Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde

The Selfish Giant and The Star Child
by Oscar Wilde
illustrated by P. Craig Russell

**  Warning- there are spoilers here! **

Another graphic novel I picked up attracted by the pictures. I knew I would already like it as I've seen this artist before and he's amazing. And I was right. I loved looking at the pictures. The stories, well, I'm not so sure about that. I knew Oscar Wilde wrote short stories, and I've read a collection of them before, but I don't recall these two. I didn't realize he could be so- religious and blatant with the moralizing. "The Selfish Giant" is about a giant with a beautiful garden who doesn't like neighborhood kids playing there. He puts up a wall to keep them out and then his garden is always winter until a small child solicits his sympathy. The giant lets them back in, the garden grows in spring and summer, everyone is happy again. But did the child have to be an incarnation of Jesus? I was rather enjoying the story and that made it just annoying.

The second story, "The Star Child" is about a beautiful child found in the woods and taken in by a woodcutter's family. He grows up into an insolent, mean and spiteful child. When his poor, beggarwoman mother finds him, he rejects  her and gets turned into an ugly creature. Then he wanders around miserably suffering the same insults and bad treatment he had meted out to others, until a cruel magician and a little rabbit teach him lessons of kindness. Then of course he gets his original beauty back and finds out that his beggarwoman mother is actually a queen. This pat ending didn't bother me so much as the last page, where we see the beautiful boy ruling as king, the land all peaceful and happy, and then he dies suddenly and the last line says And he who came after him rulled evilly. What? Now I'm expecting more! It just seemed an odd way to end the story. I wonder if there actually is more I'm missing, as the original was adapted by Russell for this book...

I've several more volumes of P. Craig Russell-illustrated Wilde fairy tales borrowed from the library, will be reading those soon too.

Rating: 3/5 ........ 111 pages, 1992

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Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde

The Devoted Friend and The Nightingale and the Rose
by Oscar Wilde
illustrated by P.Craig Russell

This is volume four of the Wilde fairy tales illustrated by P. Craig Russell (I'm not reading them in order). I was familiar with one of the stories, the Nightingale, but not the other. "The Nightingale and the Rose" is about a young man pining after a beautiful girl he's in love with, who will dance with him only if he gives her a red rose. He can't find a red rose but a nightingale overhears his grieving and sacrifices herself to true love: she pierces herself on the thorn of the rosebush, and her life's blood paints the rose red. The young man is ecstatic to find the red rose and immediately takes it to the young woman but she scorns his gift and he goes home to bury his nose in books.

In the other story, a poor but good-hearted gardener is taken advantage of by a rich miller who takes liberties with his ideas of friendship until he has literally driven the gardener to his death. With hard work for favors never really returned in kind. I found both these stories rather bitter, and unsettling.

What was Wilde trying to say? The young woman was so petty, the heartsick young man seemed to make assumptions about her that weren't true at all, the nightingale died for an idea that wasn't a reality. And I rather liked the poor gardener but he wouldn't stand up for himself and the disgusting miller didn't even seem to care that he'd caused the man he erroneously called "friend" to die.

It seems a terrible observation on human nature. I do love the artwork but I'm not sure if I want to read more of Oscar Wilde's stories!

Rating: 3/5 ........ 32 pages, 2004

Coraline

by Neil Gaiman
adapted by P. Craig Russell

Coraline is a spooky little fantasy story about a girl who moves into a big old house with her parents, in the middle of a rambling garden. Bored, she starts exploring her flat, meeting two old ladies and an eccentric man who live in the basement and attic flats, respectively. Then she finds a door that leads into an alternate universe, where she has an alternate set of parents. This other-mother treats her kindly, cooks her favorite foods, but she is also controlling, sadistic, and has frightful buttons instead of real eyes. As Coraline explores this new world, she starts to learn some unsettling truths about the other-mother's true intentions. She not only has to trick the other-mother into letting her go, but also free several child-spirits the other-mother has trapped, and find her parents which have gone missing. The other-mother proves to be terribly clever and difficult to thwart, but Coraline has the help of a nameless black cat who moves freely between this world and the real one.

In this case, I saw the film adaptation but haven't read the original book. I really enjoyed reading this version. At first glance I thought the faces, drawn in a realistic style, looked too stiff, but up close they're actually very animated. The other-mother's face was decidedly creepy. I was surprised to see how many differences there were between the movie version and this. For one, there's no little boy to be Coraline's friend (but I think that's where the movie deviates from the book by itself). The garden played a far less important part, which disappointed me a little- I was looking forward to some fantastic illustrations of plants! Also I don't recall the part where Coraline goes into the cellar, nor the final bit where she must get rid of the other-mother's hand. I may have just forgotten some things, though. There were other scenes that were new to me, which I liked, and some that weren't very long, like the burlesque show, I recall being move developed in the movie.

