In the Labyrinth

The Rejected Brides of Folk Tales.

This is a reposting of an earlier post on the folk tales and others from Laura Gonzenbach's collections and seemed a good one to follow on the heels of earlier notes. I also want to reference another post on the banished bride I wrote about earlier this year -- a variant of the women below.

Lately, I have been reading a lot of Italian fairy tales as a kind of inspiration and preparation for the new novel I am working on, a companion to The Innamorati. As the plot is a renaissance road trip with a young woman in search of herself and her trickster companion (to create a little drama along the way), I have been imagining who she might encounter as she trudges southward from Tuscany in the north towards Calabria at the heel of Italy's boot.

Among the fairy tales I have been reading there appears a creature who is rarely ever seen for she is merely a place holder in the climatic tension of the story's finale: she is the bride the Prince almost marries, because he is too foolish, too enchanted, or too impatient (not waiting those seven years) and impulsively plans a wedding with the wrong woman. Of course, the heroine bride arrives in the nick of time, challenging the Prince to recall his vows of love. The Prince is chastened and then furious, turning to the almost bride (and sometimes just married bride) and denouncing her -- as if it were her fault he screwed up. And she is summarily packed off to her home without fanfare. In one of my favorite ballads, Lord Bateman, the bride's mother complains mightily at the affront to her daughter (of whom we never hear a peep). But Lord Bateman now emboldened by the arrival of his true love,  "pounded his fist on the table and he broke it in pieces one, two three, saying I'll forsake all for the Turkish lady, she has crossed the whole wide world for me." To be fair, Lord Bateman does financially compensate the banished bride -- but still, it has to sting.

So what happens to those banished brides -- not the deceitful and disguised brides, they always meet with bad ends -- but those brides like poor Anne of Cleves determined too ugly (and "too swarthy") by Henry the Eighth and sent home as unsuitable. Since we never get their side of the story, or the what-ever-happened-to-that-young-woman?, the writer in me couldn't resist wondering what those women might do to reclaim themselves if given a chance in a novel. A young writer I know suggested they went home with a huge sigh of relief -- imagining that such weddings to total strangers would have been scary enough to contemplate.

But from a narrative point of view, that's no fun -- especially after reading the Lost Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales of Laura Gonzenbach, I know that the Italians -- or at least the Sicilians-- are firm believers in spectacular revenge. So I couldn't help but think of a sisterhood of Banished Brides coming together and taking their fury on the road to extract some form of punishing compensation. A band of marauding almost-brides offering to my young heroine roadside companionship and rancorous cautionary tales about men in general. (Although I suspect the trickster traveling with her would not be able to resist the temptation of meddling with those dangerous women.) Well...there's a few chapters to meditate on and then to write.

Art in order from top to bottom: John Bauer, Edward Burnes Jones, Sandro Botticelli, and Artemisia Gentileschi

The Dark Fairy Tale World of the Siberian Urkas

"Many Siberian fairy tales tell of the deadly clash between criminals and representatives of the government, of the risks people run every day with dignity and honesty, of the good fortune of those who in the end have got the loot and stayed alive, and of the 'good memory' that is preserved of those who have died without abandoning their friends in need. Through these fairy tales, the children perceive the values that give meaning to the Siberian criminals' lives: respect, courage, friendship, loyalty." --Nicolai Lilin

I have been reading Nicolai Lilin's autobiography Siberian Education: Growing Up In A Criminal Underworld, which is a harrowing tale of a once tight-knit community of criminal families that flourished in the lawless region of Transnistria between Moldova and the Ukraine. Fittingly, it is an area that, despite declaring independence in 1990, is not recognized as a country. It is a wild borderland inhabited by the Siberian Urkas (considered criminals by the state) who were brutally rounded up and then deported in the 1930s from Siberia by Stalin's military far away to the remote area of Transnistria. Those who survived brought with them the strong traditional values of their Orthodox Faith and the deeply pagan traditions of a hunting culture (which they were) and combined it with a philosophy of personal freedom that encouraged criminal acts on outsiders -- like the military and the police, while retaining within the community an elaborate code of respect, honor, and loyalty. They refer to themselves as the "honest" criminals.

Lilin has come under some criticism because he has admitted to employing a more creative style when writing the autobiography -- adding stories that didn't happen to him, but were part of the history of the community and embellishing other aspects of the narratives. (They are now calling it an "autobiographic novel.") Frankly, this doesn't bother me at all, because the culture he came out of (and which has now all but disappeared) still retained the oral narrative traditions, the importance of story telling as education, the rituals passed down that surrounded every aspect of their lives -- from hunting animals to hunting humans and committing crimes. Also the writing is clean, precise, and sharp as a blade.

