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juushikaTitle: Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
Author: Emma Donoghue
Published: New York: Joanna Colter Books, 1997
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 228
Total Page Count: 79,683
Text Number: 233
Read Because: recommended by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shunrai, borrowed from the library
Short Review: A collection of 13 short stories, Kissing the Witch takes fairy tales (many of them easily recognizable) and revises them: poetic and magical, they take a fresh look at their stories and protagonists, instilling feminine independence, wisdom, and romance missing in the original tales. The narrative that ties the stories together is stretched thin, but everything else about the book is wonderful: it's a strong, uniform collection which is beautiful, liberating, and quietly—yet strongly—revolutionary. I recommend it to readers of all ages.
The stories in Kissing the Witch stand alone, but they're tied together by a thin narrative in which each story precedes its predecessor in an overall timeline. These short bridges between stories attempt to give every female figure a voice—but the length of the collection stretches the connecting timeline unbelievably thin. Fortunately, that's the book's only real weakness.
Most short story collections vary in quality, but Kissing the Witch maintains uniform high quality while featuring a variety of content. The fairy tales are well chosen, most of them recognizable (which is useful, when the author is revising them with new content), all of them with enough depth or unanswered questions to support a retelling. Donoghue's writing style tends towards mythic and dreamlike, but it's nevertheless approachable. She preserves the stories's magic while adding fresh, intelligent complications: her protagonists are women who are, or are learning to be, intelligent, brave, and self-sufficient; be they same-sex, opposite-sex, or with oneself, relationships in the stories never feature a ride into the sunset. These are tales of girls love themselves and their fairy godmothers more than they love princes, who are content turning from princess to goosegirl, who realize that they would rather rescue themselves than let a man on a white horse do the job. The short story format means that these are generally stories of realization, not of the lifetime consequences of those realizations—but it also means that there's a variety of characters, situations, and revelations which will reach a wider audience. Donoghue's gentle writing and the fairy tale setting makes for quiet stories of awakening and self-actualization, but they're no less revolutionary for their tone. Beautiful and empowering, this is a wonderful collection—for young women and old, and for all those who love retold fairy tales.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Emma Donoghue
Published: New York: Joanna Colter Books, 1997
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 228
Total Page Count: 79,683
Text Number: 233
Read Because: recommended by
shunrai, borrowed from the libraryShort Review: A collection of 13 short stories, Kissing the Witch takes fairy tales (many of them easily recognizable) and revises them: poetic and magical, they take a fresh look at their stories and protagonists, instilling feminine independence, wisdom, and romance missing in the original tales. The narrative that ties the stories together is stretched thin, but everything else about the book is wonderful: it's a strong, uniform collection which is beautiful, liberating, and quietly—yet strongly—revolutionary. I recommend it to readers of all ages.
The stories in Kissing the Witch stand alone, but they're tied together by a thin narrative in which each story precedes its predecessor in an overall timeline. These short bridges between stories attempt to give every female figure a voice—but the length of the collection stretches the connecting timeline unbelievably thin. Fortunately, that's the book's only real weakness.
Most short story collections vary in quality, but Kissing the Witch maintains uniform high quality while featuring a variety of content. The fairy tales are well chosen, most of them recognizable (which is useful, when the author is revising them with new content), all of them with enough depth or unanswered questions to support a retelling. Donoghue's writing style tends towards mythic and dreamlike, but it's nevertheless approachable. She preserves the stories's magic while adding fresh, intelligent complications: her protagonists are women who are, or are learning to be, intelligent, brave, and self-sufficient; be they same-sex, opposite-sex, or with oneself, relationships in the stories never feature a ride into the sunset. These are tales of girls love themselves and their fairy godmothers more than they love princes, who are content turning from princess to goosegirl, who realize that they would rather rescue themselves than let a man on a white horse do the job. The short story format means that these are generally stories of realization, not of the lifetime consequences of those realizations—but it also means that there's a variety of characters, situations, and revelations which will reach a wider audience. Donoghue's gentle writing and the fairy tale setting makes for quiet stories of awakening and self-actualization, but they're no less revolutionary for their tone. Beautiful and empowering, this is a wonderful collection—for young women and old, and for all those who love retold fairy tales.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
