Grade: A
As we all know, old skool fairy tales aren’t the sanitized happy-happy-joy-joy Disney version that we tell our children (or cats). In one version of Cinderella, the wicked stepsisters cut off their toes so their feet would fit into the slipper and when it is Cinderella’s turn to try it on, the slipper is squishy with blood. In another version, when the evil stepmother and sisters attend Cinderella’s wedding to the prince, a bunch of pigeons come along and poke their eyes out. In The Goose Girl, the villain is placed naked in a barrel lined with nails and dragged from street to street by horses until she is dead. In Hansel and Gretel, the titular siblings make it home and the father hugs them to this chest, then decapitates his wife for suggesting the plan for losing H&G in the forest. But none of these stories could ever be as grisly and macabre as Charles Perrault’s Donkeyskin. In Donkeyskin, a king is made to promise by his dying wife that he will only marry a woman as beautiful and graceful as she is. Over the years, the king is unable to find any woman who could even come close to being as beautiful as his dead wife and as each day passes, it becomes more apparent to him that his daughter, nearly identical in appearance to his wife, is the only one who fits the bill. The king decrees he will marry his own daughter and the daughter, in an effort to stall her father, demands three gowns made of impossible-to-acquire materials and the hide of her father’s precious donkey. When her father fulfills each and every one of them, the girl runs away with the help of a fairy-godmother and eventually finds a prince who falls in love with her and marries her. And they live happily ever after. Yeah, that’s not how it happens in Mckinley’s version of the tale.

Warning: This is NOT an Young Adult book. Seriously. No, I’m not joking. There are some seriously violent and disturbing images in this book. Robin McKinley does not hold back.

In an unnamed kingdom long, long ago far, far away, there lived a beautiful couple who only had eyes for each other. In fact, they were so in love with each other that they completely forgot they had a daughter—-a mousy, quiet little girl who had no one but a nursemaid to keep her company. The queen was the most beautiful woman in all of the seven kingdoms—-black hair (with hints of blood-red in the sun), pale skin, and exquisite manners. Every man in all of the seven kingdoms wanted her and her own father wanted to keep her by his side. In an effort to stave off the suitors, the queen’s father devises a contest: the first one to bring a leaf from the tree of joy and an apple from the tree of sorrow (on the opposite sides of the world), a feat so impossible that the suitors are bound to die or give up. But one man accomplished both goals and came to claim the Most Beautiful Woman in all of Seven Kingdoms. The two of them got married and lived happily ever after. Or for a while, at least. One day, the queen became afflicted with a Mysterious Disease and the doctors pronounced it to be the End of Her. The king grieved, losing his mind a little bit each day, especially since the queen had taken to wearing a veil so no one would see how the disease had affected her beauty and kicked him out of their room. Just before she died, the queen commissioned a portrait of herself to be hung in the throne room and made the king promise he will not marry anyone unless she were as beautiful and graceful as she was. As was the queen’s intention, the king could not find anyone that matched the queen in looks and attributes. But oh! Look over there! The Princess Lissar is starting look eerily like her dearly departed mother… and now that she’s seventeen…

All together now: Ewwwww!

Princess Lissar has never felt comfortable with her father. She grew up with only her nursemaid for company and the old woman talked about nothing but the Most Beautiful Woman in Seven Kingdoms and the young king who accomplished two seemingly impossible feats to win her hand in marriage. With the king and queen so in love with each other, they had no room in their hearts for a daughter and Lissar grew up unnoticed and unloved. It is only upon her mother’s death that Lissar finally gets something that is hers and hers alone: a beautiful dog that is a gift from a neighboring kingdom whom Lissar names Ash. The dog becomes Lissar’s constant companion and for the first time, Lissar has someone to love. Lissar begins to blossom and grow more beautiful each day, still happily neglected by her father… until her seventeenth birthday. Suddenly, the king seems to be paying freakishly close attention to her and Lissar knows there is something wrong with the way he looks at her. She’s right. The king soon enough announces that it is high-time Lissar got married and who better to marry her than… himself.

