my becoming-a-genius project, part 7!

if you are still there, and therefore presumably have not seen projects 1 through 6, here's the sitch:
i have decided to become a genius.

to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.

i'm mixing it up this time mostly because i ran out of short story collections and am trying to get even somewhat better about buying books. this was one of my very favorite books when i was a kid and i've been meaning to reread it for ages, so boom. two birds, meet one stone.

it's also got 37 fairytales in it, so i am going to have to double up just so i don't cause death by pure irritation to both myself and my loved ones (meaning you all).

PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
PROJECT 5: HOW LONG 'TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH? BY N.K. JEMISIN
PROJECT 6: THE SHORT STORIES OF OSCAR WILDE BY OSCAR WILDE
PROJECT 7: THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK BY ANDREW LANG

DAY 1, PART 1: THE BRONZE RING
i truly do not own a book more bedraggled than this one. it looks like it went through the laundry, was crumpled up into a wet ball, and then was ironed out in a panini press before it ever reached my hands.
anyway, this is classic stuff: a princess in love with a commoner, a quest, a bronze ring that grants every wish so the wisher immediately uses it on a boat captained by Santa. the usual.
rating: 3.5

DAY 1, PART 2: PRINCE HYACINTH AND THE DEAR LITTLE PRINCESS
the ~moral~ of this one is supposed to be that self-love prevents you from loving others, because Hyacinth had a huge nose and was always told that was hot as hell and was cursed not to be happy until he realized it wasn't, but i think a better moral is that beauty standards are stupid.
rating: 3

DAY 2, PART 1: EAST OF THE SUN & WEST OF THE MOON
i remember this being my favorite, but that might be exclusively because of the ICONIC retelling by edith pattou. (someone remind me to reread that.)
this is a rad story and also the girl is the hero (AND the girl is just some rando, not a princess or anything, so double cool), but there's an inexplicable Christian thing going on here that really threatened to suck the fun out of everything. feeling: #blessed to live in the 21st century.
rating: 3.5

DAY 2, PART 2: THE YELLOW DWARF
this is another one that i vaguely remember, mostly because i became the kind of f*cked up kid to whom "playing Barbies" means "the action figures are kidnapping the Barbies again, and the creepy middle-aged-woman doll i got in a Happy Meal once is orchestrating the whole thing." pretty sure reading stories like this one instead of sticking to Disney versions turned me into the monster you see today.
anyway. this is a story of two beautiful dummies who keep being surprised that the world doesn't revolve around them, and then they die at the end. fun conclusion, not the best reading experience.
rating: 3

DAY 3, PART 1: LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD
i think we can all agree that this is one of the most overrated fairytales of all time. which is a bummer, because normally the idea of a grandmother-eating wolf vs a little girl is very compelling.
mercifully, this version was 3 pages long and one page was an illustration. all that happens is girl meets wolf, wolf eats girl. it's a blessing.
rating: 3.5

DAY 3, PART 2: THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD
looks like we've reached the Classic Fairytales Pre-Disneyfication section. picture those animated princesses with disproportionately large eyes, only this time with 300% more violence!
this is way, way better than the modern version. it doesn't end with sleeping beauty waking up, or whatever (i haven't seen the movie in like 15 years), so we get this amazing line: "They had but very little sleep - the Princess had no occasion." i am obviously taking that as confirmation that every prince and princess spends their wedding night with a one-way train to poundtown.
also excellent is that more than half of this story is about how the prince's mom is an ogre and wants to eat his kids. where did all of that go, Disney?
rating: 3.75

DAY 4, PART 1: CINDERELLA OR THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER
the Classic Fairytales Pre-Disneyfication section continues now! (i hope you read that in the voice of the Disney Channel narrator guy, because that's sure how i intended it.)
this is exactly the same as the Disney version, however - no blood or murder or monsters or ANYTHING - and therefore it is a snooze and i hate it utterly.
rating: 2

DAY 4, PART 2: ALADDIN AND THE WONDERFUL LAMP
i hope you didn't think we were done with our beloved Classic Fairytales Pre-Disneyfication section...because darling, we are not.
this one is a little more dramatic, but there's no robin williams to be found and also aladdin never frees either genie. he has two and he leaves them both enslaved. pretty messed up if you ask me.
rating: 3

