emily_bg's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
5.0
This book is a fascinating look into the lives of some of the lives of the fairy tellers and discovering the journey of the fairy tales.
lyrafay12's review against another edition
challenging
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
4.5
juliwi's review against another edition
4.0
Fairy tales are beloved all over the world, by children and adults alike. They continue to be turned into blockbuster films, but they also continued to be told in the dark. I have adored fairy tales since I was a child but, being me, I always wanted to know more about them and their origin. And this is how I encountered The Fairy Tellers, a book full of tales that celebrates the act of telling. Thanks to Nicholas Brealey and NetGalley, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Fairy tales were my bread and butter as a child. My mother had a collection of books with fairy tales from all over the world. The German fairy tales, as written down by the Grimm Brothers formed the backbone of my education, but it was enriched by fairy tales from Africa, Asia, and North America. It started a life-long obsession with the stories, which did much to inspire my love for medieval literature. But where do these stories come from? Why are they immediately recognisable and yet so hard to define? Where did fairy tales begin? These are the driving questions behind Nicholas Jubber's journey in The Fairy Tellers as well and I truly couldn't have asked for a better guide.
The Fairy Tellers tells the tale of six of the most influential people in the history of fairy tales, some well-known, others shamefully forgotten or actively hushed away. While not chronological, the journey through The Fairy Tales feels natural. First is Giambattista Basile, known for The Tale of Tales, or Lo Cunto de li Cunti. Nicholas Jubber brings to live the Neapolitan culture in the way Basile did himself in his tales. Basile wrote the first known version of tales which came to echo throughout countless childhoods, from Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, yet also beautiful oddities like The Flea with its spunky princess. Next is the tale of Youhenna (or Hanna) Diab, a man from the souks of Aleppo who, through countless adventures, finds himself in Paris during its obsession with A Thousand and One Nights, telling the tales of Ali Babba and the Forty Thieves and Aladdin to Antione Galland, who promptly took credit. His tales, specifically Aladdin, are so well known, and yet the man himself is a cypher. His autobiography was discovered in the Vatican Library, resurrecting him from history, and Jubber does his tale justice in The Fairy Tellers. The third teller is also from Paris, namely Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, whose fall from nobility to poverty inspired her many heroines, but specifically Belle in Beauty and the Beast. While the "beast-groom" story was already popular amongst the story-tellers of Paris, de Villeneuve wrote the tale which introduced the key elements we still know today, from the rose to the singing wardrobe. And she got exactly no credit for it for a very long time.
Rather than focus on the Brothers Grimm entirely, Jubber dedicates his fourth part to Dortchen Wild, one of the young women who told them tales, most famously Hans and Gretel and Rumpelstilskin. Tracking her influence on the brothers, from the stories she told them to her marriage to Wilhelm, Jubber shines a light on a forgotten woman. From here we move further afield, to Ivan Khudiakov's rollercoaster of a life. Brilliant from childhood, he published his first collection of Russian fairy tales before the age of 22, but that's only where the rollercoaster starts. Khudiakov actually, unlike the Brothers Grimm, traveled through the land collecting and transcribing tales from "the common folk" and for him these tales were a crucial part of a potential revolution. This drive did not end well for him. From revolutionary Russia part 6 hops to medieval India and Somadeva's The Ocean of the Stream of Stories, or Kathasaritsagara. A beautiful collection that combines storytelling with mythology and religion, it is a major work by a mostly mysterious man. Not much is known about Somadeva, but Jubber brilliantly evokes Kashmir for the reader, allowing us to appreciate what an impact storytelling could have had. The Fairy Tellers ends with perhaps the most famous teller, Hans Christian Andersen. While he does not need to be rescued from obscurity, his life does demonstrate the saving grace of story telling like no other. Constantly searching for recognition and love, Andersen's stories create an entire world in which many of us have found a home.
