Donna Jo Napoli's possibly most famous piece is "Zel", a retelling of Repunzel. Instead of a story about a girl locked in a tower, we get a story of a girl. Zel, who like the original tale is raised in a tower by a witch who owned a garden, is a strong willed girl who is curious. It is not the story of a witch stealing a child, but a witch holding onto childhood. Zel is not trapped in the tower until she shows signs of maturing into a woman. Her "mother" so appalled by puberty and Zel's growing desire for men, that she is locked away. The witch stole a child, and then stole that child's ascent into womanhood. Napoli took a simple love story, and made it a deeply personal tale.My favorite Napoli story is "Beast," a Beauty and the Beast story where Beauty only shows up in the last two chapters. How did the Beast fall from manhood? Where is he from? How long was he a Beast? Napoli answers all those tales, giving the man under the animal skin a real story. Additionally, "Bound" takes Cinderella into China drawing on ancient forms of the story from the Middle Kingdom. She spins a story about a girl not with fairy feet, but with large unbound feet. "Breath" makes the piped-piper story about those in the village. About their descent into madness and fear. "Sirena" gives us a look into the ancient Greek tale of Philotectes from the Trojan War and the Sirens from the Odyssey. The sirens have a turn to tell their story through Napoli.
Napoli takes stories that we have heard and expands them into epic tales about characters we might have overlooked. She has a gift to give voices to those long forgotten. If you get a chance pick up some of her work.
Rereading stories from her childhood,
J.R. West the Raccoon
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1 comment:
Sound like fun little tales. I always wondered how the beast ended up a beast.
DW Golden
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