Weekly Reader: Tales From The Hinterland (The Hazel Wood) by Melissa Albert; Delightful Blend of Horror and Fairy Tale Is The Best Anthology of 2021 So Far
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: Somewhere on the corner of Horror Ave. and Fairy Tale St. lies Melissa Albert's Tales From The Hinterland. This is an anthology that is filled with many modern and very fractured fairy tales. However, and I cannot stress this enough, these are not Disney style stories for the kids. These fairy tales are creepy and sinister with plenty of blood and scares. These are more like fairy tales in the way that they were originally told and subsequently written by The Brothers Grimm. Yes, they are scary but also enchanting and mesmerizing. It is hard to put this anthology down once it is started.
The best stories are:
"The Door That Wasn't There"
This story begins the creepy factor already. It starts with the common trope of the deceased mother/loving sisters/wicked stepmother combined with the concept of the forbidden doorways that you are not supposed to go through.
Once Anya, the elder of two sisters, opens the forbidden door it involves a great and terrifying sacrifice. This sacrifice makes you wonder whether the flat good lead in most fairy tales may not be as good as she appears. Anya's trip through the doorway is enchanting but like most magic deals contains a price. It's just the cost of the price that is rather chilling particularly the lengths that Anya goes to achieve it.
"The Clockwork Bride"
You ever seen one of those old fashioned toy stores in movies with porcelain dolls and clockwork toys and thought it would be neat to go through the store or buy one? Well this story suggests that watch out. You may not get out of that store ever again, at least not without someone buying you.
A mysterious toymaker comes to town with an impressive array of clockwork toys. Brother and sister, Eleanor and Thomas see the toys up close. When they return, Eleanor wishes that she could escape from her boring impoverished humdrum life and enter the toy's world. Forgetting what type of anthology that she lives in, Eleanor follows a hare that looks like one she saw at the display. Thomas follows her and they see toy soldiers and ballerinas grown to life size. Unfortunately, the clockwork world is too mesmerizing and they realize too late that they can't get out. Even long after Eleanor grows and has a child, the Toymaker calls to her.
There is an almost uncanny valley feel about this story featuring toys that look real but aren't and children that were real but now are not. It's the type of setting that even Chucky would stay away from.
"The Skinned Maiden"
One of Albert's best traits is to take a familiar story and give a creepy original spin towards it. This one is a variation of the Animal Bride story. The usual version sees a beautiful woman out at night next to feathers or an animal skin. A man watched her and falls in love. He confiscates the skin or feathers until she agrees to marry him. She does and he hides the original form from her. Years later, one of their children tells the woman that they found out where the skin or feathers were. The woman goes to find it and leaves the house never to return, sometimes taking the children with her.
The variation found in "The Skinned Maiden" is not so melancholy or pleasant. Instead of going quietly into that good night and returning to her animal form, The Maiden instead starts sounding more like the Ghost Woman in "The Golden Arm" Story ("Who has my golden arm??"). She threatens her husband becoming more monstrous. Then in the end, she takes on a very fearsome nightmarish appearance forcing her husband to admit his theft of her skin and forcing of their marriage before she completely destroys him.
"Alice Three Times"
This story is similar to the changeling tales in which a child is born with some unusual powers or traits. Usually, those traits either allow the magical child save a kingdom and fall in love or become destructive for the child, parents, or future spouse. In this version, it's the latter.
A princess is born as a result of an affair between the queen and one of her courtiers. She is a very strange child with very hollow black eyes and the ability to speak at two months old. The queen decides to give her the very "unroyal" name of Alice. (I guess no one told her that one of Queen Victoria's daughters was named Alice. Oh well, as past experience has told us, any fantasy with a protagonist named Alice is going to lead to a bizarre otherworldly time.)
As Alice grows rather quickly, she frightens people with her eerie stare, precocious intelligence, and physical abuse towards her siblings. The queen wants to send her daughter into exile, but the king is starting to have extremely improper Woody Allen-esque thoughts towards his stepdaughter.
This story appeals to Albert's strengths of writing interesting female characters in this fantasy anthology. The story becomes a one on one battle between mother and daughter. Alice has her strange uncanny powers and the Queen has her cunning and influence. The two are memorable as they vie against each other pitting their family and potential suitors as arsenal against the other.
"The House Under The Stairwell"
If there was a story that carried the adage "Be Careful What You Wish For" this would be it. Isobel, the eldest of three sisters has a broken engagement so she does what any heartbroken young woman would do: she and her sisters prick their fingers and let the blood spill on the briar overgrowing the grave of a woman called The Wicked Wife.They will then dream of the man that they will marry.
The younger sisters dream of conventional husbands while Isobel's is less than conventional. She dreams of a masquerade ball in which a man approaches her in a fox costume. Each night she dreams of the strange dance under the stairwell and her Fox Suitor. She is also haunted by a ghost woman whom Isobel believes to be the Wicked Wife. She at first thinks that it's just a reoccurring dream but she becomes nervous when her sisters become courted by men who look just like the ones in their dreams.
This is one of the best stories in the anthology. The Fairy World underneath the stairwell is the right combination of enchanting and terrifying. Instead of being the beautiful other world found in modern fantasy films like Lord of the Rings, it hearkens back to the old Celtic and Teutonic folk tales where the Fair Folk can be seductive and deadly.
There is also a strong theme of collaboration between women that runs contrary to many of the other stories like "Alice Three Times" and in some respects "The Door That Wasn't There." The strongest characterization is between Isobel and The Wicked Wife. The Wicked Wife reveals that she has been maligned with a bad reputation over the years and she wants to save the younger Isobel from making the same mistake that she did and has had to live with for eternity.
"The Mother and The Dagger"
This story reveals how a monster is made. It begins in an almost poetic opening delivered in second person which invites the Reader to listen through an open window and follow a bewitching voice calling them to a cabin decorated with bones. Of course in true dark fantasy horror tradition, that voice is the last thing that they will ever hear.
Albert then backtracks to tell us the story of a queen who longed for a child and made a deal with a sinister witch. The queen gets her child but all ends up not going well and the queen slowly morphs into the Mother, the creature spoken of in the opening of the story.
There is almost a melancholy towards The Mother as she is driven by sadness and longing. Her murderous impulses seem to spiral out of control as she wants to hold onto what she can never really have: a child to remain with her.
"Death and The Wood Wife"
Many of the stories in this anthology like "Ilsa Waits" and "Twice Killed Katherine" deal with encounters between the protagonist and Death. Usually, the encounter requires action, fighting Death. This story requires the protagonist to outsmart Death.
A princess is the youngest of eight children. All of her siblings died before she was born and her mother died in childbirth. The princess is very wealthy but very peculiar looking with skin the color of green leaves. When she grows, she has many suitors. One of her suitors speaks in riddles and is implied to be the Son of Death. Death's Son is ready to claim his bride. The princess turns him down and marries a woodcutter. When the woodcutter dies as well, The Princess is ready to take on Death and Son.
The Princess's confrontation with the Death family is not one of strength but one of cleverness. She denies that she was the woman that the Son attempted to court saying that she is simply a "wood wife" and nothing more. She uses verbal clues and riddles to ascertain the Son's motives against his father. She is able to use her wits to save herself, her husband, and escape Death's kingdom.
There are many great and terrifying stories in Tales From The Hinterland that mix horror and dark fantasy with the classic fairy tale genre. This odd combination of cross genres make this the best anthology, if not the best fantasy novels this year so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment