neil gaiman's the sleeper and the spindle

Snow White's story so far has given her knight–like valour: thanks to her stepmother, she knows evil in another woman's eyes when she sees it having spent a year in a glass coffin, she is willing to brave the land of sleep because of the poisoned apple, she can recognise the smell of magic and when it comes to travelling companions, it matters that she has an affinity with dwarves.Īngelina Jolie in Disney's modern fairy tale MaleficentĪfter the war, radical German writers objected, for obvious historical reasons, to the conservative groundwork they felt had been laid by the Grimms. The brilliance of Gaiman's story – which is spellbindingly illustrated by Chris Riddell – lies in the elements he has chosen for his mash–up.Įssentially, aspects of Sleeping Beauty are distorted by aspects of Snow White, but while classical fairy tale characters are stock figures (the princess, the hunter, the stepmother, the beast), Gaiman's protagonists are the products of their pasts.

'I don't have a lot of patience for stories in which women are rescued by men.' And so, in his slim, gilded, wicked book, a beautiful young queen calls off her own wedding and sets out to save a neighbouring kingdom from its plague of sleep. 'You don't need princes to save you,' says Neil Gaiman, speaking about his new fairy tale, The Sleeper and the Spindle.

Neil gaiman's the sleeper and the spindle