It is as if the darker aspects of the fairy tale world recounted stories of heroism and loss from their perspective. Weapons are divided into sacred or sinful objects and treated accordingly. There are rituals for both, and designated places in the house where each may reside, separated at all times. There are weapons that define a man -- his "pike" -- a slim blade that can not be purchased, only given as gift by one of higher authority. There are rites of passage for all young boys that include initiation by committing a criminal act and serving time in a juvenile prison and later adult prison where one is protected and "educated" by older Urkas prisoners. 

There is the coded language of the tattoos -- like runes designed to reveal only to the initiated the past and future of the man who has them. These tattoos begin at early adolescence -- starting from the outer extremities, hands and feet, and moving inward in a spiral to the center of the body, until the entire body is covered. The tattoo artist is regarded as a shaman or priest transforming and inscribing each man with a unique story of his life.

Yeah, it's dark and uncomfortable. Lilin describes a dangerous world, where crime, despite the rituals and rules (or maybe because of their demands) justifies a terrifying familiarity and acceptance of violent acts. Though strangely this region has become even more dangerous now that the old ways of loyalty, discipline, respect and a strict hierarchy of authority have disappeared in the winner-takes-all modernization of the criminal world. But it is a fascinating tale none the less. It has been made into a movie -- though I think I prefer the book since I am not sure I want to see some of the violence here realized in film. Lilin himself escaped that world only by entering the military (where he experienced even more brutal war with Chechnya). He eventually left Russian, spent itme in Ireland as a fisherman, and settled Turin, Italy where he has a tattoo parlor ( a skill he learned as a boy and perfected in prison).

Anne Siems: A World Of Wonder

It is easy enough to get lost in Ann Siems paintings, a world of verdant gardens, ghostly lace, and beautiful folkloric portraits. Siems paintings employ different elements of 18th and 19th century art. Her subjects are stylized childhood figures, with pink-cheeked and smiling faces, that stare wide-eyed at the viewer. By contrast, the figures inhabit landscapes and gardens that are richly detailed with plants, trees, insects, animals and birds -- all painted with precision. And over that, there is an intricate layer of luminous white patterns of flowers and animals so the figures appear to simultaneously inhabit and float over the surface of the material world. More recently her work has included yet another visual layer -- animal forms intimately connected with the figures where animal spirits seem to act as totemic guides. The overall effect is stunning and full of fairy tale wonder.

Of her work Siems' writes: “All that I see, hear, touch, experience and dream moves into me and finds its way into my artwork. I love faces, bodies, gardens, wide open stretches of land with small forests and fields, old things that have had a life of their own, stories and all the realms in between. What I paint comes from an intuitive, visceral place. Elements found in my work through the years are there because they feel right; they have no specific symbolism. What you see is an open ended narrative, one that I invite you to enter into and complete or continue."

It's worth going to Siems' website to see the whole body of her art and to observe the fascinating progression of her work -- moving increasingly to these intricate, mythic narratives. Here is a link to a recent show of German Fairy Tales where Siems offered three paintings based on Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. And here is a "studio visit" and interview with Anne Siems in Seattle, which is especially wonderful for those of us who love peeking into artist's studios -- and Anne's studio appears as enchanting as her art.

Paintings in order from top to bottom: "St. Bee," "Lynx Cap," "Wolf Girl," "Plant Wisdom," "Bear Girl," and "Bison Boy."

Marly Youmans and Clive Hicks-Jenkins Collaboration: Thaliad

 

Marly Youmans' Thaliad offers a healing balm to the swath of nihilistic post-apocalyptic fiction for young adults. Told in free verse reminiscent of heroic epics (Homer meets Gerald Manley Hopkins), Thaliad recounts the aftermath of a fiery apocalypse and the perlious journey of a band of children led by a girl whose prophetic visions guide them to a sanctuary on the edge of a lake. Here, they confront the challenges of re-creating the world – a world illuminated by hope and love.

For young adults (and the rest of us!) this a wondrous text filled with richly layered and evocative poetry, packed with fairy tale and mythic references. Like a bardic tale, it demands to be read aloud.

