There are certain retellings that manage to make you *more* interested in the original material, feel more fond of the story in general.
This week I've been lucky enough to come across two of these.
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George
This cover art is an example of completely acceptable graphic design that cues the reader completely wrong. At least for me it did.
After reading Ice by Sarah Beth Durst, I had ordered this book without really looking much into it. I knew I'd heard of it before, it was a retelling of the East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling, which is what the Ravelry read-and-knit-along is doing for the winter theme.
I felt a jarring sensation when I opened the book and it was *not* (like Ice) a modern-world updated version. In fact, it's told so much in the tone of a fairy tale that though the heroine's name is not revealed until the end of the book (she has a nickname) it never seemed weird. (My biggest problem with fairy tales as a child was not getting a sense of personality from the characters, who often lacked even names. It's actually kind of funny to have this reversal...)
No, this book is set snugly in a Scandinavian history where their fairy tales (rather than the eddas of gods) are the cultural landscape.
And I loved that. It was done so well. It did what a more straight-forward retelling needs to do: tie together the bones of the fairy tale with flesh that makes it live and work and color the ideas more deeply.
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley
Contrastingly, this cover is of the kind that I don't find particularly exciting, but actually evokes the story's tone quite well. In fact, after reading the book I'm fond of it.
The Folk Keeper is not so much a retelling as a story involving a well-known feature of Fae--which would be a bit of a spoiler, and so I won't come out and say what. But it's one I've been a little intrigued by but found largely colorless until this story used it as part of a world that's got a new sort of logic, though built with familiar elements. The Folk are what you'd think: the almost intangible (and yet physically real) faerie folk, the spiteful tiny trouble-making kind.
And The Folk Keeper of this story is a girl with a distinct attitude. From the recommendation I read on my f-list the other day, though, I fell in love with the tone of her attitude. It's both appropriate to the time-period (I'd say Edwardian England, but vague in a way that's good) and yet interesting, fresh.
The book's descriptive bits were beautiful, and yet it felt light of touch, a brief read. It was quite dark, and yet the diary format kept it a little distant. Which did not soften the impact.
There is a strong resemblance in ambiance with this one and The Perilous Gard, though they share very few actual attributes. A plus in my mind...