Review by Booklist Review
Byatt is at once a dazzling storyteller and a keen observer of the power and significance of her medium. Adept at the story-within-a-story device, she has inlaid her novels with fairy tales, two of which are excerpted here in this virtuoso collection. But the volume's highlights are three new works that explore the evolution of storytelling and exploit its role in our collective psyches. "The Story of the Eldest Princess" subverts the classic tale of siblings setting out on quests to bring peace to a troubled kingdom by using sisters instead of brothers and by featuring a clever heroine well read enough to know that she must be on guard because things always end badly for the eldest. In "Dragon's Breath," Byatt conjures a realm plagued by boredom until a cataclysmic event--the devastation of a village by six gigantic and loathsome worms (talk about archetypes run amok)--gives the survivors and their descendants something to talk about and transform into myth. Byatt suggests that such stories are "riddling hints of the true relations between peace and beauty and terror," and this insight is brought to even greater fruition in the consummate and enrapturing title story. Gillian Perholt is a "narratologist," a collector and interpreter of stories, who has the very good fortune to acquire a most accommodating djinn. As Byatt takes the classic genie-in-a-bottle motif to new heights, she revels, to her readers' considerable delight, in the infinite potential of the storyteller's art. For more modern fairy tales, try the works of Italo Calvino and The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse. --Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
All of the five "fairy stories" in Byatt's new collection adopt the conventions of folk or fairy tales: magic enchantments; the granting of three wishes; adventures that involve danger. And as might be expected from a writer of Byatt's talent and interests, several of them deal with the magic of storytelling itself. The title piece, a novella, is the most surprising and appealing. Middle-aged British narratologist Gillian Perholt acquires a beautiful bottle when she attends a convention in Turkey. The djinn she later releases not only grants her three wishes but also teaches her how to avoid the classic folk-tale irony by which the wisher lives to regret the fulfillment of his or her desires. This complex, sometimes prolix, oddly upbeat tale also demonstrates other Byatt preoccupations: protagonists who are academics; stories within stories; philosophic digressions; the theme of the inevitability of destiny. As with all of Byatt's work, there is a fierce intelligence at play, and beautifully nuanced prose. The other standout here is the gently ironic "The Story of the Eldest Princess,'' in which the clever woman, who realizes that the first person to be sent on a quest is always unsuccessful, subverts the conventions and outwits her fate. (In her acknowledgments, Byatt confesses: "I have always worried about being the eldest of three sisters."). "Dragon's Breath" has a brilliantly imaginative description of a volcanic eruption. The other two titles are charming but less memorable. Woodcut illustrations and a format similar to that of The Matisse Stories make for an attractive book. Author tour. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
If you're ready for a repeat of Byatt's beloved Possession, here it isin a way. Byatt extracts a fairy tale from that novel and from Angels & Insects and adds three new tales. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Four short fairy tales with a contemporary edge, and one novella-length tale that brilliantly transforms a story of middle- age angst into a celebration of serendipity and sex. Byatt (Babel Tower, 1996, etc.) uses that parallel world of fairy tales--which closely resembles our own in motive, character, and outcome--to explore the sources of hope and imagination. ``The Glass Coffin'' reworks a traditional quest tale as a tailor seeking employment helps a stranger and, as a reward, is given a glass key and certain mystifying instructions to follow that lead him to a beautiful sleeping princess. In ``Gode's Story,'' a young woman is true, while her feckless sailor lover betrays her, only to find his happiness with a new bride short-lived when he sees her among the Dead riding the ocean waves. ``The Story of the Eldest Princess'' is a witty reworking of the quest tale as well as a low-key analysis of the role of fate, choice, and character as a princess steps out of her preordained role in life to rescue her people. And ``Dragon's Breath'' is a wry morality tale about the unsuspected ``true relations between peace and beauty and terror'' revealed when dragons destroy a village. But Byatt is at her best in the novella, about what happens when Dr. Gillian Perholt, in Turkey to attend a conference on stories, is granted the chance to make three wishes, which all come true. Troubled by visions of her mortality and her husband's desertion, fiftyish Gillian buys a dirty but striking old glass bottle and takes it back to her hotel. When she washes it, a handsome Djinn appears, who gives her the younger body she wishes for, makes love to her as she wishes, and after talk, tales, and travels, grants her her third wish. An intelligent detour with an exemplary guide through Keats's ``magic casements'' to fairy land. (Author tour)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
