A Proposal. Regarding Fairies.
So. Hi.
I am still interested in that whole "real life should really be the focus of, you know, living" idea that I mentioned in my last post. And I'm doing a sporadic job of actually applying it, which I suppose is better than doing nothing at all. I am at least doing a better job of doing dishes and cooking dinner, which is probably good for my physical as well as spiritual health.
However, I still really want to have a blog. Though that is technically time spent on the Internet, it does actually require more effort than the mindless entertainment that I usually pursue on the web, and it gets me writing. Plus, I might meet cool people, if I actually post regularly and have something interesting to say. Both of which are hitches in the whole system right now.
Fact is, I realized that I don't tend to do a good job at blogging unless I have something I can focus on, something to give me a reason for writing. For my very first blog, that reason was keeping in touch with a bunch of out-of-state friends I'd just made, and letting friends and family know about my travels in Europe. Those were good reasons, and a lot of people have told me they enjoyed my posts then. (which I won't link to here, since I was a younger person then. Google a bit, you might find me anyway.) Today, my life is a bit different. I actually live in the same place as a lot of those out-of-town friends now, and some of the others I've begun to lose contact with. I am not trekking across international borders every weekend, and my job is a mind-numbing study in tedious attention to detail, day in and day out. These things do not a great blog make.
Solution: fairies. I consider at least a passing knowledge of fairy tales and legends to be important to my (currently unpaid) job as a writer. Other people probably get their inspiration from other places, but to me fairy tales have always been at least as important as contemporary fantasy. I own almost an entire shelf of a bookshelf worth of different anthologies, and it's not unusual for me to buy more. The problem? I don't read them. I have collections compiled by the Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, Jack Zipes (2 by him!), Maria Tatar, and Random Person Whose Collection Was Translated To English For Tourists. Plus many more. Some of them I've read in their entirety, though long ago. Some I've read individual stories from. And some I have never read a single story from. (One of them a Zipes collection of literary fairy tales. *sniff* so sad.) It is high time for that to change.
My proposal, therefore, is for me to actually read some of my fairy tales. I'll take a few notes and try to communicate my reactions by blog post in an honest and entertaining way. This will hopefully achieve the goals of helping me blog more, read my fairy tales, and spend more time in a place right next door to IRL. This should be a win-win-win. We'll find out if it is one.
I will try to post my first entry by the end of the week. I am torn between reading "The Twelve Wild Geese" in my Yeats anthology, or doing a post on "The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was" (one of my favorite, favorite, favorite of the less common tales) from the Blue Fairy Book. We'll see what transpires.
I will also try to figure out how an lj cut works now that my posts will probably be longer.
A few notes: I will probably be including notes involving serious academic criticism in some of my reviews, but that will probably not be the main or only focus of them. I have been studying fairy tales and folklore in a sort of desultory, amateur way since high school, and I took one fairy tale and folklore class in college. (I will probably try to dig up my notes at some point during this project.) I am interested in critical and cultural notes, and I will probably be interested by what people can add in those areas in the comments. Be aware, however, that I do not really conform to the mold of the *true* folklore scholar. I will, as you may have guessed from the list above, be reading from Grimm and Lang collections, in spite of the fact they *changed* some of the stories they collected. I may occasionally mention the "D-word." (Full disclosure: I like the Disney versions of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Sleeping Beauty.") I am just as concerned with the versions of stories that appear in cheap picture books you buy at Wal-Mart as I am in the proto-proto-proto-version of a tale. I will say silly, obvious things like, "gee a lot of people seem to die in this one. And what's with all the decapitating?" I like fairy tales because they are strange and non sequiter and sometimes creepy and sometimes beautiful. While I may, when relevant, point out feminist or archetypal themes, I will also treat them as entertainment. This is what they are, even the didactic ones. If this offends you, there are places on the Internet where you can go and hang out with people being serious and scholarly about fairy tales. You will probably be happier there.
I am still interested in that whole "real life should really be the focus of, you know, living" idea that I mentioned in my last post. And I'm doing a sporadic job of actually applying it, which I suppose is better than doing nothing at all. I am at least doing a better job of doing dishes and cooking dinner, which is probably good for my physical as well as spiritual health.
However, I still really want to have a blog. Though that is technically time spent on the Internet, it does actually require more effort than the mindless entertainment that I usually pursue on the web, and it gets me writing. Plus, I might meet cool people, if I actually post regularly and have something interesting to say. Both of which are hitches in the whole system right now.
Fact is, I realized that I don't tend to do a good job at blogging unless I have something I can focus on, something to give me a reason for writing. For my very first blog, that reason was keeping in touch with a bunch of out-of-state friends I'd just made, and letting friends and family know about my travels in Europe. Those were good reasons, and a lot of people have told me they enjoyed my posts then. (which I won't link to here, since I was a younger person then. Google a bit, you might find me anyway.) Today, my life is a bit different. I actually live in the same place as a lot of those out-of-town friends now, and some of the others I've begun to lose contact with. I am not trekking across international borders every weekend, and my job is a mind-numbing study in tedious attention to detail, day in and day out. These things do not a great blog make.
Solution: fairies. I consider at least a passing knowledge of fairy tales and legends to be important to my (currently unpaid) job as a writer. Other people probably get their inspiration from other places, but to me fairy tales have always been at least as important as contemporary fantasy. I own almost an entire shelf of a bookshelf worth of different anthologies, and it's not unusual for me to buy more. The problem? I don't read them. I have collections compiled by the Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, Jack Zipes (2 by him!), Maria Tatar, and Random Person Whose Collection Was Translated To English For Tourists. Plus many more. Some of them I've read in their entirety, though long ago. Some I've read individual stories from. And some I have never read a single story from. (One of them a Zipes collection of literary fairy tales. *sniff* so sad.) It is high time for that to change.
My proposal, therefore, is for me to actually read some of my fairy tales. I'll take a few notes and try to communicate my reactions by blog post in an honest and entertaining way. This will hopefully achieve the goals of helping me blog more, read my fairy tales, and spend more time in a place right next door to IRL. This should be a win-win-win. We'll find out if it is one.
I will try to post my first entry by the end of the week. I am torn between reading "The Twelve Wild Geese" in my Yeats anthology, or doing a post on "The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was" (one of my favorite, favorite, favorite of the less common tales) from the Blue Fairy Book. We'll see what transpires.
I will also try to figure out how an lj cut works now that my posts will probably be longer.
A few notes: I will probably be including notes involving serious academic criticism in some of my reviews, but that will probably not be the main or only focus of them. I have been studying fairy tales and folklore in a sort of desultory, amateur way since high school, and I took one fairy tale and folklore class in college. (I will probably try to dig up my notes at some point during this project.) I am interested in critical and cultural notes, and I will probably be interested by what people can add in those areas in the comments. Be aware, however, that I do not really conform to the mold of the *true* folklore scholar. I will, as you may have guessed from the list above, be reading from Grimm and Lang collections, in spite of the fact they *changed* some of the stories they collected. I may occasionally mention the "D-word." (Full disclosure: I like the Disney versions of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Sleeping Beauty.") I am just as concerned with the versions of stories that appear in cheap picture books you buy at Wal-Mart as I am in the proto-proto-proto-version of a tale. I will say silly, obvious things like, "gee a lot of people seem to die in this one. And what's with all the decapitating?" I like fairy tales because they are strange and non sequiter and sometimes creepy and sometimes beautiful. While I may, when relevant, point out feminist or archetypal themes, I will also treat them as entertainment. This is what they are, even the didactic ones. If this offends you, there are places on the Internet where you can go and hang out with people being serious and scholarly about fairy tales. You will probably be happier there.