Last week I read a retelling of Beauty and the Beast
by Donna Jo Napoli. The interesting thing about her version is that she tells the story from the point of view of the Beast, which can be a very interesting reversal of perspectives (for example, Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples,
a creepy reversal of Snow White
). Unfortunately, I think my verdict in this case is somewhat like what I said about Mary Stewart's Merlin cycle: it demystifies the Beast too much.
One of my favorite authors, Robin McKinley, wrote a lovely retelling of this story called Beauty. I love the whole book, but I especially love the ending, for two reasons. First of all (and this has nothing to do with Napoli's version, but I wanted to say this anyway), unlike any other version that I have read or otherwise consumed, Beauty is (realistically, I think) shocked, confused, and appalled when her beloved Beast disappears and is replaced by a divinely beautiful human male. Where's my Beast?
she cries, and the transformed Beast has to convince her that it is he. Then (this is the second thing I like), Beauty asks him what his name was, and he says that it was so long since he was transformed, he can't remember any more, and that she will have to name him. The namelessness, to me, is part of the mystery of the Beast and of his transformation, not just physically but psychologically and emotionally.
Napoli takes Charles Lamb's version of the story, in which the Beast is a Persian prince named Orasmyn. She goes to some lengths to make the story historically accurate,
using Farsi and Arabic words and stressing Orasmyn's Persian cultural outlook. On the other hand, she expects the reader to believe that Orasmyn simply finds an empty French castle with a fully-stocked larder. (Either it's a fairy tale or it's not. Make up your mind.)
In my opinion, the most important aspect of the book is the characterization of Orasmyn; it is unfortunate that this, too, is patchy. Napoli makes a valiant effort, but somehow Orasmyn's personality, especially his inner conflict about reconciling his human and lion natures, fails to hang together cohesively. That is my overarching criticism. It's fine for a fairy tale to be realistic or fantastic, with flat or round characters, from whatever perspective, but whatever it does, it should do it uniformly.
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