Hit it: EWWWWWWW!

Lissar isn’t your average faiwy tale pwinteth. She doesn’t bemoan to the heavens about her parents not giving a crap about her nor does she wander about all-emo, crying prettily because no one loves her. She is remarkably self-aware and realizes at an early age that her parents can’t love anyone else but each other. She doesn’t feel because she has never learned to. To her parents, she is like a conversation piece only to be brought out when the grown-ups have run out of stuff to talk about. When her father rapes and severely beats her, she has the presence of mind to scrape herself together in working order, grab her dog, and run away even though she doesn’t really know what’s outside the castle walls. In the woods, she finds a cabin where she and her dog spend the harshest winter, fending for themselves: catching small animals for meat, scraping the mold from the food supply in the cupboard, gathering firewood. Lissar is very resourceful and naturally, well-versed in herbs (what fairy tale princess isn’t?). She heals the worst of her wounds and a mysterious woman they call the Moon Lady comes along and gives her a stainless deerskin dress, changes her appearance, and erases her memory. In the spring, Lissar gathers her dog and hikes towards the nearest kingdom at the behest of the Moon Lady. In the city, she meets a young prince named Ossin, an okay-looking, humble sort who’d rather hang out with his dogs than mingle with the courtiers or find a princess to marry. For me, this is where the story REALLY comes alive because we see Lissar finally become a real person (even though she becomes a “legend” of sorts to the peasants). She and Ossin develop such a wonderful friendship together, hanging out and tending to the dogs. I also really enjoyed the scenes where Lissar has to figure out how to talk to people ’cause she’s never really talked to anyone outside of her ladies-in-waiting and servants. She becomes the BEST HEALER-MAGICAL-GIRL EVER, but thankfully, Ms. McKinley doesn’t quite cross the Mary Sue line.

I feel like a broken record when it comes to Robin McKinley, but I really have to say, her prose… is so damn lush and haunting. She reminds me a little bit of Angela Carter (AND I DO SO LOVE ANGELA CARTER) because no matter how dark and macabre the subject is, she manages to make it seem beautiful in its violence. The rape/beating scene of Lissar by her father could have been disgusting—-and believe me, it is plenty ugly—-but Robin McKinley describes it so that it’s almost like… a fucked-up, violent ballet. There are some really wonderful imagery here, one of which is the desolate cottage where Lissar gets snowed in. She’s crawled into herself, she’s beaten and bloody, she’s in this decrepit little shack trapped in the middle of nowhere… good stuff. Some of the metaphors are too obvious, an example of which is Lissar blooming in the spring, but she’s… well, she’s nature girl, so that’s a given, I think. It gets a little heavy-handed in some places and a bit… say… slow ’cause of the amount of details with which McKinley infuses this book, but it really isn’t that much of a trial to read through because like I mentioned, McKinley is a wonderful writer.

I said this in the beginning and yes, it bears repeating: this is NOT a Young Adult book. It is very violent and visceral. In a way, it reminds me of Pan’s Labyrinth because it is not afraid to show the ugly side of a fairy tale. Lissar is a strong, intelligent heroine and though she makes the Stupid Romance Heroine mistake of doing shit for the hero’s “own good,” it was not enough to make me throw the book against the wall. I just rolled my eyes and read through it, no problem. Besides, it was not a stupid martyr thing and at the time it happened, Lissar was not ready to be somebody’s nice, little wife. She does, eventually, get healed enough that she is able to love Ossin the way he deserves, but—-ay, just read it. It’s a romance, a coming-of-age story, a girl-power story, and… a very stylish horror. Anyway, if you’re looking for a dark fairy tale with some good human drama and stellar writing, definitely buy this book. If you like Angela Carter, you’ll probably like this one. And yes, I’m a Robin McKinley fangirl… why do you ask?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 11:31 am and is filed under Books, Grade: A, Romance: Sci-fi/Fan, Sci-Fi/Fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.