DAY 5, PART 1: THE TALE OF A YOUTH WHO SET OUT TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS
another goddamn jewel in the lineup. a guy who is too stupid to understand what being scared is, so he pushes a "ghost" down a flight of stairs, gets mad because a group of corpses thinks they're too cool to talk to him, has a sleepover with some ghouls and cats (?) in a haunted house, and ultimately marries a princess for being brave as hell. good stuff.
rating: 4.25

DAY 6, PART 2: RUMPELSTILTZKIN
have never seen this spelling before but go off i guess.
i've always liked this fairytale in all versions (see above: i was a creepy kid). this one is kinda lame because it's truly 2 pages long, but still amazing because of the sheer hilarity of someone pulling off the perfect crime but being unable to not sing about it.
rating: 4

DAY 7, PART 1: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
back at it again with the pre-Disney!
this is very funny to me: "The first [room] she entered was lined with mirrors, and Beauty saw herself reflected on every side, and thought she had never seen such a charming room." looks like SOMEONE'S not a perfect boring kind humble princess figure like we thought. this would be more fun if beauty had some pizzazz.
this is actually a good story imo, whether it's Disney-fied or not, and this version includes siblings and a cooler palace so it's a win for me.
rating: 4

DAY 7, PART 2: THE MASTER-MAID
people in olden times really did love a good hyphen.
this story is very realistic, because it includes a rich man's son who is truly good for nothing except being hot and a woman who is both hot and smart and has to do literally everything for him. and i call upon you all to find me a straight couple that does not fit those parameters.
also amazing is that anytime a man has the audacity to fall in love with this woman, she comes up with the most crazy insane-o torture methods you have ever heard in your life and compels them to do them to themselves.
in conclusion, the master-maid is both my girlfriend and my role model, and any story that ends with a witchy person being torn into pieces for almost no reason is a good one in my book.
rating: 4.5

DAY 8, PART 1: WHY THE SEA IS SALT
i missed a day yesterday due to the fact that i was trying to get high but weed only makes me hungry. every once in a while i love to remind everyone on this site that i am a human person made up of a series of vices, like kids standing on each other's shoulders in a trench coat.
anyway today is day 9 but i'll be playing catch up.
not a big fan of this story, which is mostly about undeserving boring people getting rich.
rating: 2.5

DAY 8, PART 2: THE MASTER CAT, OR, PUSS IN BOOTS
imagine going from being called "the master cat" to "puss in boots." couldn't be me.
also: "there was a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat."
enough said.
rating: 3

DAY 9, PART 1: FELICIA AND THE POT OF PINKS
hard to imagine a less creative name for a pink flower than "pink." there is a talking cabbage in this, though, so we regained those creativity points pretty quick.
felicia does marry her cousin, so we can't win them all.
rating: 3.5

DAY 9, PART 2: THE WHITE CAT
fairytales are heavy into cats, no?
at the beginning of this, three princes are told to find the prettiest dog they can, and one of them can't decide and thus acquires 30 to 40 thousand dogs, which i find very relatable as a dog person myself.
same dude falls in love with a literal cat, though, so relatability ends there.
rating: 3.5

DAY 10, PART 1: THE WATER-LILY. THE GOLD-SPINNERS
i have to say, as an eldest sibling, the overrepresentation of youngest siblings in fairytales is personally hurtful to me. an eldest sibling would never flee a bad situation and leave her sisters enslaved in a hut. that's youngest sh*t.
however, once again, very good stuff to have a prince smear himself with mud and say he wants to become a crab.
rating: 3.5

DAY 10, PART 2: THE TERRIBLE HEAD
.......that's what she said.
this is a good lesson about the dangers of misogyny. (wishing you had a son sucks, because sons are bad and will kill you.)
anyway this is just the story of perseus with the names taken out.
rating: 3.5

DAY 11, PART 1: THE STORY OF PRETTY GOLDILOCKS
i kept waiting for the three bears to show up and they never did.
rating: 3.5

DAY 11, PART 2: THE HISTORY OF WHITTINGTON
off the bat this sounds boring as hell.
true to its name, it was. i'm trying to read fairytales, not charles dickens for kids.
rating: 2