Nature along the road appears rotted and ruined by violence, the sky is thick with ash and poisonous rain drops of quicksilver. But Nature at the sanctuary along the lake where Thalia's visions have led them is fertile, sensual, a source of healing. Here is the spring pollen, ripening even as the children are, who seven years later have become young adults:

"...Clouding the air with fertile shining silt
That somersaulted in a beam of sun,
That changed the spiderwebs to something rich,
That kissed the surfaces of Glimmerglass
And turned its scalloped border into gold,
That moved across the air as if alive,
The landscape's bright epithalamion,
The simple golden wedding of the world."

Violence is hammered into fierce staccato rhythms -- the beating of swords and young men made mad with battle lust.

"...Close-pressed, crashing, the fell clamor of shields,
The crossroads, grand climateric of blood,
Jar of womb-shattered, the rib-comb unteethed,
Janglings above corpse couch, red butcher bed,
The bronze swords wading in a swamp of flesh
Like toddlers splashing in a muddy slough,
Hell-scathers scraping blade along the bone,
Blood-spree, blood-spore rose red on snow-white yard....

...To the hour when Cain is ever slaying
Abel in the dark eternal backward."

Balanced against the terrifying darkness and the fire's destruction are Thalia's prophetic visions, soaring with heat and golden light as the human spirit is nurtured by the divine. In an abandoned Church a grieving Thalia confronts an angel, its blasted face open to the pouring of sunlight behind it:

"...The sunshine made a starburst where the head
Once shone, auroral work of Tiffany;
The star face brought a lightening of flesh
To Thalia until the piercing rays
Transformed her body into stariness,
And rain of light made reign of light within,
Til she was drowned and nameless in its flood,
And there with trembling let the angel speak..."

Thaliad has two narrators -- Emma, the librarian who almost seventy years after the fire reflects on the history of the Clave, the settlement founded by Thalia, and then Emma as the storyteller, the bard who recounts the perilous journey through the devastated land, Thalia's determination to follow her visions, and the lives of the children as they struggle to survive. Though we are not spared their hardships and grief, through the storyteller’s voice we have confidence in our destination—it is this commitment to the angels of our better nature and Marly's sublime poetry that gives Thalid its power to inspire hope out of fear and love out of hate.

I also must mention that the book will be gorgeous as Marly has collaborated again with Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins who has created the cover art (which I love) and a lot of beautiful interior art. Head to Phoenicia Press (a small indie press in Montreal) and watch for Thaliad's release this November.

Ursula Kirchner: Fairy Tale Paper Cuts

Ursula Kirchner -- like Lotte Reiniger Silhouette Films -- did amazing work in black and white detailed paper cut illustrations. These beauties are from Märchen, edited by Karlhans Frank, published by the Goethe-Institute in 1985. I love this style -- it's so dramatic, so filled with energy. I also think the way it's constructed from a single sheet of paper gives the visual equivalent of an organic and interconnected experience-- just like a story -- rather than a single illustration that only reveals one moment in the tale. In the large piece below one can follow the narrative in the panels while all the beautiful details, such as the borders of birds and leaves, knitted it together into a whole. Below is a Hansel and Gretel variant -- and I love the panel with the witch -- especially as the beauty of the paper cuts almost belies the horror of the story (children in cages in the backyard) and in the next panel, note how Gretel pushes the witch into the oven and she reappears as a hovering cloud.Great stuff.

(via 50Watts)

Fernand Dumont: Treaties on Fairies

"6. After searching for entire nights without knowing it, beyond sleep, beyond exhaustion, having traveled forests of lucid insomnia, you will reach a great deserted clearing where, holding your breath, your ear against the ground, you can hear the very heartbeat of silence. Then, as you rise, you will realize that you are surrounded by fairies."

In 1940 Belgian Surrealist Fernand Dumont wrote "Treatise on Fairies" for his daughter -- a small pamphlet of 20 numbered sections on various aspects of Fairies--some quite quirky and others lovely like the section above. You can see more Dorthy Lathrop's illustrations here. 

**Art: Dorothy Lathrop, illus. for Down-Adown-Derry by de la Mare, 1922 

John Turturro And Italo Calvino: Italian Folktales On The Stage And On Film

Actor John Turturro has acquired the rights to create a filmed version of Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales (perhaps my all time favorite fairy tale collection). Last year, Turturro tested the waters so to speak with a new play "Fiable Italiano" adapted from Calvino's collection. It was performed before sold out audiences in Turin, Naples and Milan and included layers of languages from English to a variety of Italian dialects. (The play also included one of my favorites stories -- about a donkey that appears to defecate gold and a fool who makes sure it happens).