Thérèse Neelands

The Book Of Lost Things, by John Connelly

Postmodern take on Fairy Tales and Fables? Sort of. But it goes further than that. David is a boy coming of age during the war who retreats into a world of his own imagination as a way of dealing with the distress of the death of his mother, his father’s new wife, and his new half brother. Fairy Tales and Folk Tales become building blocks in the creation of his new world. The tales become slightly twisted as David composes them in his imagination. Sometimes horrific and definitely gruesome, this book isn’t really for children, although children might enjoy it for different reasons (there’s irony in there).

It’s interesting to think of Fairy Tales and Fables (as Connelly suggests) as not just life-lessons for children, but life lessons to aide the transition from childhood to adulthood. To start an awareness of the reality of a world full of pain, suffering and loss and how to overcome these challenges. Sexual awakening is also part of it, and there are stories like Sleeping Beauty which is quite literal in that aspect – in earlier versions, Sleeping Beauty is raped while she is asleep, and wakes up with the birth of her baby.

Some stories are just plain puzzling like The Three Billy Goats Gruff . I’m not sure what the lesson to be learned is here, but I remember it being a particular favourite when I was a kid. Perhaps part of the fascination was that I just didn’t get it then either.

The Book of Lost Things has got me in a Fairy Tales/Folk Tales kick, and I’ve dug out some of my most treasured books when I was little. These were my building blocks in developing a love for stories and pictures.

This one is double sided.

Stories from Hans Anderson

And the other side…

Stories from Grimm

Stories from Hans Anderson

Stories from Grimm

This next book was loved so much by all four of us girls that the cover is missing. In fact, I don’t remember this book having a cover at all, but such are the pitfalls of being the youngest. Interesting note – inside the cover is written over white-out “To Anne-Marie, from Mum & Dad. For doing well in school!”. I have the sneaking suspicion this was actually meant for Stef.

Young Years, 1971 edition, Back Cover

It’s big and heavy, containing a long list of nursery rhymes, nursery stories, fables, fairy tales, and poetry.

Beauty and The Beast, Young Years, edition 1971

Fables, Young Years, 1971

Yesterday I went to She Said Boom!, as I was dangerously close to finishing The Book of Lost Things. This is what I got:

English Fairy Tales and Legends by Rosalind Kerven

It has some illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Like The Book of Lost Things, there are notes and sources at the back.

The Princess and The Fool, Kent

The pages are as thick as cardstock, with a soft, paper jacket. Each story is from a different county.

The Devil's Bargain, Lancashire

The Wicked Witch, London

I also bought Salmon Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence, which I am very anxious to start.

The Enchantress of Florence, by Salmon Rushdie

This one, although not really of Fairy Tales, contains poems and short stories. It was once my mother’s when she was a kid.

Lucie Attwell's Annual

Lucie Atwell's Annual

There’s no copyright, but it looks like it may be from the 40s.

And now, I just got word, I think, that Nikolski (previous post) has just won the Canada Reads 2010 debate! I’m heading over to the CBC!

I’m starting a little job this evening, but found I was out of sketchbooks. Sifting through an old one in hopes of finding some clean paper, I found an entry from 2008 that caught my eye:

“Ahh. A space of my own. My hands are covered in indigo and prussian blue. My jeans are covered in yellow ochre and burnt umber. My apron is hard and crusty in places from the dried paint. I have a smudge on my nose from satisfying an itch and my eyes are glazed and tired, but it’s comfortable -  I know this place.

It is an insecure place, where nothing ever stands still. It is a landscape of soaring highs and bottomless lows. If I’m lucky, the lows are familiar enough that I can sit in it and wait for it to pass, for the morning when I can wake up, coffee in hand, anxious and knowing – TODAY IS THE DAY.

What is it that decides to ignite the spark? It is something out of my reach. This whole thing is the ultimate in abandon, in giving up, in a way. Giving up my ego and intention because nothing ends up the way I started or wanted it to be. This may be the aphrodisiac – the surprise and elation at what I’ve done, never knowing what I’m capable of and not, but the most fearsome thing of all – the thing that sticks a cork up the portal to my creativity – is the notion of the possibility that I just might suck at the thing I love the most.”