Fairy Tales

I LOVED yesterdays discussion. Fairy tales have always been one of my favorite kinds of stories and getting to spend a whole class discussing them was such a treat. So many things were talked about that I had never realized with fairy tales before.

One thing I really appreciated was the emphasis on how fairy tales are unexpected. I try and write a lot and I often run into the problem of making my stories realistic. I feel like they need to be the most believable, predictable thing on the planet. I forget that the stories that usually take you away the most are the unpredictable ones. The ones full of wonder and unexpected twists and turns. I loved the line in Buechner's chapter on fairy tales when he says that in a fairy tale there are often three golden caskets and you don't know what will happen when you open one. There's a beautiful queen who turns out to be an evil witch. Nothing is expected. Nothing is set. Nothing is predictable.

Fairy tales take you away in a way that no other story can. When Master Leeper read the story about the little boy who found the castle I was taken away. I closed my eyes and the combination of Leeper's master storytelling and the brilliance of the story painted an image in my mind as clear as day. I could see the castle. I could see the boy and his family. It was the same with the story of the selfish giant. Novels can't take me away like that, comedy or tragedy. If Leeper read the Three Musketeers in class, while I would love the story, I wouldn't be transported to the world of the Musketeers in quite the same way. There's something magical about stories full of magic and wizards and dragons. I think some of the magic from the stories seeps out into the real world and for a little while the worlds touch. They kiss in a beautiful moment of unity. It never lasts, but I live for those moments when I can experience a world a little more magical than this one.

I have come to understand how incredible children's literature really is. Before this class I didn't have the appreciation for it that I do now. I figured that while they were good stories there still wasn't the literary mastery that people like Dumas' and Austen and Cervantes possess. I was very wrong. They might not be wordy like Don Quixote, but they don't need to be. They are beautiful in their simplicity. They paint a picture with fewer brushstrokes, and often smaller ones, but the painting has a brilliance about it that can't be matched.

There's a magic about children's stories that is beautiful. Leeper mentioned it when he said children approach stories with wonder, wanting to know what's next to learn. And children's stories feed that wonder, that desire for unknown knowledge. As an adult I lack that and have to consciously choose to be in wonder once again. Like Leeper said, apples in fairytales are golden to show us that green apples truly are wonderful. Rivers run with wine to remind us of the awe of rivers running with water. What I said earlier about wanting a world that was a little more magical than this one, I don't know how true that is anymore. Maybe I just need to see this world a little more clearly through the lens of fairy tales. Maybe fairy tales would teach me how to see the world properly if I just let them.