“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”
After this the fir-tree became quite silent and thoughtful; never had the birds in the forest told such tales as “Humpty Dumpty,” who fell down stairs, and yet married a princess.
“When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire.
“Well?” said he.
“Do you not find it interesting?”
“To a collector of fairy-tales.”
“As a girl, she had come to believe in the ideal man -- the prince or knight of her childhood stories. In the real world, however, men like that simply didn’t exist.”
“When Eleanor was a little girl, she’d thought her mom looked like a queen, like the star of some fairy tale […] You’d look at Eleanor’s mom and think she must be carved into the prow of a Viking ship somewhere or maybe painted on the side of a plane […]”
“When I was a little girl fairy tales were my favorite books because even before you opened them you knew how they are going to end. Happily ever after.”
“Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called ‘Little Red-Cap.‘”
“She wanted to return to her dream. Perhaps it was still somewhere there behind her closed eyelids. Perhaps a little of its happiness still clung like gold dust to her lashes. Don’t dreams in fairy tales sometimes leave a token behind?”
“A long time ago, people used to tell magical stories of wonder and enchantment. Those stories were called Fairy Tales. Those stories are not in this book. The stories in this book are almost Fairy Tales. But not quite. The stories in this book are Fairly Stupid Tales.”
It’s an interesting narrative with a mystical, child-like wonder that reminds you of a fairy tale. Many plot points are understated, so this book needs a lot of reading between the lines. An enjoyable read, definitely.
“The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same.
‘And they lived happily ever after,’ Annemarie recited, whispering into the dark, completing the tale for her sister, who slept beside her, one thumb in her mouth.”
“I can’t stand fairy tales. They’re all the same. If you’re very good and very beautiful with long golden curls, then, after you’ve swept up a few cinders or had a long nap in a cobwebby palace, this prince comes along and you live happily ever after. Which is fine if you happen to be a goody-goody and look gorgeous. But if you’re bad and ugly then you’ve got no chance whatsoever.”
“ah, life-the thing that happens to us while we’re off somewhere else blowing on dandelions & wishing ourselves into the pages of our favorite fairy tales.”
“At all events, we will make believe that there are fairies in the world. It will not be the last time by many a one that we shall have to make believe. And yet, after all, there is no need for that. There must be fairies; for this is a fairy tale: and how can one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies?”
It is an original fairy tale using elements from Russian history and Russian folklore. Like many traditional tales it is full of cruelty, violence and sudden death.
“She opened it and there stood the wolf. He bowed gravely and said, Good day, Miss Kitty, so pert and pretty. What is it that you cook today?′ The cat answered, ‘Bread I bake and cake so fine. Would it please you, sir, to dine?”
“When the eponymous hero of this rather odd original fairy-tale is born, his parents and siblings all declare that ‘he’s no beauty,’ repeating the phrase so often that he eventually becomes known as ‘Hiznobyuti.”