I Like Monday 4
Jan. 27th, 2014 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhondacrockettThis Monday, I like... "Eleven Wild Swans" by Hans Christian Andersen.
Or, to be more precise, I like this version of it:
Once upon a time in the eighties, there was published by Marshall Cavendish a fortnightly, magazine-sized anthology of stories and poetry for children with a read-along cassette, which was purchased by a mother desperate to get her eldest daughter to go to sleep. So it was via Story Teller that I was introduced to Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat, Grogre the Ogre, and many many others, and it is probably to blame for my habit of telling myself stories in bed at night.
This fairy tale in particular caught my imagination: the enchanted brothers unable to cry a warning as they're forced to flee; the sneaky ploy playing on the king's prejudices to make him banish his own daughter; the terrifying journey across the sea to hide out in a foreign land; the grotesque method to break the spell; the doctor's accusation of witchcraft; and the happy ending which doesn't appear until the very last minute. For once, the heroine has an actual name, instead of a nickname, like Cinderella et al. While Eliza seems at first to be your usual usurped-true-princess character, her goal is not to marry the duke, or to be restored to her royal birthright; she just wants her brothers to be human again. When told how the spell can be broken, she doesn't baulk at getting her hands dirty - and badly damaged into the bargain. The images in the video aren't very clear, but the pictures of Eliza after she starts picking the nettles show her hands and feet covered in an angry red rash.
Talking of the illustrations, they are among the most beautiful and evocative that Story Teller had, full of rich, scratchy texture and clean, muted colours. My especial favourites are the sorceress banishing the swan-princes, the swans carrying Eliza in the net, their miserable night out at sea, the duke and doctor spying on Eliza in the churchyard, and the final scene with Eliza tied to the stake and the swans gathered around her. And I did not remember that it was read by Joanna Lumley! Her voice is perfect: gentle and warm and melancholy. When she reads the bit about the king throwing Eliza out of the palace... D; And then the duke and doctor spying on Eliza... D8>
When I later read the original Andersen text, titled "The Wild Swans" (it can be found here), I was disappointed by it. It was too wordy, too overwrought. The touches I had loved the most - the swans leaving in silence, Eliza thrown out by her father by mistake, the old woman at the churchyard, the duke dropping the bundle of nettles, Eliza's escape from the duke's castle, the character of the doctor - they were all missing!!! And there were new elements which I couldn't warm to at all: the long period of time between the enchantment of the brothers and Eliza's own banishment, the toads in the bath, the suspicious Archbishop, and all those pious exhortations. Apart from the youngest brother being left with one wing (and it took me some time to get used even to that), I consider Andersen's original to be inferior to the Story Teller version, both in plot structure and in writing.
I don't know who wrote this adaptation (my own copies of Story Teller are long gone) but s/he really tightened the whole thing up, made the characters real, emotional people, and created one of my favourite fairy tales in the process.
Or, to be more precise, I like this version of it:
Once upon a time in the eighties, there was published by Marshall Cavendish a fortnightly, magazine-sized anthology of stories and poetry for children with a read-along cassette, which was purchased by a mother desperate to get her eldest daughter to go to sleep. So it was via Story Teller that I was introduced to Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat, Grogre the Ogre, and many many others, and it is probably to blame for my habit of telling myself stories in bed at night.
This fairy tale in particular caught my imagination: the enchanted brothers unable to cry a warning as they're forced to flee; the sneaky ploy playing on the king's prejudices to make him banish his own daughter; the terrifying journey across the sea to hide out in a foreign land; the grotesque method to break the spell; the doctor's accusation of witchcraft; and the happy ending which doesn't appear until the very last minute. For once, the heroine has an actual name, instead of a nickname, like Cinderella et al. While Eliza seems at first to be your usual usurped-true-princess character, her goal is not to marry the duke, or to be restored to her royal birthright; she just wants her brothers to be human again. When told how the spell can be broken, she doesn't baulk at getting her hands dirty - and badly damaged into the bargain. The images in the video aren't very clear, but the pictures of Eliza after she starts picking the nettles show her hands and feet covered in an angry red rash.
Talking of the illustrations, they are among the most beautiful and evocative that Story Teller had, full of rich, scratchy texture and clean, muted colours. My especial favourites are the sorceress banishing the swan-princes, the swans carrying Eliza in the net, their miserable night out at sea, the duke and doctor spying on Eliza in the churchyard, and the final scene with Eliza tied to the stake and the swans gathered around her. And I did not remember that it was read by Joanna Lumley! Her voice is perfect: gentle and warm and melancholy. When she reads the bit about the king throwing Eliza out of the palace... D; And then the duke and doctor spying on Eliza... D8>
When I later read the original Andersen text, titled "The Wild Swans" (it can be found here), I was disappointed by it. It was too wordy, too overwrought. The touches I had loved the most - the swans leaving in silence, Eliza thrown out by her father by mistake, the old woman at the churchyard, the duke dropping the bundle of nettles, Eliza's escape from the duke's castle, the character of the doctor - they were all missing!!! And there were new elements which I couldn't warm to at all: the long period of time between the enchantment of the brothers and Eliza's own banishment, the toads in the bath, the suspicious Archbishop, and all those pious exhortations. Apart from the youngest brother being left with one wing (and it took me some time to get used even to that), I consider Andersen's original to be inferior to the Story Teller version, both in plot structure and in writing.
I don't know who wrote this adaptation (my own copies of Story Teller are long gone) but s/he really tightened the whole thing up, made the characters real, emotional people, and created one of my favourite fairy tales in the process.