The Fairy Tellers ends with a rousing ode to fairy tales, with a strong emphasis on their beauty but also their grace. While fairy tales are hard to define, they share the trait of having to be told. A written fairy tale is different to one that is told, whether actively by a parent to a child or passively through a framing device. They must somehow forge a connection between two people, through the shared intimacy of a shared story. Nicholas Jubber shares his journey with us, showing us what he saw in Aleppo before it was bombed, how he commisserated with the abused statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, and how Naples impressed him. The reader gets to travel with him and share in the stories he finds. The Fairy Tellers is almost like a fairy tale in that sense itself, full with a sense of magic and timelessness, and yet just odd enough here and there that you can't help but cock your head. His research and skill saves some of the above tellers from obscurity, at least for me, and made them as dear to me as the fairy tales they told themselves. And that is truly what a good story is meant to do, create a connection.
The Fairy Tellers is a beautiful journey into the history of the telling of tales. Told with a genuine personal touch, Jubber's book is a must-read for any fairy tale lover like myself!
URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-fairy-tellers-journey-into-secret.html
Fairy tales were my bread and butter as a child. My mother had a collection of books with fairy tales from all over the world. The German fairy tales, as written down by the Grimm Brothers formed the backbone of my education, but it was enriched by fairy tales from Africa, Asia, and North America. It started a life-long obsession with the stories, which did much to inspire my love for medieval literature. But where do these stories come from? Why are they immediately recognisable and yet so hard to define? Where did fairy tales begin? These are the driving questions behind Nicholas Jubber's journey in The Fairy Tellers as well and I truly couldn't have asked for a better guide.
The Fairy Tellers tells the tale of six of the most influential people in the history of fairy tales, some well-known, others shamefully forgotten or actively hushed away. While not chronological, the journey through The Fairy Tales feels natural. First is Giambattista Basile, known for The Tale of Tales, or Lo Cunto de li Cunti. Nicholas Jubber brings to live the Neapolitan culture in the way Basile did himself in his tales. Basile wrote the first known version of tales which came to echo throughout countless childhoods, from Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, yet also beautiful oddities like The Flea with its spunky princess. Next is the tale of Youhenna (or Hanna) Diab, a man from the souks of Aleppo who, through countless adventures, finds himself in Paris during its obsession with A Thousand and One Nights, telling the tales of Ali Babba and the Forty Thieves and Aladdin to Antione Galland, who promptly took credit. His tales, specifically Aladdin, are so well known, and yet the man himself is a cypher. His autobiography was discovered in the Vatican Library, resurrecting him from history, and Jubber does his tale justice in The Fairy Tellers. The third teller is also from Paris, namely Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, whose fall from nobility to poverty inspired her many heroines, but specifically Belle in Beauty and the Beast. While the "beast-groom" story was already popular amongst the story-tellers of Paris, de Villeneuve wrote the tale which introduced the key elements we still know today, from the rose to the singing wardrobe. And she got exactly no credit for it for a very long time.
Rather than focus on the Brothers Grimm entirely, Jubber dedicates his fourth part to Dortchen Wild, one of the young women who told them tales, most famously Hans and Gretel and Rumpelstilskin. Tracking her influence on the brothers, from the stories she told them to her marriage to Wilhelm, Jubber shines a light on a forgotten woman. From here we move further afield, to Ivan Khudiakov's rollercoaster of a life. Brilliant from childhood, he published his first collection of Russian fairy tales before the age of 22, but that's only where the rollercoaster starts. Khudiakov actually, unlike the Brothers Grimm, traveled through the land collecting and transcribing tales from "the common folk" and for him these tales were a crucial part of a potential revolution. This drive did not end well for him. From revolutionary Russia part 6 hops to medieval India and Somadeva's The Ocean of the Stream of Stories, or Kathasaritsagara. A beautiful collection that combines storytelling with mythology and religion, it is a major work by a mostly mysterious man. Not much is known about Somadeva, but Jubber brilliantly evokes Kashmir for the reader, allowing us to appreciate what an impact storytelling could have had. The Fairy Tellers ends with perhaps the most famous teller, Hans Christian Andersen. While he does not need to be rescued from obscurity, his life does demonstrate the saving grace of story telling like no other. Constantly searching for recognition and love, Andersen's stories create an entire world in which many of us have found a home.
