Nicholas Rougeux Rougeux itibaren Nandrin itibaren Nandrin

It’s a collection of 5 “fairy stories,” although that being said, this is the author who got the award of Number One Partypooper when she snubbed adults who like Harry Potter because it’s so simplistic and the motifs so obvious and the magic so un-numinous. Fair enough, but please. Antonia, we know you’re rivals with your author-sister, and you don’t need to do any literary name-dropping to impress us. But that’s what she does in the titular tale, as it is about a fifty-something stout English narratologist, Gillian, who unlocks a literal genie in a bottle. Since the protagonist has such a deep knowledge of story, it’s a great platform for Dame Antonia to fling about her scholarship. The thing is, I can’t be mad at her, since it was actually wonderful to google various names and authors I’d never heard of before. The stories themselves? They’re okay, not marvelous, but they get under your skin. One is about love that is choked before it can grow due to excessive pride on both sides, and it is tragic. One is about the “eldest princess” (since most tales are of the youngest) and it’s actually rather delightful since it is about living out your own story while still taking the old wisdom seriously. There’s a lot of shared motifs: the crone, the layering of time and generations, the mundane imbued with momentary shining significance.