Childhood nostalgia time
Feb. 8th, 2014 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileIn the latest in Mark Does Stuff readalongs, Mark has apparently decided to read my entire childhood all at the same time, so, while going through all of Tamora Pierce’s stuff on his regular schedule and, now, starting the Enchanted Forest Chronicles on YouTube, he did Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted as a Double Feature.
Ella Enchanted is a loose retelling of Cinderella, in which Ella of Frell was given a “gift” at birth by a well-intentioned but incredibly blockheaded fairy named Lucinda. The “gift” is obedience—meaning that Ella is literally, physically incapable of not obeying orders. If, unlike Lucinda, you take a half a second to think about this, the implications are completely terrible—people can force Ella to do all sorts of unpleasant and even dangerous things and have pretty much endless capacity to take advantage of her.
Rereading this book—and particularly being able to follow along with Mark’s perspective, who, as usual, had never heard of this book before and was going into it completely unspoiled—the main thing that struck me was how freakin’ dark this book is. Not only does Ella’s mother die in the beginning, in tragic fairy tale fashion, but Ella’s father is creepy, Olive is teeth-achingly, relentlessly grasping and weird, Hattie is basically Chris Christie in a wig, Dame Olga is syrupy and insincere, and talking to Lucinda is like getting into an Internet argument with libertarians. The five of them don’t have an ounce of self-awareness between them, which gives me headaches. The implications of Ella’s curse are explored pretty thoroughly (with the notable exception of sexual violence, because this is a children’s book), resulting in Ella having to give up her most treasured possessions and her money up to the last penny, having to cut off her only friend at finishing school, becoming a scullery maid, being prevented from talking to Prince Char, not being able to tell anybody what’s happening to her or why, and almost getting eaten by ogres. While Ella is clever and resourceful enough to escape from some of these scrapes—she doesn’t actually get eaten by the ogres, after all—it’s made quite clear that the curse is relentlessly and debilitatingly capable of fucking up her life, no matter how personally awesome she is. And Ella’s pretty personally awesome—she’s proactive, rebellious, clever, good with languages, fun-loving, and fairly compassionate, although not for people who are acting abusively (which I am okay with; I think understanding is great and all but sometimes it’s acceptable to not focus on what wounded bunnies the poor poor bullies are. I am also sometimes more okay than a lot of other progressives I know with hitting back where it hurts over hitting where the problems is, which is a fancy way of saying that I have zero qualms about Ella stealing Hattie’s wig even though there is nothing wrong with wearing a wig).
The first three-quarters of the book have very little to do with the original Cinderella tale, and follow Ella as she recovers from her mother’s death, tries to deal with her weird mercenary father, gets sent off to finishing school with Hattie and Olive, escapes from finishing school in order to intercept Lucinda at a giant’s wedding and ask her to take her “gift” back, hunts ogres with Prince Char and his knights, and slides down stair rails at the royal palace. It’s only after Ella’s father, financially ruined through his own con artistry, marries Dame Olga and immediately faffs off on a trading mission that Ella is ordered to serve as a scullery maid, against her father’s express wishes, and prevented from seeing Prince Char. Prince Char is a thoroughly delightful love interest and a perfect complement for Ella, he takes his responsibilities as a future leader extremely seriously, and Ella brings out his latent sense of humor. The letters they write each other while he is in Ayortha and Ella is suffering as a scullery maid under Dame Olga will basically spoil you for romance with real humans forever (heartfelt text messages just ain’t the same). Char has his own characterization and backstory and doesn’t so much save Ella as serve as a sort of catalyst for Ella being able to save herself (and the prince and the kingdom, while she’s at it).
I had forgotten that the curse-breaking scene is actually kind of weird; I tend to visualize books in my head like movies, and the final battle (that’s basically what it is) is all in Ella’s head, so I spent a lot of it imagining how strange it must look to everyone else around that Ella’s just, like, having a fit, is what it sounds like. Also I kind of wanted more on-page smackdown of Hattie once the curse was broken, because Hattie is terrible.
I had forgotten that LUCINDA LEARNS TO GIVE GOOD GIFTS AT THE END. LARGELY MEANING THAT THEY ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS THAT ONE CAN DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO USE. So that was a pleasant surprise.
The major theme in the story is the importance of free will and consent, which I think makes it a super valuable book for young persons, but it’s also a good solid fantasy tale of a girl trying to break a dangerous curse and being awesome. I guess I would definitely recommend it for children, but would only recommend it for adults with a warning that it’s very upsetting. There are some ways in which I think children are able to “handle” much heavier stuff in their books than adults, and this book engages a lot of those, apparently? Idunno, all of us who had read it as kids were like “Yeah this is a great fairy tale book, I loved it to bits” and all those who were just coming to it as adults were like “THIS IS MASSIVELY UPSETTING HOW DID YOU SURVIVE CHILDHOOD” so make of that what you will.
