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Tag: brazilian books
Searching for the lost tales: the meaning of the female functions in Perrault’s fairy tales, from Mariza B. T. Mendes
Hi, there! Live long and prosper, scheduled blog, haha! Hope you people are hanging in there on this Tuesday 🙂 I can’t wait for Friday to be here, as I’ll be defending my ~famous~ dissertation, haha! But enough gibber jabber, let’s go to today’s book review: Searching for the lost tales: the meaning of the female functions in Perrault’s fairy tales, from Mariza B. T. Mendes! This book actually is a Brazilian book, I took the liberty of translating its original title for the sake of all my readers 🙂 Original title: “Em busca dos contos perdidos: o significado das funções femininas nos contos de Perrault”.
This book is an academic one, a doctorate dissertation to be more exact, so I’ll tell a bit about the author’s theory and then I’ll do my analysis, instead of telling a story – there is no story to tell, haha!
The Book’s Theory
Mendes sears several academic theories involving Charles Perrault’s fairy tales birth, as she wanted to understand why the book made such a fuss at time and survived through generations as it did. Mendes also wanted to understand which was the social function behind the leadership of women as main characters of Perrault and how did those tales fared when they came to Brazil. The author also talks about the mystery of the paternity of the book, as Charles Perrault never said or documented the books as his creation and his son, Pierre, besides having wrote the preface of the original edition, also had the print rights for the book.
The Analysis
Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion while reading the book 🙂
THIS BOOK WAS SO AMAZING, OMG I NEED MORE, PLEASE, WRITE MORE ABOUT IT, DEAR MENDES!!! *—* Honestly, it was such an educative and fun read! Mendes language is more technic, than a regular book, but I’m in love with fairy tales since I’m a toddler and I love to study everything that I can. Meaning: I needed to learn which were the female functions inside of Perrault’s tale in the moment I saw this book! I got this copy at my college library and now I want my own copy for hugging ends and all 😉
Let’s get serious now. Mendes theory is well tied to previous ones about fairy tales in general, like Propp’s, Jung’s, Bettelheim’s, Soriano’s and many others and she answers all her proposed questions from the beginning of the book during the narrative. It may sound a little stupid to say that, but it is very usual to see dissertations that doesn’t or aren’t able to answer their own questions, so it was very awesome of her to manage that, haha!
Mendes tells us about the origins of the fairy tales and popular tales in general, about the fairies and magical women present on those tales and how they represent the old pagan goodness from matriarchal society, from ancient times (yeah, fairy tales are that old).
Then, she does a brief biography of who was Charles Perrault and why on earth he decided to collect and publish popular tales into a book, being a “noble bourgeois” and all. His history is no different than thousands of other bourgeois trying to elevate their social status on King Louis XIV’s France, so it is curious that Perrault had this initiative and Mendes explains us all about it 🙂
The next part is all about the fairy-tales’ book paternity, as explained, and the conclusion of all authors, including Mendes herself, is that both father and son wrote it together: Pierre collected and compiled the tales and Charles edited them and wrote their moral in verses.
After enlightening all points of the life and career of Charles Perrault and his son, Mendes starts to analyze the structure of The Tales of Mother Goose, explaining why they got so popular and immortal. The key always seems to be simplicity, haha! My favorite part is inside this analysis, as she raises a very curious question: if the lead characters of Perrault’s tales are mostly women, was Perrault a kind of feminist of his time?
I’m afraid that the answer is no, as all those tales have an edifying purpose. Women were the main characters because they needed more example on how to behave according to what society awaited from them on their social roles: they had to be kind, pure, innocent, submissive, beautiful, and permissive, and always have faith. The marriage should be the solution to all their problems and they should be punished if they didn’t obey their husbands. Family, union, was everything and Perrault found that out three centuries before we did (Mendes words translated and adapted, haha!).
I know what you may be thinking: OMG, THE HORROR, FAIRY TALES ARE A DEMON THING, WE WOMEN MUST GO FREE, BLA BLA BLA BLA.
I see this point differently. At that time, on the 17th century, fairy-tales were used to this end because the dominant class wished so. The stories survived, but their “real” morals are gone. Perrault’s (and Grimm’s, for that matter) tales won’t trap women into any kind of fate in the occidental world if they don’t want them to. Society has changed, women have changed.
We have two ways of looking at this: a) we all burn our dear childhood books and start Third World War officially; or b) we accept the old purpose of this stories as a part of their past and enjoy them now as just fantastical tales in wonderful worlds that inspired the best Disney movies ever.
Sorry for major reflection, haha! But I really think that everything is ever changing in the world, as did the fairy tales. It’s not fair to condemn them for the acts of their father 🙂
Overall, this book was a blast for me and can’t wait to have my own copy of it to hug ❤
That’s it! Thanks for reading and sorry if I said something offensive! Not my intention at all 🙂 What are your thoughts on fairy tales?
October’s Wrap Up and Book Haul!
Hello, there! Today we are going to navigate among my bought and read books of October! Yay!
I was a very good girl this month and read a total of 12 books; 10 books and 2 comics. I told you in my September’s wrap up that October was my month, haha! I also received some new books in exchange for honest reviews, but all in due time!
