Grimm Tales: For Young and Old (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

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At all events, the decision by the Grimm brothers to collect and publish fairy tales was not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a widespread preoccupation of the time. Scholars of literature and folklore, of cultural and political history, theorists of a Freudian, Jungian, Christian, Marxist, structuralist, post-structuralist, feminist, postmodernist and every other kind of tendency have found immense riches for study in these 210 tales.

When composing a tale of this sort, it's not always easy to be sure about which events are necessary and which are superfluous. Anyone who wants to know how to tell a tale could do much worse than study "The Musicians of Bremen", both a nonsensical little yarn and a masterpiece, in which the narrative carries not one unnecessary ounce. Every paragraph advances the story. The crucifixion saved Jesus from dealing with the fact “that the kingdom of God wasn’t ever going to come.” Swiftness is a great virtue in the fairy tale. A good tale moves with a dreamlike speed from event to event, pausing only to say as much as is needed and no more. Zippy! . . . These tales are about plot and economy and speed [and] make great bedtime read-alouds for children who can handle a little gore. . . . The original tales weren’t for children, of course; they were for everyone. So is this book. . . . Pullman is both erudite and funny. . . . He has fun with dialogue, and is particularly snappy with dwarfs. . . . You know what? He crushes it, as the youth of today are wont to say. . . . His translations are perfection.”— The New York Times Book Review These Grimm Tales, adapted for the stage by Philip Wilson from Philip Pullman's version of the original tales, were first performed as immersive storytelling experiences underneath Shoreditch Town Hall, London, in 2014, and Bargehouse on the South Bank in 2015. They also offer plentiful opportunities for youth theatres, schools and amateur companies looking for a vivid new version of the classic fairytales.

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PP: Yeah, well, he’s the most fascinating character in history, really—the character who’s made more difference to the world than anyone since him. I daresay that Muslims would say Muhammad was that character, but I think Jesus had a sort of 600-year start on him. [ Laughs.] But it was the Kinder- und Hausmärchen for which their names are mostly remembered. Their first edition was published in 1812, and the collection went through six further editions (Wilhelm, by this stage, doing most of the editorial work) till the seventh and final one of 1857, by which time it was immensely popular. It shares its eminence with The Arabian Nights: the two of them are the most important and influential collections of folk tales ever published. Not only did the collection grow bigger, the tales themselves changed as the 19th century went past, becoming in Wilhelm's hands a little longer, in some cases more elaborate, occasionally more prudish, certainly more pious than they were to begin with. I was so excited when I saw this. I love fairy tales (especially fairy tale retellings!!), and I am a fan of Philip Pullman's work, so I thought that this would be totally awesome.

Now I open my copy at his introduction. Here I see one passage, heavily underlined, an expression of my papal imprimatur. Pullman says he is not interested in the “ponderous interpretations” to which the tales have been subjected. He is not interested in the “…Freudian, Jungian, Christian, Marxist, structuralist, post-structuralist, feminist, post-modernist and every other kind of tendency.” Son numerosos los cuentos y las historias, tanto las conocidas como las nuevas, que me han encantado. Entre estas últimas me gustaron mucho : One thing that did strike me was how different these stories are from novels. You almost never see an adverb—”he said ruefully”—anything like that. That doesn’t happen. You just get what he said, what she did, that absolutely bald statement. And I like that. I wanted to avoid what some modern tellers have done, quite legitimately, to make them more like novels and short stories, to characterize the heroes and the heroines much more than they are characterized in Grimm. I like the psychological flatness of them, the fact that they’re more like masks than individuals.PP: Disney is a huge presence when it comes to fairy tales because he’s made of them such brilliant artifacts in terms of movie-making. But it’s very hard to ignore what he’s done to them—the characters of the seven dwarves, for example: Sneezy, Happy, all those things. They’re not like that in Grimm, and I didn’t feel that was a very interesting path to go down. But I’m not interested in denigrating Disney or even commenting on him very much. I’m more interested in seeing what I can do with the stories myself. Four months went by, and all the twigs on all the trees in the forest grew stronger and pressed themselves together, and the birds sang so loud that the woods resounded, and the blossom fell from the trees. I must say that the audio version really brought these stories to live. Probably because they were always meant to be passed on orally. The narrator is fantastic with different accents and has an impeccable sense for how to present them. However, the audio version does not have the aforementioned additional author's notes which is why I got the printed version as well. Figuras convencionales, relatos rápidos y cortos, imaginería y descripción. No son textos o tratados, limpios, son los cuentos de Wilhelm y Jacob Grimm. Son su Kinder-und Hausmarchen, tal como fueron contados. Me parece interesante que “los cuentos” no fueron definidos en la primera edición, sino que fueron aumentando en diferentes ediciones. Es el caso de The Moon, incluido en la séptima y última edición, en 1857. This is wonderful, but it's wonderful in a curious way: there's little any teller of this tale can do to improve it. It has to be rendered exactly as it is here, or at least the different months have to be given equally different characteristics, and carefully linked in equally meaningful ways with the growth of the child in his mother's womb, and that growth with the juniper tree that will be instrumental in his later resurrection.