THE UNFAIRY TALE
If we pay attention to fairy tales, we could find some kind of formula to know the main rules in every tale.
In them we can find: magic, cruelty, poetic justice, the bad ones, the hero, weird families, stepmothers, invisible fathers… and, finally, a happy ending.
Well, to be true, when we take a deep look to fairy tales, we can think that happy endings are just a finish line, the corner point in which ends the tale and starts life.
As we, probably, have an idea about what life is, the narrator does not go further on the story.
I mean, we all know that fairy godmothers do not exist, but what do exist is weird families, bad ones and poetic justice.
Because life is unfair and the bad ones do not get punished and the good ones do not get saved and awarded.
So we can conclude that fairy tales tell also about the complexity of life just because they arrange injustice with magic.
We are reading…
This month’s reading at the English Book Club is “Coraline” by Neil Gaimann.
A youngsters novel where we can find parallel worlds with good and bad mothers, creepy imaginary and little children with dolls.
And as you know, there is nothing more frightful than children and dolls.
The author
Neil Gaiman took over from Roald Dahl and the new storytellers, to write terrifying stories for children, teenagers and adults.
He is also responsible of the script of several comic books, one of them is “Sandman” a nowadays classic comic book that was a huge success at the moment it was published.
Gaiman has a very particular inner world that reminds us the Tim Burton aesthetics and the darkest parts of the ancient fairy tales.
So this month we will talk over “Coraline” that won the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards.
You can make yourself an idea with the movie adaptation :
