course hans, screws up and gambles the money they give him for bread. but being the lord he forgives.

after their stay, the lord decided to give hans three rewards for his hospitality. hans asked for a deck of cards this always won, a pair of dice that always won, and a fruit tree in which if anyone climbed it they need hans permission to get down.

hans began to gamble and won everything. st. peter was worried he would own the world so he sent death for him. when death arrived, hans asked him to get some fruit for their trip. of course, death was stuck in the tree for seven years and during that time no one died! so the lord intervened and death came down from the tree and strangled hans.

so hans ended up in hell. hans gambled with the devil and won all of his ugly devils. he took them to hohenfurt where they grew hops they climbed the hop poles to heaven. but that caused trouble in heaven so they kicked him out and hurled him to earth. his soul was smashed into pieces and went everywhere. there is a piece in every gambler that is alive today!

i realize the rehashing of these tales will take to long and really you should just pick it up, so will share the titles of my favorites:

"the boy who left home to find out about the shivers"
"little brother and little sister"
"the girl with no hands"
"bearskin"
"the moon"

as i was reading, i realized that these fairy tales were not for children. most of them
involved an evil stepmother that was trying into kill a child or ruin a child's life. there was a lot of deceit and ghosts had to help uncover the truth. and the villains all ended up with some grotesque and horrible death. also life was pretty easy for one if they were beautiful because some king would come by and see your beauty and save you from your miserable life. not exactly the best model for life for little kids. but then again fairy tales today aren't just for kids but kids of all ages. and i think these version are better then the sugar and spice and everything nice wholesome stuff we spoon feed kids today. i definitely will still let my future little kids know the disney versions of these tales but when they hit the double digits, i will have them read this book.