A review by ewelenc
The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Daniel M. Lavery
2.0
The problem with a gritty retelling of classic fairy tales is that they were plenty gritty to begin with, so adding more of the same doesn’t change them as much as you might think. Stories in this vein really have to add something different to succeed, and I’m not sure these do. Also, the feminist” twist on several of them is only that the abused female main character gets to kill her abuser at the end, which doesn’t satisfy and still makes it a long story about women being abused in traditional patriarchal fashion and leading a miserable life. I could have read the original, if that was what I wanted.
Like some of the other reviewers, I thought that in many of the stories Ortberg was driving at some message or point that I could not find, even with some focused rereading, and in many stories the world building seemed to fail—the internal logic didn’t hang together well, and some things were “subverted” without a corresponding subversion in things that would naturally follow. Example: there’s a reference to “wasting water” via tears that is lifted straight out of Dune, but later the character is depicted washing dishes in an entire sinkful of water, and “doing laundry” without apparent regard for the waste. Is this just supposed to show that the “godmother” is abusive and controlling, conserving resources that aren’t in short supply? The characters discuss drought later, so apparently not. It just fails to make sense, and not in the way that is apparently intended to make you question traditional assumptions the way Ortberg’s gender play does. There are so many of these instances that it appears to be carelessness, not intentional dissonance.
In short, it was all right, but not my favorite in the “revisited fairy tale” genre.
Like some of the other reviewers, I thought that in many of the stories Ortberg was driving at some message or point that I could not find, even with some focused rereading, and in many stories the world building seemed to fail—the internal logic didn’t hang together well, and some things were “subverted” without a corresponding subversion in things that would naturally follow. Example: there’s a reference to “wasting water” via tears that is lifted straight out of Dune, but later the character is depicted washing dishes in an entire sinkful of water, and “doing laundry” without apparent regard for the waste. Is this just supposed to show that the “godmother” is abusive and controlling, conserving resources that aren’t in short supply? The characters discuss drought later, so apparently not. It just fails to make sense, and not in the way that is apparently intended to make you question traditional assumptions the way Ortberg’s gender play does. There are so many of these instances that it appears to be carelessness, not intentional dissonance.
In short, it was all right, but not my favorite in the “revisited fairy tale” genre.