review of Black Thorn, White Rose

[ellen_datlow]

Tehani Wessely of Australia reviews the new edition of Black Thorn, White Rose. She mostly likes the stories and overall gives the book a very good review, but this paragraph struck me:

"Fourteen years is a long time, and these stories first saw print in 1994. So much has changed in the world since then: the ways we perceive good and evil not the least, but also the things that have the power to shock us, to scare us, and to permit us to suspend our disbelief. Hence, there were stories in this anthology that felt old, dated, tired. It is possible to envisage them as fresh and groundbreaking when first published, but the intervening years, and many similar collections (including a number produced by the same editors, some of which I will review soon), have left this anthology feeling a little stale."

Dragonkat@LJ

Once I edit an anthology I rarely reread the stories in print. I've already read them a number of times during the editing process. So I'm not a good judge of this.

Is it true that an anthology series such as the adult fairy tale anthologies, all published in the mid-to late 90s can become dated? I'd think it would completely depend on each individual story. (this is for any fiction written after traumatic current events such as post Vietnam war, post 9/11, et al).

If the story is tied to a particular sensibility or for example, air travel is depicted more innocently than now in our time of terrorism fear does this necessarily date the story or merely make it a snapshot of time?

Because my head is a complete muddle of stuffiness and I'm feeling kind of wretched, I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I'd love some opinions.

Comments

[charlesatan.livejournal.com]

As you said, in something like an anthology, it's more likely the individual stories themselves that might possibly become dated.

However, it also depends on the theme of the anthology. Like if you were going to make a 9/11-inspired anthology, it'd probably become dated 40 years from now.

My caveat of course is also what the story is attempting. For me, when I read Black Thorn, White Rose, I found it still quite an impressive read, mainly because the stories were well-written so much so that they stand well on their own and aren't like some stories which only rely on delivering a punch line (whether it's to horrify or to make readers laugh for example). Or a better an analogy might be something like Gulliver's Travels wherein the political satire might be lost to modern readers, but because it was written in such a way that it's still a good story despite the satire.

But then again, there are also times that because of a work's popularity, they themselves do get outdated. Like E.E. Docsmith pioneered many space opera elements that if you read his work nowadays, it'll sound cliche. Unless of course as a reader, that's the first space opera work you've read.

And then there's expectations. When you mentioned "adult fairy tales", what was the reader expecting? Did it mean well-crafted stories that goes beyond the didactic flow of today's stories? Or perhaps something more sexual, more taboo? I suspect the reviewer was expecting more of the latter in this case and so there's a different way in which the book was approached.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Well, in our introductions to each volume we explain what we mean by "adult fairy tales"--it's not a catch phrase for eroticism --however, there are a few amazon reviews of Snow White, Blood Red that loathe the book. A sampling

"I adore anything that even comes close to being a retelling of one of my beloved fairytales. Silly, sentimental...I don't care I just love fairytales. I eagerly picked this book up at the library for a little light reading between exams and papers. Boy, was I disappointed! I felt horrid reading this stuff. I just could not finish it. I'm sorry, but I do not find it entertaining in the least to read about adults lusting after children...a theme found in several of the stories. Sleeping with the mother while attempting to seduce the young daughter. Feeling up a child who is clinging to you because she is afraid of the woods. Raping children!!!! This book makes me sad. I only gave it one star because I had to."

and another:

"Then there's "Snowdrop" by Tanith Lee, a totally pointless story which seems little more than a spiffed-up Snow White with a lesbian sex scene to make things more "adult." Such a preoccupation with graphic, pointless sex is not adult; it is adolescent. The end result is that this anthology performs the rather dubious task of removing fairy tales from the nursery and putting them in the adult novelty store instead."

[charlesatan.livejournal.com]

Sad. =( Either they didn't read the introduction (admittedly a habit of mine when I was a kid) or they simply didn't get it.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Which says to me, none of them know the true origins of fairy tales and I find that very, very sad.

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine they would appreciate the stories more if they did know the true origins. Some people just aren't into that sort of thing.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

True.