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Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales

Auf dieses Buch stieß ich bei Twitter in einem Tweet von Diane Duane und sah es sofort bei Amazon nach - Märchen kann ich nun einmal selten wiederstehen. Märchen hat es hier wirklich satt, lange und kurze, witzige und langatmige Epen, aus aller Herren Länder. Einige kannte ich schon, wie die aus Grimms Märchen und aus der norwegischen Sammlung und fand es interessant sie in Englisch zu lesen (besonders 'Clever Gretel' und 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon'). Alles in allem ein echter Fund, auch wegen des langen und interessanten Vorworts, das Angela Carter noch kurz vor ihrem Tod fertigstellte.

The history, sociology and psychology transmitted to us by fairy tales is unofficial - they pay even less attention to national and international affairs than do the novels of Jane Austen. They are also anonymous and genderless. We may know the name and gender of the particular individual who tells a particular story, just because the collector noted the name down, but we can never know the name of the person who invented that story in the first place. Ours is a highly individualized culture, with a great faith in the work of an art as a unique one-off, and the artist as an original, a godlike and inspired creator of unique one-offs. But fairy tales are not like that, nor are their makers. Who first invented meatballs? In what country? Is there a definite recipe for potato soup? Think in terms of domestic arts. 'This is how I make potato soup.'
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I haven't put this collection together from such heterogeneous sources to show that we are all sisters under the skin, part of the same human family in spite of a few superficial differences. I don't believe that, anyway. Sisters under the skin we might be, but that doesn't mean we've got much in common. (See Part Six, 'Unhappy Families'.) Rather, I wanted to demonstrate the extraordinary richness and diversity of responses to the same common predicament - being alive - and the richness and diversity with which femininity, in practice, is represented in 'unofficial' culture: its strategies, its plots, its hard work.

(Angela Carter, Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales, 1990/1992)