Fairy Tales, Nostalgic Horror, and YA

After I was finished reading The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, I was in the mood for more fairy tales. This new book by poet Robert Bly is his personal examination of several fairy tale, using theories from Freud and Jung as well as his own observations. 

Two of the tales are pretty well-known: The Six Swans and the Frog Prince, but the one that captivated me is the Tale of the Lindworm. It is a Norweigan folktale. She gives birth to a big worm as well as a Prince. When the Prince becomes a man, he is sent out to find a bride, and along the way he encounters his worm sibling. Because the worm is the elder sibling, it is the custom that he must marry before the Prince can. A couple of girls volunteer to marry the worm, but he devours them on the eve of the weddings. Finally, one wise girl outsmarts the worm, and when he asks her to undress on their wedding eve, she asks the same of him. As she sheds multiple shifts, he sheds multiple layers of skin, until he is a raw, white worm. She scrubs him with lye, and a Prince even more handsome than the younger brother emerges, and lives happily ever after with his new bride.

It's one of the weirder fairy tales I've read/heard, but the moral of it is that when people enter the sacrament of marriage, they must be willing to shed their outer layers to their spouse. They must allow the most vulnerable, raw, ugliest parts of themselves to be seen, and tended to. It is often painful because as we grow up, we learn to conceal those parts to the darkest shadows of our consciousness.

I'm eagerly awaiting the new Pet Sematary, because that's my favorite Stephen King story. I enjoyed the new IT, and this book was recommended for fans of that story. This book actually seems to be aimed at fans of IT as well as fans of Stand By Me, and if it weren't so well-written, I would dismiss it as a Stephen King rip-off.

Since I enjoyed The Crossover and Booked so much, I was glad when we received our copy of Kwame Alexander's new book Solo. Blade Morrison is the son of notorious rock and roll legend Rutherford Morrison. He copes with his father's fame, alcoholism, frequent stints in rehab, and his grief over his mother's death by writing songs and taking emotional refuge in the support of his girlfriend Chapel.