The Fairy Tellers ends with a rousing ode to fairy tales, with a strong emphasis on their beauty but also their grace. While fairy tales are hard to define, they share the trait of having to be told. A written fairy tale is different to one that is told, whether actively by a parent to a child or passively through a framing device. They must somehow forge a connection between two people, through the shared intimacy of a shared story. Nicholas Jubber shares his journey with us, showing us what he saw in Aleppo before it was bombed, how he commisserated with the abused statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, and how Naples impressed him. The reader gets to travel with him and share in the stories he finds. The Fairy Tellers is almost like a fairy tale in that sense itself, full with a sense of magic and timelessness, and yet just odd enough here and there that you can't help but cock your head. His research and skill saves some of the above tellers from obscurity, at least for me, and made them as dear to me as the fairy tales they told themselves. And that is truly what a good story is meant to do, create a connection.
The Fairy Tellers is a beautiful journey into the history of the telling of tales. Told with a genuine personal touch, Jubber's book is a must-read for any fairy tale lover like myself!
URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-fairy-tellers-journey-into-secret.html
incrediblefran's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Nicholas Jubber's enthusiasm for fairy tales is obvious all the way through this fascinating book. It's a journey through the lives of several different figures who are responsible for some of the most famous fairy tales (in the Western world, at least).
Some of these figures were already known to me (and probably most other readers), like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, but Jubber delves into people who are far less known: Dortchen Wild, who told the Brothers Grimm many of the stories in their collection; Hanna Dyab, the Syrian traveller who brought Western attention to Aladdin and Ali Baba; Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, a fascinating Frenchwoman who wrote the first version of Beauty and the Beast.
Jubber is relentless in digging out the voices behind these stories, and is very clear that women and non-Western people have often been the ones passing down these folk tales in oral traditions – and have then been forgotten. Jubber carefully positions all of his fairy tellers in their context, and while he is interested in how the same tales crop up in different times and place, he draws particular attention to how the tales we know have grown out of a specific cultural context, whether the Spanish occupation of Naples, or Napoleonic invasion, or the turbulent times before the Russian Revolution.
While The Fairy Tellers takes us across time and space, from the Middle Ages to the late 1800s, from Italy to Germany to France to Syria to India to Russia to Denmark, there's still a lot of gaps. It's a shame that Jubber doesn't even touch on the wealth of folk tales from indigenous tradition, or from Africa or further into Asia. There is also a distinct lack of Celtic tales and – particularly notable considering the heavily European focus of the book – no Yiddish folk stories.
But there is enough history in folk tales for an entire series of books, and Jubber has clearly extensively researched the people he does write about, and his love for them is palpable. This book is genuinely fascinating, and Jubber's bright, vivid writing brings his subjects to life.
Some of these figures were already known to me (and probably most other readers), like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, but Jubber delves into people who are far less known: Dortchen Wild, who told the Brothers Grimm many of the stories in their collection; Hanna Dyab, the Syrian traveller who brought Western attention to Aladdin and Ali Baba; Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, a fascinating Frenchwoman who wrote the first version of Beauty and the Beast.
Jubber is relentless in digging out the voices behind these stories, and is very clear that women and non-Western people have often been the ones passing down these folk tales in oral traditions – and have then been forgotten. Jubber carefully positions all of his fairy tellers in their context, and while he is interested in how the same tales crop up in different times and place, he draws particular attention to how the tales we know have grown out of a specific cultural context, whether the Spanish occupation of Naples, or Napoleonic invasion, or the turbulent times before the Russian Revolution.
While The Fairy Tellers takes us across time and space, from the Middle Ages to the late 1800s, from Italy to Germany to France to Syria to India to Russia to Denmark, there's still a lot of gaps. It's a shame that Jubber doesn't even touch on the wealth of folk tales from indigenous tradition, or from Africa or further into Asia. There is also a distinct lack of Celtic tales and – particularly notable considering the heavily European focus of the book – no Yiddish folk stories.
But there is enough history in folk tales for an entire series of books, and Jubber has clearly extensively researched the people he does write about, and his love for them is palpable. This book is genuinely fascinating, and Jubber's bright, vivid writing brings his subjects to life.
annarella's review against another edition
5.0
This is a riveting and highly informative book that kept me turning pages as I was fascinated by the history behind fairy tales and the people who wrote them.
It made me travel in time and in space and I think that the author did a terrific job in researching and writing this book.
As he's an excellent storyteller I couldn't put it down.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
It made me travel in time and in space and I think that the author did a terrific job in researching and writing this book.
As he's an excellent storyteller I couldn't put it down.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine