Fairy Tale Fridays - The Mermaid In The Tree

This week at Fairy Tale Fridays, I'm featuring a story by Tim Schaffert from My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me titled "The Mermaid In The Tree."  Each of the stories in this compilation is based to some extent on another fairy tale.  Schaffert's story is based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," a tale that Schaffert says is not only his favorite fairy tale, but also his favorite short story.

Desiree and her sister Miranda live in Rothgutt's Asylum for Misspent Youth where they have spent nearly their entire lives after being arrested for stealing candy from a baby.  The asylum is in the village of Mudpuddle Beach where mermaids regularly wash up and die on the shores.  Parades are held in Mudpuddle Beach featuring the bodies of some of the mermaids, preserved, posed and floating in giant tanks set on platforms pulled by rickshaws peddled by the girls of Rothgutt's.  After one of the parades, Desiree meets Axle, a young man who attends Starkwhip Academy of Breathtakingly Exceptional Young Men and the two are soon sneaking out to meet.  One night the two meet and Axle is in the process of giving Desiree an engagement ring when it slips from his hand and falls into the water below.  At nearly the same time, the two see a carousel figure break loose in a storm, wash out to sea and return to view with a mermaid clinging to it's neck.  Axle rescues the mermaid but Desiree is prevented from going with him to seek care for her and will not see him again for many months.  Axle falls in love with the mermaid and it proves his undoing.

 In the original tale of The Little Mermaid,  it is the mermaid who saves the prince and her love for him that proves to be her undoing.  In Schaffert's hands, there does seem to be more of a mutual affection although the mermaid's addiction to a drug that originally saved her seems to be more important to her than does Axle.

In addition to The Little Mermaid, Schaffert borrows the mermaid's name from a fairy tale (Rapunzel).  The darkness so prominent in early fairy tales is abundant in "The Mermaid In The Tree."  There is no living "happily ever after" for any of the characters.  But while the tale has many of the elements of classic fairy tales, there was nothing that set in a particular time.  In fact, there was something about it the had the feel of a dystopian story to me.  It also reminded me of Lemony Snicket's "A Series Of Unfortunate Events," notched up grown up levels. 

You may recall me saying that Schaffert is the driving force behind Omaha's Lit Fest.  He has also published several books which are part of Unbridled Books' catalog (you all know how much I love Unbridled Books!).  I'm looking forward to reading his "The Coffins of Little Hope" which will be published April 2011.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Originally published in 1817
Source: included in the complete works of Jane Austen book given me by my parents

Catherine Morland is a naive, unaccomplished 17-year-old, prone to let her imagination take flight when she's invited to join some family friends for a few weeks in Bath.  There she meets the Thorpe family, including Isabella who becomes her dearest friend. Catherine's brother, James, arrives in Bath with Isabella's brother, John.  James and Isabella have met before and shortly after James' arrival in Bath, the two become engaged.

Catherine also meets Henry Tilney in Bath who she becomes smitten with and shortly after, the rest of his family including his sister, Eleanor; brother, Frederick; and father, General Tilney.  Not long after Frederick arrives he begins pursuing Isabella. Catherine is so uncomfortable by the whole situation that when Eleanor invites her to come to stay with the Tilney's at Northanger Abbey, Catherine is more than ready to leave Bath.  Once at Northanger Abbey, though, Catherine's imagination really begins to run away with her.

Northanger Abbey was the first book that Austen had ready for publishing, even selling it.  But it was never published until after her death.  It's quite obviously an early work but even an early Austen is a wonderful bit of wit.

"A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number..."

"Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.  A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Austen creates in Catherine a character who is in most ways a perfectly ordinary young lady.  But Austen mocks society by making it appear that Catherine is deficient because she can't draw a profile or play the piano and because she is absorbed in books. Catherine's childlike, trusting nature makes her a poor judge of character, susceptible to all of Isabella's flattery, John's lies and General Tilney's excessive kindnesses.  Sadly, the only way for things to end happily for Catherine ( and this being Austen, you know things will end happily) is for her to learn a great deal about human nature. 

Something unique to this story is Austen's use of the writer herself as very much a part of the story.  While it was appropriate for this book, before her next novel Austen had developed the ability to insert what where the writer's points in this novel into the narrative and dialogue of the characters.

This was the only Austen novel I had never read more than once.  Now I'm not sure why; I know I will read it again--if for no other reason than the laughs.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
My edition: 186 pages, published 1974
Originally published: 1925

Nick Carraway has just settled on a career in New York City following the Great War.  He finds himself living on West Egg (in reality Great Neck) living next to a mysterious man named Gatsby who frequently hosts extravagant parties.

Across the sound lives Nick's cousin, Daisy.  Through Daisy, Nick becomes reacquainted with her husband Tom Buchanan (a brute who is rich enough to do nothing much more than play polo) and their friend Jordan Baker (a golfer who Nick begins dating).  One day Tom and Nick decide to head into New York and stop at a garage, ostensibly to talk to the owner about a car.  But the real reason Tom wants to stop is to have Nick meet his mistress, Myrtle.  When Myrtle joins them, Nick discovers that the pair have an apartment in the city and gets stuck at a party that only ends when Tom breaks Myrtle's nose.

Eventually Nick attends one of Gatsby's parties and finds that even the people that attend the parties regularly know very little about the man.  Some said he had killed a man, some said he had made his fortune as a bootlegger.  At the party, Gatsby pulls Jordan aside and a few days later Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby and Daisy were once in love and that Gatsby would like Nick to reunite the two.  Which he does. Which results in the two of them having an affair.  Which results in very bad things happening.

I bought this book right after I saw the movie (36 years ago), which I loved (mostly because of the aesthetics and, let's be real, Robert Redford).  I didn't love the book then and I didn't love it this time either.  I agree that it's a brilliant examination of what comes of great wealth without responsibility.  I agree that Fitzgerald has crafted a work that paints a great picture of a time and place and that he's worked in a lot of interesting themes.  These are all things that I love to find in one book.  Which is what puzzles me about my reaction to this book.  Maybe it's because I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters. Maybe it's because I was so hoping to find that reading it as an adult would be a transcendent thing.  But it wasn't.  It was just a really good book. Which, in fact, is definitely worth reading.

Giveaway: Boxed Set of Blackboard Books

If you're a school marm, like my mom who often sends me corrections when I forget to run spell check or end a sentence with a dangling participle, you've been salivating over the Blackboard Books ever since they first came out.  Even if you're not an English grammarian, especially if you're not, you're sure to find them an invaluable asset.  Now's your chance to win a boxed set of the books that includes the first three books in the series:


i before e (except after c):
old-school ways to remember stuff In this clever-and often hilarious-collection, you'll find engaging mnemonics, arranged in easy to find categories that include geography, time and the calendar, numbers, and astronomy. Perfect for students of all ages!

My Grammar and I...Or Should That Be Me?: How to Speak and Write It Right
Avoid grammatical minefields with this entertaining refresher course for anyone who has ever been stumped by spelling confusion, dangling modifiers, split infinitives, or for those who have no idea what these things even are.

I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School 
Take a trip down memory lane with this light-hearted and informative reminder of the many things we learned in school that have been forgotten over time, from Shakespeare and diphthongs to quotients, phalanges, and protons. After all, as Stantayana reminds us, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

I've got one set to giveaway to a U.S. resident only.  To enter, just leave a comment with a way for me to contact you.  I'll announce the winner on December 19th.

Reading for Feeding America - Help Craig Lancaster Help America

Craig Lancaster, author of the widely praised 600 Hours of Edward and the forthcoming novel The Summer Son to be released by AmazonEncore in early 2011) wanted to do something for others this Christmas season, so he wrote a fantastic holiday-themed story, “Comfort and Joy,” to sell on Amazon and Smashwords for $1. 

 However, that he plans to donate 100% of the proceeds to Feeding America, whose 200+ food banks distribute to all fifty states, wasn’t enough for us at Inside the Writers’ Studio. When we learned of his plan to write some short fiction, he hadn’t yet begun “Comfort and Joy,” and we were more than happy to catch him early enough to challenge him to find a way to incorporate a few random words.
  

The words: snowman, hot chocolate, and jingle balls. 

