Fairy Tales and other Stories

So I believe it is fair to say that I am obsessed with the fairy tale television shows on right now.  As I said I have been watching the series Once Upon a Time, but I have also begun to watch the series Grimm.  I like how these two stories represent different sides of the same coin.  Once Upon A Time in itself is pretty tame, with maniacal twists coming at strategic points in the story to maximize effect.  What Grimm does is uses the frankly gruesome Grimm’s fairy tales as a base, and looks at them in the modern context. 

What I appreciate as someone who enjoys the idea of re envisioning stories to give it new meaning and life, I think the darker side of Grimm really hits on that.  with some of the stories reaching a truly demented scale, on example of this is the Series’ fourth episode where a goat like creature called  Ziegevolk or Bluebeards, has hypnotized women, as well as holding them captive and breeding with them.  Some very disturbing subject matter, and it seems that the episodes do not let up, a very chilling way to revision Grimm’s’ Fairy Tales. 

These stories make me realize the interesting things you can do with re thinking material.  As a side note, the BBC’s new series ‘Sherlock’ does a similarly excellent job re envisioning Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters and stories and applying them to modern day London. 

As for the novel St. Mawr by D.H. Lawrence it ended very well and it does represent an excellent piece of literature.  The way that Lawrence uses the character of a horse to truly examine the concept of passion, as well the state of gender in post-World War I England is enlightening to read.  This is just a great piece of literature and I enjoyed it immensely, the way he portrays passion is something I would like to emulate. 

I have also started he book The Yacubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany.  I am only about half the way through the book, and so far it appears to be a look at the lives of a number of different people who span different social and economic classes in early nineties Egypt.  I think so far it is very interesting and frank in its discussion of Egyptian culture.  I can see why it is an international bestseller, and why it has been translated into nine languages.  I have high hopes for how the story progresses and comes to a head. 

I hope to have more time and more pages done in the future, and actually write.  Until then.

“I think the story is my form.”
Joseph Epstein