I loved the cat. His expressions, demeanor and the way he was drawn were just perfect.

Rating: 4/5                            186 pages, 2008

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Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde

The Young King and the Remarkable Rocket
by Oscar Wilde
illustrated by P. Craig Russell

This one was a bit better, for me. Wilde's fairy tales continue to sit a bit ill, but are nevertheless some compelling reading. Of course, the awesome illustrations draw me in as well. This volume (no. 2) contains two stories. "The Young King"  is about a boy king enthralled with beauty- jewels, rich cloth, all sorts of lovely and costly objects. I thought it was going to be a story about greed but instead it turned a different corner. The boy king begins to learn how poor people have suffered and things been destroyed in order to make such riches available to him, and he then cannot bear to wear the robes or jewels. So he goes to his coronation dressed in sheepskin, holding a wooden stick for a scepter, with a crown made of thorns on his head. The court and common people alike are all shocked to see their king dressed so lowly- some in fact don't recognize him- and they mock him but he is surrounded by glory. This story again had a very obvious reference to Jesus but I didn't mind this time. Probably because it was introduced early in the story and built up gradually, instead of being thrown in suddenly at the end, like I felt with the earlier one.

"The Remarkable Rocket" is about a bunch of fireworks being prepared for the celebration of a royal wedding. The rockets are talking amongst themselves and the biggest one of all is haughty and full of himself. He thinks the fanfare is all about him, and he sounds very ridiculous in his bragging and melodrama but in the end no one pays him any attention at all, he doesn't even become part of the intended display. I rather liked this one, too. It was amusing and had a very good point. So maybe I will find more of this series, after all...

Rating: 3/5 ........ 48 pages, 1994

Jungle Book Stories

by Rudyard Kipling adapted by P. Craig Russell

I've always been fond of the Jungle Book stories, perhaps the second volume even more than the first, as there's more variety to the tales (not all about Mowgli) and they're not as well-known. This richly illustrated graphic novel includes three of the later stories.

"The King's Ankus" relates how Mowgli is shown a treasure in a ruin beneath the jungle, guarded by a white cobra. Mowgli is puzzled at why men value the jewels and riches, he doesn't understand the worth of something you can't eat. He's intrigued by the design of an instrument used to prod elephants and wants to carry it away into the light but the cobra warns him that it will bring death to many. Mowgli doesn't believe this, but when he later tosses aside the ankus, he discovers that indeed, men will kill each other in order to possess it (there are jewels in the handle). He and Bagheera follow the trail of six men who die over the ankus, then they recover it and return it to the treasure cave, disgusted with the waste of human life.

In "Red Dog", rumor of a large dhole pack coming into the area makes all the animals anxious. Mowgli is advised to leave the area until the dhole are done hunting there, but instead he comes up with a scheme to outwit them in battle with the help of Kaa the python. First he taunts the dogs into a fury, then he leads them through swarms of bees, over a cliff into a tumultuous river, and finally the survivors are met by the wolf pack who engage them in bloody battle.

The last story, "The Spring Running" shows Mowgli feeling out of sorts. All the animals in the forest are infected with spring fever and seeking mates. Mowgli doesn't know what to do with himself or why he feels unsettled. He visits his mother, returns to the jungle again, then finally takes his leave of his animal friends, deciding to go back to mankind.

I remembered all these stories from when I read the books long ago, although I had forgotten many details. It was nice to revisit them in a format completely new to me.

rating: 3/5 ........ 88 pages, 2003

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The Dream Hunters

The Sandman

by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell

Set in ancient Japan, this is the story of a shape-shifter fox and a young monk who fall in love. The fox at first has a bet with a badger to see who can drive the monk from his temple and take it for their own home. They both fail, but during the process the fox (after taking the form of a woman) unexpectedly falls in love with the monk. She overhears some demons in the forest plotting to take the monk's life, and has to use all her fox wits to save him if she can. It was such a wonderful, intriguing story. Each turn of the plot had me sitting up all alert and fascinated again. The artwork is superb (there must be a few versions of this novella, because I found the same book with different artists as you see in links below).

I am not familiar with the Sandman universe at all, so I wasn't sure until I looked it up how this one fit into the rest of the series. Turns out it's kind of a stand-alone story, published after the main Sandman series was finished. I enjoyed it a lot. The character of Sandman has a small appearance here, when the monk visits dreamland, and I was intrigued to find there was also a master dream-fox that the fox-woman visited for counsel. I also found curious the idea that dreamland was somehow equated with the land of death.... I'm eager now to read all the Sandman graphic novels in order, at least as far as my library has them (sometimes I woefully discover they only have part of a series, or are missing a few books in the middle... )

Rating: 4/5 ........144 pages, 2011

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