“As these images sorted themselves into events (i.e. became a story) they seemed to demand no love interest and no close psychology. But the Form which excludes these things is the fairy tale. And the moment I thought of that I fell in love with the Form itself: its brevity, its severe restraints on description, its flexible traditionalism, its inflexible hostility to all analysis, reflections, and ‘gas.’ I was now enamoured of it. Its very limitations of vocabulary became an attraction; as the hardness of the stone pleases the sculptor or the difficulty of the sonnet delights the sonneteer.”
“On that side (as Author) I wrote fairy tales because the fairy tale seemed the ideal Form for the stuff I had to say.”
That is C.S. Lewis in his 1956 essay “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said.”
Fairy Tales went out of style when Realistic Novels became all the rage. One of the charms of reading essays by Lewis and Tolkien is seeing them defending the genre. As Tolkien famously noted, the fairy tale only seemed like a subset of children’s literature because adults had abandoned the genre; the fairy tale is much like the old arm chair tossed into the nursery. There is nothing in particular about the fairy tale that makes it the natural medium for children’s literature.
Fast forward a half-century, and there is no doubt their argument won. Well, sort of won. Fantasy and Science Fiction are both all the rage in ways that would have surprised both Tolkien and Lewis. But, such stories still live in a sort of academic ghetto—serious novelists can glance in that direction, but they better not settle there.
The Fairy Tale, though, is still an elusive genre. When does a story merit that title? Are The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings fairy tales or not? Probably not the way most people think of the fairy tale. The Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson definitely wrote fairy tales which can be enjoyed by children and adults. There are plenty of children’s books that would count as a modern day fairy tale, but a good set of them offer little other than nostalgia for the older reader. The Wind and the Willows is probably the best example of an early-20th century fairy tale.
And then there is A Kingdom Far and Clear by Mark Helprin. I don’t know of another book that even competes in the category of modern day fairy tale suited for both kids and adults.
The book is a trio of related novellas: Swan Lake, A City in Winter, The Veil of Snows. Three different narrators, each telling a stand-alone story which is linked to the other two in chronological fashion. The overall story is, not surprising given the first part’s title, a variation on the tale of Swan Lake, a notable fairy tale in its own right. But, this is far more than just a retelling of that tale.
Somewhere in Eastern Europe is a fair land, beautifully described, in which the rightful rulers have been displaced by a cruel Usurper. The daughter of the rightful rulers vanished, and this is the story of how she discovered her true identity and sought to claim her rightful throne. In other words, you don’t read this book for the plot; you’ve read and seen that plot a million times.
It’s the manner of telling that makes this book great. Let’s look at an example from the middle of the book. The narrator of this portion is the true heiress to the throne, and this is the first time she is in the presence of the usurper.
Do not dismiss those who stand above you, for very seldom are they there by chance. Most often their power is genuine, their evil a power in itself, and their visage impressive. The usurper’s face was many times the size of mine, and seemed even larger than it was. His smile was fixed, revealing huge teeth and immense incisors. He looked if he might eat you, like a wild animal, and the plains of his cheeks resembled a battle helmet. Upon these plains were the scars of crossbow bolts, arrows, and knives, their presence a testament to his invulnerability.
You could see in his eyes that, if indeed he had a soul, it was someplace else, but that he was enjoying the dinner nonetheless, even if he enjoyed it not at all. He lived for absolute power, and his possession of it was confirmed in ceremony after ceremony, dinner after dinner, by the strength of his armies and the slavish obedience of his flacks. I had seen the selections. My own family had been among the first. This and my destiny kept me the model of girlish grace, smiling and light on my feet as I held my post. I turned my eyes from the usurper, determined to meet them one day, close and clear, in the presence of death. And from this, I took a certain joy.
At a literary level, that is a great example of the prose style of the book. It is a book that simply begs to be read aloud on a snowy evening in a mellifluous voice. The book dictates being read at a leisurely pace as the images erupt. (It is also worth noting that the book is filled with gorgeous full page illustrations by Chris van Allsburg.)
This is very much at tale of Good and Evil. That is not the same thing as saying it a tale of the triumph of good over evil. Evil most definitely has the upper hand in this story. The tone is brilliantly crafted in a way that while there is much beauty, there is no doubt that there is a veil of darkness cast over that beauty. And yet, hope endures. Even to the very last pages, when it is genuinely uncertain whether evil will triumph in the end, hope endures.
Indeed, the endurance of hope is the most important lesson of this fairy tale. There is no reason to have hope. There is zero reason to expect that the usurper will be overthrown. The true heiress to the throne has no power, no allies, no base of support. She enters the usurper’s impossibly vast castle by becoming a lowly servant so far down in the pecking order that she has no prospects. And yet, hope peeks through the darkness. There is no reason to have hope, there is never a reason to have hope, but the reader’s hope endures.
Never give up hope. That is the message of this fairy tale. Has there ever been a time when that lesson was more necessary? (Yes, it has been equally necessary at many times in many places.) What makes this fairy tale so great is that the disappointments just keep coming; every time spirits lift because maybe this is the beginning of the end for the usurper, a twist of fate reasserts the status quo. This fairy tale actually teaches hope in the face of disappointment.
It is a beautiful book, highly recommended. I have enjoyed it since I first read it a decade ago. It lingers in the imagination, constantly reminding you to never despair. A nice little Fairy Tale, in other words.
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Chesterton, G. K. The Ballad of the White Horse “Yea, Faith Without a Hope”
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