Beauty by Robin McKinley
My rating: 4/5 cats
fairy tale retellings are fascinating – i went through a datlow-phase years ago, and i have read many others outside of her collections – it is a comfortable pleasure for me. so, since i am now going on an “introduce myself to the fantasy genre” expedition, this book seemed like the most logical entrée into it all.
beauty and the beast was never one of my favorite fairy tales – i don’t know why, particularly, but i usually preferred the ones that didn’t have a corresponding disney movie which would unavoidably be playing in the back of my head as i was reading them, not to mention the songs – the dreadful songs…
but i really liked this adaptation.
the best thing about this particular version is that mckinley changes the backstory a little bit in a way that makes it more natural and a much better story overall.
most fairy tales operate by isolating the main character. the heroes and heroines are frequently orphans, or abandoned by their parents/step-parents, friendless and forced to make their own way with the occasional animal or supernatural ally. but in this retelling, beauty comes from a loving family. she and her sisters are close, her father loves her deeply, she has a strong sense of community and duty.
the cinderella type, who stoically goes on sweeping and polishing while everyone around her abuses her and enslaves her while she just keeps turning the other cheek as though she is in a morphine daze – i cannot get behind that kind of character, because they seem less human and more symbolic; they are empty. in the original b and the b – of course beauty would go to the beast – what’s she got to keep her where she is?? some shitty sisters and a weak father? (she does love her father in the original, but the rest of her life is pretty easy to leave behind). but in this version, her decision is made out of love and sacrifice and she is giving up so much, that it makes her sympathetic, but not some doormat like so many others, doing “good” because they have been lobotomized sometime in their past. her decision feels more natural considering her background; the sacrifice is greater than that of someone with nothing to lose. this young woman has learned how to love and how to be nurturing from a support system that includes her family, but also includes her neighbors and everyone she meets along the way, in a natural nice-girl way that is never treacly. and she is no gentle delicate flower, either – this girl is a perfect match for the beast.
without that family-oriented background, it is illogical that she would have learned how to be kind, how to be giving, how to care for the beast enough to bring him back to his true form. (there is no way i am putting a spoiler alert on this review, by the way – DO YOU LIVE IN A HOLE???) i think that mckinley made absolutely the right choice by changing the parts she did, and her prose is beautiful and simple and a real treat to read.
and don’t get me started on that library. this is why we need more booknerd heroines in our fairy tales. so books like this can be written.
