As Old As Time

by Liz Braswell

September 6, 2016 · Disney Press

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After Poppy’s beautiful “That Moment When…” post, A Handy Guide for Choosing Your Institute of Magical Education, LiteraryCharlie’s Angels, Eleanor Oliphant Wasn’t Completely Fine, and Neither Are Many of Us, and Awesome Non-Human Sidekicks in Books art essays, we are so excited to have some guest reviews from her!

Poppy is a long-time fan of SBTB and loves cats, books and coffee, in that order. She illustrates The Loo Cats, an imaginative series starring her rescue cats in the most fantastical, improbable scenarios. The series is an ode to four spunky felines who survived abuse and abandonment before they found their forever home. Now they are elderly and ill, and can only travel in their human’s wild, colour-saturated imagination – but they continue to bring delight and iridescence to the lives of those around them. Join them on their adventures @geninepoppyloo on Instagram!

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There are 10 stories in the A Twisted Tale series, which reimagines classic stories like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Snow White with an unexpected twist. I love cover songs, historical fiction, and all kinds of re-interpretive endeavours, so this was exciting to me. Plus it’s YA – I like YA! I’ve read 4 of the 10 stories in the series and so far, I’d say when they’re done well, they’re done REALLY well.

(Aside: I realised midway through my reading that these are actually Disney-commissioned, and I know people’s mileage may vary on the Disney cartoons. However, I’d say even if you didn’t watch or particularly like the Disney cartoons, it’s still possible to read these as standalones. On this note, I’d like to ding the Disney website for calling this series “classic Disney stories” – c’mon, you know these are not original Disney stories! Because it irked me, I’m also providing quick notes to the actual origins of each story I review.)

For this round, I’ll review the first two retellings I read, which were of my two fav Disney animations, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella.

As Old as Time is based, obviously, on Beauty and the Beast.

The twist:

Belle’s mom was the enchantress that cursed the prince/Beast and cast the spell that turned all the castle’s inhabitants into dancing singing household appliances.

The plot: a tale updated with time!

I really, really enjoyed this story.

There are 2 main story arcs here. Besides Belle and Beast’s relationship, the main plot focused on the mystery of what happened at the castle, which was also related to the disappearance of all magic and magical people in the kingdom. The updated story also does one of the most important things in a retelling: it gives greater depth to the original characters. Here, Maurice, Belle’s father, and her mother Rosalind are given full backstories, with fully fleshed out personalities and character development.
For instance, Maurice in the 1991 animation was presented to us as an absentminded, kooky old man with his head in the clouds. This version peels back the years to show us how he transformed from the bright, eager youth who bonded with Rosalind over hydraulic engineering sexytalk, to his “current” state, which we’re given to realise is…

A good part of the story alternates between chapters on Maurice and Rosalind and the “present,” with Belle and later the Beast. This allowed for some clever, structurally impactful setups – Maurice and Rosalind’s lovely wedding (which almost moved me to tears!) is followed by the chapter on Gaston’s attempted bride-napping of Belle.

I also dug the central metaphor in this story. The tensions between “les naturels” (people with no magic) and “les charmante” (magical folk) mirrored real-life ethnic and religious conflicts, even down to the type of language used by the aggressors and the acts of aggression committed.

Here’s a sobering exchange between Rosalind and Monsieur Lévi the bookseller, after she discovered her good friend and magic healer had been “disappeared”:

“She will be avenged. I will have justice,” Rosalind growled… “This isn’t the dark ages!”

“Every age has its darkness,” said Lévi quietly.

How apt, in our so-called modern times.

On that note, a trigger warning: There are torture scenes in this book. I couldn’t read them – I skimmed and skipped.

“A most peculiar mademoiselle”

The treatment of Belle was great. We got to see her as a pouty, slightly bratty kid who refused to play with the triplets (yeah, remember them?), as a rash teen who lost her temper easily, and then a feisty young woman with humorous internal dialogue. We learn, for example, that she offered to take her dad’s place after he got captured by the Beast not merely out of naïve altruism, but because she thought she was a hero, and all heroes would eventually figure out how to escape, right?

She was also smart and sensible: she figured out which year the castle’s enchantment started by asking the talking wardrobe what she thought was the height of fashion. And when Beast’s rose started dropping petals, she started counting the number of petals dropped and trying mentally to compare them to different types of roses (thereby figuring out that this was a magic rose and the number of petals signified the Beast’s age).

To be fair, Belle in the Disney animation was already pretty cool, gutsy and spirited, which was why it was my fav childhood cartoon. I was glad that this retelling retains all that, and gives us more.

“There may be something there that wasn’t there before…”

I think that song lyric best sums up Belle and Beast’s relationship, which in my view was the weakest aspect of the story. Beast was clearly infatuated early on, because Belle was, well, pretty, and later he found her feisty, smart, kind, etc. But Belle’s “omg I love him” moment came so suddenly that it felt like someone had waved their arms and shouted, “Ok it’s time! They need to be in love now!”

Still, I’m ok with it because the book ends with a really, really cool twist that acknowledged how much more work Belle and Beast needed to do still. It was less Happily Ever After and more We’re Happy Now but Oh Boy It’s Gonna Be an Uphill Battle. And THAT is a realistic love story message I can get behind!

In summary

All I can say is, go read this. It’s bold, funny, well-paced, and adds layers and layers to the Disney version. Bonus: the living household items also got an upgrade and aren’t as one-dimensionally sing-song “we live to serve” as they were in the Disney cartoon. (Also, I listened to the soundtrack for the 1991 animation whilst reading the book – a highly recommended immersive experience!)

Once upon a time

Time for some history notes.

Scholars have found the archetype of young women and their animal (or animalistic) grooms in old folklore and oral traditions from all over the world. Some even date its roots to the 2nd century Latin novel Metamorphoses, in the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

Maria Tatar, in her book Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World, says that “nearly every culture tells the story of Beauty and the Beast in one fashion or another… the partnering of beasts and beauties, of humans and animals in all their variety—cats, dogs, frogs, goats, lizards, bears, tortoises, monkeys, cranes, warthogs—has beguiled us for thousands of years, mapping the cultural contradictions that riddle every romantic relationship.” These stories, she posited, could also have been used to prepare women to accept their arranged marriages, emphasizing the female protagonist’s self-sacrificing and dutiful nature.

Disney’s version is widely acknowledged to be closest to the 1740 short story “La Belle et La Bête”, by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. She was apparently inspired by the real-life story of Petrus Gonsalvus, who had hypertrichosis, and his bride-to-be Catherine. The story was translated to English and appeared in London as “Beauty and the Beast” 16 years after that.

[Sources: Smithsonian Mag, The Atlantic, BBC, Guardian]

NB: We have a second guest review from Poppy for another book in this series today, so watch for that soon!