Ella Enchanted is a loose retelling of Cinderella, in which Ella of Frell was given a “gift” at birth by a well-intentioned but incredibly blockheaded fairy named Lucinda. The “gift” is obedience—meaning that Ella is literally, physically incapable of not obeying orders. If, unlike Lucinda, you take a half a second to think about this, the implications are completely terrible—people can force Ella to do all sorts of unpleasant and even dangerous things and have pretty much endless capacity to take advantage of her.
Rereading this book—and particularly being able to follow along with Mark’s perspective, who, as usual, had never heard of this book before and was going into it completely unspoiled—the main thing that struck me was how freakin’ dark this book is. Not only does Ella’s mother die in the beginning, in tragic fairy tale fashion, but Ella’s father is creepy, Olive is teeth-achingly, relentlessly grasping and weird, Hattie is basically Chris Christie in a wig, Dame Olga is syrupy and insincere, and talking to Lucinda is like getting into an Internet argument with libertarians. The five of them don’t have an ounce of self-awareness between them, which gives me headaches. The implications of Ella’s curse are explored pretty thoroughly (with the notable exception of sexual violence, because this is a children’s book), resulting in Ella having to give up her most treasured possessions and her money up to the last penny, having to cut off her only friend at finishing school, becoming a scullery maid, being prevented from talking to Prince Char, not being able to tell anybody what’s happening to her or why, and almost getting eaten by ogres. While Ella is clever and resourceful enough to escape from some of these scrapes—she doesn’t actually get eaten by the ogres, after all—it’s made quite clear that the curse is relentlessly and debilitatingly capable of fucking up her life, no matter how personally awesome she is. And Ella’s pretty personally awesome—she’s proactive, rebellious, clever, good with languages, fun-loving, and fairly compassionate, although not for people who are acting abusively (which I am okay with; I think understanding is great and all but sometimes it’s acceptable to not focus on what wounded bunnies the poor poor bullies are. I am also sometimes more okay than a lot of other progressives I know with hitting back where it hurts over hitting where the problems is, which is a fancy way of saying that I have zero qualms about Ella stealing Hattie’s wig even though there is nothing wrong with wearing a wig).
The first three-quarters of the book have very little to do with the original Cinderella tale, and follow Ella as she recovers from her mother’s death, tries to deal with her weird mercenary father, gets sent off to finishing school with Hattie and Olive, escapes from finishing school in order to intercept Lucinda at a giant’s wedding and ask her to take her “gift” back, hunts ogres with Prince Char and his knights, and slides down stair rails at the royal palace. It’s only after Ella’s father, financially ruined through his own con artistry, marries Dame Olga and immediately faffs off on a trading mission that Ella is ordered to serve as a scullery maid, against her father’s express wishes, and prevented from seeing Prince Char. Prince Char is a thoroughly delightful love interest and a perfect complement for Ella, he takes his responsibilities as a future leader extremely seriously, and Ella brings out his latent sense of humor. The letters they write each other while he is in Ayortha and Ella is suffering as a scullery maid under Dame Olga will basically spoil you for romance with real humans forever (heartfelt text messages just ain’t the same). Char has his own characterization and backstory and doesn’t so much save Ella as serve as a sort of catalyst for Ella being able to save herself (and the prince and the kingdom, while she’s at it).
I had forgotten that the curse-breaking scene is actually kind of weird; I tend to visualize books in my head like movies, and the final battle (that’s basically what it is) is all in Ella’s head, so I spent a lot of it imagining how strange it must look to everyone else around that Ella’s just, like, having a fit, is what it sounds like. Also I kind of wanted more on-page smackdown of Hattie once the curse was broken, because Hattie is terrible.
I had forgotten that LUCINDA LEARNS TO GIVE GOOD GIFTS AT THE END. LARGELY MEANING THAT THEY ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS THAT ONE CAN DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO USE. So that was a pleasant surprise.
The major theme in the story is the importance of free will and consent, which I think makes it a super valuable book for young persons, but it’s also a good solid fantasy tale of a girl trying to break a dangerous curse and being awesome. I guess I would definitely recommend it for children, but would only recommend it for adults with a warning that it’s very upsetting. There are some ways in which I think children are able to “handle” much heavier stuff in their books than adults, and this book engages a lot of those, apparently? Idunno, all of us who had read it as kids were like “Yeah this is a great fairy tale book, I loved it to bits” and all those who were just coming to it as adults were like “THIS IS MASSIVELY UPSETTING HOW DID YOU SURVIVE CHILDHOOD” so make of that what you will.
