How to Survive a Russian Fairy Tale
Or... how to avoid getting eaten, chopped into little pieces, or turned into a goat
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Average rating4
15
Or... how to avoid getting eaten, chopped into little pieces, or turned into a goat
Ratings1
Average rating4
From the author who bravely faced down a seven-headed, fire-breathing, riddle-speaking dragon... and got eaten for his pains. The realm of Russian fairy tales is perilous. You might think you know who’s friend, who’s foe. But you’d be wrong. Wolves might be friends. Old grandmothers might be cannibals. And the idiot might be the wisest man in the room. So say you find yourself at the waystone, a boundary between the real world and the world of story. Every road you take from the waystone leads to danger and the potential of great rewards. But you could end up being eaten, chopped into little pieces, or even turned into a goat. This book is a short guide for your survival. At the end, you’ll find the fountain of youth, riches unimaginable, the man or woman of your dreams…and maybe something even more lasting. But getting there is the real pleasure. Buy this book today to enter the weird and wonderful world of Russian fairy tales.
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This is a fairly short introduction to the genre of Russian Fairy Tales. Since most Americans or speakers of English, are absolutely unfamiliar with the subject, this book is fascinating as revealing a different set of traditions than the one we are familiar with. American culture is essentially Western European. Eastern Europe is just a bit too far out there for us to be entirely comfortable with.
This book gives a fairly shallow and cursory overview of the subject. It really doesn't take a deep dive into any of the stories, which often leaves the impression that Russian Fairy Tales are outre (as opposed to the talking animals of the stories we are familiar with.) Thus, we find out that Russians begin their fairy tales with Pre-stories” which are bits of nonsense that serve to disorient the listener into an attitude more accepting of the fantastic.
We get an introduction to Babi Yaga, who is not the Boogeyman described in the John Wick movies, but instead a kind of demigod who sits on the edge of the real and the fantastic and lives in a hut that walks on a pair of chicken legs. There are cycles of stories based on the Bogatyrs, the heroic Russian warriors, who engage in fantastic epic adventures. The author, Nicholas Kotar, gives a brief explanation of the tropes in Russian fairy tales and their symbolic significance.
The conceit that ties this book together is the notion that the reader is caught in a Russian fairy tale and what he or she might expect to come up against. This is actually a minor part of the presentation and doesn't particularly advance or retard the exposition.
All in all, this is a good introduction to a world that is exotic and generally unknown.