LANCASTER: I thought my "Jingle Balls" solution might have been a little reach, but I was 12 years old once, and it's something I might have come up with.

He managed to write the (approx.) 5,500-word story in just 24 hours.

LANCASTER: The idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and it's easily adaptable to a holiday angle. Short-story productivity, for me, comes and goes, and for whatever reason, I've been in a fertile period. I'll sit down in the next couple of days and knock it out. The funny thing is, I've never really written fiction on a deadline, but I have one now: I've pledged to send this story to the in-boxes of donors by Dec. 15.

He made good on his pledge; “Comfort and Joy” is available at Amazon and Smashwords right now (click a link to buy a copy – you can always come back here when you’re done), and it will stay there indefinitely with the proceeds continuing to benefit Feeding America. And, as promised, it’s only $1. “But why not charge more to give more?” we wondered.

LANCASTER: Two reasons. The first is the greater-volume-at-a-lower-price idea. The second is that I hope this isn't the be-all, end-all of people's giving. A few folks have written to me and said, "I want to give more than a buck," and my response has been this: "Send me a buck. Send your local food bank, or some other charity there at home, as much as you feel like you can give."

INSIDE THE WRITERS’ STUDIO: What made you choose this particular charity?

LANCASTER: I've been reading a lot about how stressed food banks are. Times are hard, and charitable giving is down. And since (I hope) donations will be coming in from all over, it didn't seem quite right to roll whatever money is generated toward the food bank where I live, though it certainly could use the help. So I figured that Feeding America, with its national focus, made sense.

One of the things that put this at the top of my mind was seeing a plea from my friend Carol Buchanan on Facebook that people not buy her books as gifts but instead donate to their local food bank. She said she'd eat whether the books are bought or not. Others -- many, many others -- are not so fortunate.

This effort is nothing like the NPR fundraising drive—there’s no dollar amount in mind, no set goal (“I have no expectation here,” Lancaster says. “If it's five bucks, it's five bucks.”), but he does hope to turn this into an annual effort, one that involves more writers contributing to a holiday-themed anthology.

LANCASTER: Say, 15 or 20 holiday-themed stories, from a wide variety of genres, all with the aim of putting some food on the tables of people who badly need it. Wheels are already turning for next year: an anthology, from writers across the traditional and indie spectrums. Zombie Christmas, romance Christmas, bizarro, whatever. I think if I were to get people on board in, say, July, we'd be able to offer all kinds of options: individual stories, the entire collection, e-book, short POD run.

IWS: Do you think you might choose different charities in the future?

LANCASTER: I haven't even thought about that. I'm pretty passionate about food banks. They're chronically understocked, and it's one form of charity that is completely without political overtones.  

IWS: Have you ever donated to/worked in/needed a food bank?

LANCASTER: I've pulled a few shifts stacking boxes and such, and I'm a reliable bring-a-canned-good-to-whatever-event guy, but I've never done it on a consistent basis. One of the things I hope to do, beyond the holiday season, is become a lot more involved with that sort of thing on a local level.

IWS: That sounds like a perfect New Year’s resolution. Speaking of the new year—your upcoming novel, The Summer Son, will be released in January. Tell us about it.

LANCASTER: It's a multi-decade father-and-son story. Mitch Quillen and his father, Jim, have been largely estranged for nearly 30 years, and the breach stems from a violent summer when Mitch was 11 years old. In the present day, they've been thrown together again and they try to work through the distance between them. All the while, Mitch is reliving that long-ago summer in the form of a note to his wife, whom he's kept away from that part of his life, in an effort to reconcile his own failing relationship with her. It's a story about the things we experience and how those things shape us -- and how those same things get interpreted in different ways by other people who were there.

IWS: Final question. Fruitcake: yay or nay?

LANCASTER: You know, I'd love to say yay, just to be the contrary bastard I tend to be. But I cannot. Fruitcake is a nay. It's a nay to the 100th power. It's a nay that pushes at the outer edges of the space-time continuum. It's the nay that keeps on giving. Let's face it: Fruitcake sucks. 

  Thank you for allowing us to post our interview on your blog site and spread the word about Craig Lancaster's effort.  - Kris & Kel, IWS