Yes, I know I said my review of Out of the Past would follow Shadow of the Queen. Unfortunately the holidays, illness and some writer’s block intervened. So, instead, you’re getting another book that inflicts much less strain on my brain’s logic centers (thanks, Vasquez and Bechko). Funnily enough, the title of this short-story collection could be an alternate to that of Once Upon A Time—The Rumpelstiltskin Problem.
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| This imp doth protest! |
Anyone watching OUAT understands the Rumplestiltskin problem
all too well (one that I continue to consider the best part of the show—is my bias showing yet?). But Vande Velde is addressing something else. In her preface,
she highlights some details from the fairytale “Rumpelstiltskin” that are, let's say, fairly questionable.
- Why is the miller telling the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold?
- Why does Rumpelstiltskin want a baby?
- How does someone make gold from straw?
- Is the daughter chill about marrying a guy, king or not, who promised to execute her if she didn’t spin the straw into gold?
- Why does Rumpelstiltskin give the miller's daughter an out with the guessing game?
- Why is he dancing around shouting his name when anyone could just stumble across him??
There’s also
the irony that our titular character is neither the initial antagonist nor the
hero, and is in fact the only character given a name while the crux of the
climax rests on the mystery of that name. While the narrative shares some
characteristics with stories like “The Three Spinners” involving a helper whose
identity must be figured out, it presents an unusual set of archetypes for a
children’s story. To answer some of these questions, V.V. weaves six recreations,
each with wildly different approaches to the basic plot. They are a creative
exercise in exploring possible interpretations of the tale. Story by
story, we see Rumpelstiltskin as a troll, an elf, a domovoi (my personal
favorite), a woman, a father, and a knight.
Just as a warning, the last two are
done in less interesting ways than they could’ve been, but they’re still worth
the read. How interesting they are lies more with preference than any lack of
craft.
On the subject of craft, the writing echoes the fairy-tale
style of its source material, but it submerges more deeply into a character’s
perspective—usually the hero or heroine of the particular telling. The framing
of all the stories might feel repetitive after a while, which should be a given
in light of the book’s goal.
Other elements get a bit redundant too, however. For
example, the king character wears several faces, but in two of the six stories
he’s portrayed as a foppish, greedy narcissist, and the characters are so alike
and flat they’re interchangeable. In half of the stories the miller’s daughter
comes across as a little dim and, to varying degrees, bratty or conceited. In
the other three stories, she is kind and clever and thankfully likable enough
that we don’t wish to her to fail so we can execute her ourselves. There isn’t
much room between the foolish brat and the noble heroine, which is a
shame. It would be nice to see more examples of complex female characters from
fairy tales that haven’t already been done to death by Hollywood and
television. To be fair, the miller hardly ever measures up to more than a
hapless fool, sometimes well-meaning and charming, often not. Or he’s mostly
absent.
Then there’s Rumpelstiltskin himself. He wears the most
guises of anyone. In two stories he doesn’t even truly appear. In those that he
(or she) does show up, though, there’s plenty of nuance to enjoy. Rumpel can be
comedic, beastly, tragic, desperate, conniving, and endearing. As I’ve already
voiced my honest opinion, I’ll go ahead and say that “The Domovoi” deserves special attention. Not only is it funny, adorable and poignant, but it ties in folklore
from another culture that I wouldn’t have known about without reading it, and
this inventive remolding of Rumpelstiltskin is one I’ve never seen before.
When deciding whether The
Rumpelstiltskin Problem is a worthy read to pass
a few hours, remember this: the point of these stories isn’t to explain
Rumpelstiltskin’s origins, although they all touch on that topic in some way.
Their purpose is to reconstruct the original narrative in various forms to
satisfy different types of readers. Some audiences will like the fairy tale as it is; others will look for answers to the questions V.V. lays out at the start and, with luck, find suitable answers in at least one of her
stories. The narrative structure and characters in "Rumpelstiltskin" have frustrated attempts to bring it to a broad audience (see Disney,
with the exception of OUAT), as they sharply diverge from other mainstream
fairy tales. Even so, it’s a story ripe for multiple adaptations, which V.V. has
by no means exhausted in her humorous, imaginative collection.
Rating: 4/5
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