I haven’t blogged properly in ages, I do apologise. Blame the combination of working in retail at Christmas time. But, what better way to start the new year with a new story! I’m always on the look out for stories with fairytale-esque themes and this definitely floats that particular boat.
So, a quick run down of the plot: This is a story that reads like it could be for children, but will scare adults more. A little girl is sold to a sinister man called the Doll-Maker. In exchange for the promise of being reunited with her parents who are dead, the little girl agrees to steal skulls for the Doll-Maker. There are monsters, magic, evil, friendship, and innocence all wrapped up in this story, which is what immediately made me think ‘the Grimm brother’s would have loved this’ when I read it.
There’s something rather fascinating about the lack of names, too. The little girl, the Doll-Maker, the Violinist… Only the periphery characters are given names, which almost turns the convention of naming your main characters on its head. I cannot count the amount of conversations I’ve had with people that centre around this statement: ‘He/She suits their name, don’t they – can you imagine them being called something else? Weird, right?’ It’s a bold move, denying the reader of a name. It means more words on a page each time the character is mentioned, and more distance between character and reader… But it works with fairytales. And it works here.
I think, ultimately, what it comes down to is that this ‘distance’ works when the story in question has an edge of darkness to it. Creepy works best when the reader can’t guess exactly what is going to happen, and I had no idea where this story would conclude or how it would do so (and satisfyingly at that.)
Fairytale Corner 