DAY 12, PART 1: THE WONDERFUL SHEEP
if you've noticed my mini-reviews getting shorter, it's because i'm somehow already coming in hot against the character limit.
some things to note about this:
1) the king totally wants to f*ck his daughter
2) countless people and animals are willing to die for the most boring b*tch alive
3) this includes a sheep "smiling sheepishly," the greatest line ever written.
rating: 2.5

DAY 12, PART 2: LITTLE THUMB
the movie adaptation of Thumbelina where she gets kidnapped by that toad also contributed to my childhood barbies-getting-kidnapped habit. so.
anyway naming your kid "Little Thumb" is f*cked up no matter his size.
there are no toads in this version at all.
rating: 2.5

DAY 13, PART 1: THE FORTY THIEVES
my genius projects and depression sabbaticals really go together like peaches and cream. (i think it's day 17.) shall we run through 8 stories?
once again, the real hero of this story is one smart woman in a cast of dumb men.
rating: 3.5

DAY 13, PART 2: HANSEL AND GRETTEL
has gretel ever been spelled that way???
i wonder why this is the single fairytale that remains as creepy today as originally. witch in a candy house who eats kids? timelessly spooky.
rating: 3.5

DAY 14, PART 1: SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED
another falling-in-love-with-a-bear situation, except in this one the bear's a whole man who refers to himself as the "lover" of two children. aged like a fine wine.
rating: 3

DAY 14, PART 2: THE GOOSE-GIRL
in this story, a maid switches places with a princess and the princess complains all the time because being a maid sucks. and then the maid is gruesomely murdered when she's found out.
needless to say i think this is a moral about the lack of meritocracy in capitalism and i am firmly #TeamMaid.
rating: 3

DAY 15, PART 1: TOADS AND DIAMONDS
the elder sister in this is described as a "proud, saucy slut," a "pert hussey," and a "miserable wretch." same.
to be honest, it seems like a curse to me to have ANY material object come out of your mouth for every word you speak. whether it's a toad or a diamond.
rating: 3.5

DAY 15, PART 2: PRINCE DARLING
our darling prince is cursed to have "a lion's head, a bull's horns, a wolf's feet, and a snake's body." picture that. wow.
rating: 4

DAY 16, PART 1: BLUE BEARD
this is a story about how if you are dating someone and they tell you what to do you should absolutely not listen.
rating: 3.5

DAY 16, PART 2: TRUSTY JOHN
okay but like...anyone who gets a wife by kidnapping her and rewards a servant's fidelity by killing their own children is actually NOT a good dude.
rating: 3

DAY 17, PART 1: THE BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR
more like toaster, am i right??
rating: 3

DAY 17, PART 2: A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT
skipping this one because it's just Gulliver's Travels and therefore not a fairytale my dear boy.

DAY 18, PART 1: THE PRINCESS ON THE GLASS HILL
what if your name was "cinderlad"?
just something to think about.
rating: 2.5

DAY 18, PART 2: THE STORY OR PRINCE AHMED AND THE FAIRY PARIBANOU
this story is THIRTY. PAGES. LONG. and somehow that long-ass title isn't even 1 of them.
all that, and i really couldn't tell you what made it different from the 5-pagers.
rating: 3

DAY 19, PART 1: THE HISTORY OF JACK THE GIANT-KILLER
much more badass title than "jack and the beanstalk." which i guess make sense because there's no beanstalk in this. just a kid who's really into killing giants.
rating: 2.5

DAY 19, PART 2: THE BLACK BULL OF NORWAY
this one is inexplicably written in a different dialect than any other one. the kind of english where it looks like you're just making up how to spell words. definitely impacted my enjoyment.
rating: 2

DAY 19, PART 3: THE RED ETIN
going to finish this out today! aaaand i just hit the word count so time to trim.
this is in the same style as the last one (which i have realized is Old-Timey Scottish), so a soft no from me.
rating: 2.5

OVERALL
i will always have a soft spot in my heart for this book, but it is truly not as good as i remember it being. and also is all over the place.
but still. nostalgia is a powerful thing.
rating: 3.5