In shopping matters, October was practically non-existent – honestly, I didn’t even got out to the bookstore, you know? And I’m not making online shopping lately, as I don’t have the time either, haha! I bought 2 mangas, 5 comic books, 1 coloring book (call me obsessed) and one sticker album, because I’m a child, haha!
Books that I’ve read
- Secrets and High Spirits (Secrets #4), by Lou Harper (review here!)
- What Lies Within, by James Morris (review here!)
- The Bound Series, by Ava March (review here!)
Brazilian books meant to be featured on my dissertation
(meaning: I won’t review them, haha!)
- O Calçado e a Moda no Brasil: um Olhar Histórico, by Eduardo Motta
- Passado a limpo, by Eduardo Bueno
- Salões e Damas do Segundo Reinado, by Wanderley Pinho
- História da Vida Privada no Brasil: A Corte e a Modernidade Nacional, by Fernando A. Novais and Laura M. Souza
- História da Vida Privada no Brasil: Da Belle Epoque à Era do Rádio, by Fernando A. Novais
- A Televisão no Brasil: 50 anos de história (1950-2000), by Sérgio Mattos
- A Revista no Brasil do Século XIX: A história da formação das publicações, do leitor e da identidade do brasileiro, by Carlos Costa
Comic books
I managed to not read a single manga this month, which is impressive for my standards, and I already wrote two of three reviews expected to October. Go, me! ❤ The first Bound Series’ review will be up until Friday, Nov. 6th, with luck.
As for the books that I’ve received
- Finding Forever, by Linda Oaks (review here!)
- Melophobia, by James Morris
I already reviewed a book from Linda, Chasing Rainbows (link here), and a book by James, What Lies Within. Thanks so much for the trust, guys! Just wait my vacation, haha!
My currently readings are The Night Clock, by Paul Meloy, which I received through NetGalley (thank you!) and Finding Forever, because its release was on Oct. 29th. I’m positive that FF review will be up on the blog on Nov. 8th and The Night Clock, on Nov. 5th. But let’s see, right? Hahaha!
I also would like to start a countdown here. I deliver my dissertation on Nov. 10th, which means that this will be seven days from this post. CHEERS FOR FREEDOM!
Ahem, that’s it! Thanks for reading and Happy November!
I’m still alive! (or I have already been replaced by a robot and no one noticed)
Hi, guys! I know it’s been an awful lot of time since my last post and I apologize dearly – the end is closer than you can imagine, haha!
As I deliver my dissertation to college on November 10th, I thought it would be nice to share what I’ve been doing during this time and what I learned from this experience 🙂
- I cried. A lot. No dissertation is ever made without hypotetical suffering and that’s the worse kind of suffering: the what ifs, where can I get this info, why making scientifical references has to be so hard, why my college hates me, why can’t my friends leave me alone in my cherished misery? (funny thing is you don’t really want attention or consolation or sympathy: you just want to be done, haha!)
- I started to realize how deeper I’m thinking about routine things. Like my beloved Disney movies. We were watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame and I was very happy, saying to my mom that Freud was right, that the Church Institution held back Frollo when he was about to throw baby Quasimodo in the well and the movie would have ended there without it and my mom was like: “please. Just shut up and watch it. PLEASE”. Yup, and they thought I did nothing at college during those four years.
- I am more passionate about fashion than ever: I studied it so hard and there’s so much more left, unfortunatelly irrelevant to my dissertation… I never want to stop!
- I learned to appreciate scientific papers, something I really hated until this year.
- I could get to see who were my real friends. The ones that helped me when I needed to research something, to chill out or just respected my need of a me time in the middle of this chaos. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, I hope I can be with you guys Till The World Ends (SPEARS, Britney, 2011).
For now, that’s enought self-pity. There’s more in the oven, as november 10th is not tomorrow, haha! Now, bookish news!
I have read A GREAT DEAL this month, but unless you guys have an interest in fashion or Brazilian historical books, I won’t be publishing any reviews about them. For the reviews that I actually own: I’m counting The Bond Series, by Ava March, The Heir, some comic books one, Secrets and High Spirits, by Lou Harper, and What Lies Within from James Morris, both that I finished yesterday. On personal readings, October was a mess, as I had an almost full month long slumb thanks to my dissertation, that drained me out (it was worth it, thought. The shit is ready weeks earlier mwahaha mwahaha *evil laugh*).
I won’t spoiler my october wrap up, but I do have good news: I planned myself to join Linda Oaks’ release blitz of Finding Forever! Btw, here is the amazing cover:
The story follows Addie’s friend Kara and her magic boy, after Chasing Rainbows’ happenings. You can check Chasing Rainbows’ review here and see the book trailer for Finding Forever here:
I believe that I also own a lot of tags (thanks for keep tagging me, I love those!) and I’ll make a decent schedule for them as soon as I’m out of my nightmare ❤ IT IS ENDING, GOD IS MERCIFUL!
For now, that’s it. I missed wrtting! ❤ Thanks for reading, you’re awesome!
The Book Adventures of Annelise Lestrange 