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Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: A Novel (Paperback)
by Gregory Maguire
| Category:
Self-driven, Story, Ages 9-12,Children's book |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
The great presentation of contrasts beauty/ugliness, kindness/cruelness, love/hate. |
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Author: Gregory Maguire
Publisher: Regan Books
Pub. in: October, 2000
ISBN: 0060987529
Pages: 384
Measurements: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.0 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00034
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- MSL Picks -
Gregory Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity-each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister begins in 17th-century Holland, where the two Fisher sisters and their mother have fled to escape a hostile England. Maguire's characters are at once more human and more fanciful than their fairy-tale originals. Plain but smart Iris and her sister, Ruth, a hulking simpleton, are dazed and terrified as their mother, Margarethe, urges them into the strange Dutch streets. Within days, purposeful Margarethe has secured the family a place in the home of an aspiring painter, where for a short time, they find happiness.
But this is Cinderella, after all, and tragedy is inevitable. When a wealthy tulip speculator commissions the painter to capture his blindingly lovely daughter, Clara, on canvas, Margarethe jumps at the chance to better their lot. "Give me room to cast my eel spear, and let follow what may," she crows, and the Fisher family abandons the artist for the upper-crust Van den Meers.
When Van den Meer's wife dies during childbirth, the stage is set for Margarethe to take over the household and for Clara to adopt the role of "Cinderling" in order to survive. What follows is a changeling adventure, and of course a ball, a handsome prince, a lost slipper, and what might even be a fairy godmother. In a single magic night, the exquisite and the ugly swirl around in a heated mix:
Everything about this moment hovers, trembles, all their sweet, unreasonable hopes on view before anything has had the chance to go wrong. A stepsister spins on black and white tiles, in glass slippers and a gold gown, and two stepsisters watch with unrelieved admiration. The light pours in, strengthening in its golden hue as the sun sinks and the evening approaches. Clara is as otherworldly as the Donkey woman, the Girl-Boy. Extreme beauty is an affliction...
But beyond these familiar elements, Maguire's second novel becomes something else altogether-a morality play, a psychological study, a feminist manifesto, or perhaps a plain explanation of what it is to be human. Villains turn out to be heroes, and heroes disappoint. The story's narrator wryly observes, "In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats."
Target readers:
Kids aged up 8
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Gregory Maguire was born and raised in the United States. He has also lived in Dublin and London. He is a writer of fantasies, science fiction, picture books and historical novels, and he also composes music, is an artist, and loves to travel. He is a founder member of Children's Literature New England, which organises an annual summer school on children's literature. He is a popular speaker at conferences on children's literature and in schools.
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Is this new land a place where magic really happen?
From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale.
In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings.... When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats....
We all have heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty . . . and what curses accompanied Cinderella's exquisite looks?
Extreme beauty is an affliction
Set against the rich backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Harlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister.
Clara was the prettiest child, but was her life the prettiest tale?
While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, burning all memories of her past, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household--and the treacherous truth of her former life.
God and Satan snarling at each other like dogs.... Imps and fairy godmothers trying to undo each other's work. How we try to pin the world between opposite extremes!
Far more than a mere fairy-tale, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a novel of beauty and betrayal, illusion and understanding, reminding us that deception can be unearthed--and love unveiled--in the most unexpected of places.
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| View all 5 comments |
Susan H. (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
What were Cinderella's wicked stepmother and the ugly stepsisters really like? Maguire has come up with a fascinating hypothesis in this logical, not necessarily magical, retelling of the classic tale. Recently arrived from England, the Dutch-born widow Margarethe and her two children, ungainly and seemingly slow-witted Ruth and plain but intelligent Iris, move into the social mix that is Haarlem in the 17th century. Soon after her arrival, she marries a newly widowed tulip merchant with one child. The author firmly places his characters into the down-to-earth and stolid reality of Holland fearful of the plague and intent on developing the tulip business that will make it famous, yet capable of nurturing Rembrandt and Hals. The well-drawn characters include a striving Dutch painter and his appealing apprentice; a beautiful, otherworldly child; her scatterbrained mother and burgher father; and even "The Queen of the Hairy-Chinned Gypsies." The plot is plausible and, given the fact that readers will think they know how it all works out, full of surprises. This is not an easy read, but the pretext is appealing and the resulting story worth the effort. Thoughtful YAs will enjoy a new take on a familiar tale, and be thoroughly involved in this historical romp. |
J. F. NORRIS (MSL quote), Chicago, USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
Just when you think there have been too many re-imagined versions of well-known fairy tales along comes one that brilliantly reinvents perhaps the archetype of all fairy tales. Maguire, who previously wrote a subversively political tale about the wicked witch of the west, surpasses his debut novel with this compassionate tale of beauty and familial duty. Once again his richly detailed prose captures that feeling of a once upon a time that true fairy tales require and does so without ever appearing artificial. This story of Iris and Ruth, their complex mother Margarethe, and their stepsister Clara of the 'afflicted eternal beauty' is filled with wonderfully shaded characterizations that never fall into that good/evil dichotomy that Grimm and Perault use in telling the original versions. Can kindness reside within ugliness? Is beauty and attractiveness really something to be envious of? Is a mother's apparent tyrannical household an environment that will produce wickedness? Is a nearly mute sibling nothing more than a drudge to baby-sit? Find the answers to these not so simple questions within Maguire's excellent story and be prepared to be reassess your own prejudices about the 'ugly' and the 'beautiful.' |
Brian Lemma (MSL quote), Sterling, USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
The readers of this book, that is. Gregory McGuire has hit another one out of the park with Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Following up on "Wicked," the first of McGuire's expanded fairy tales, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story behind the story of Cinderella.
Childhood fairy tales, true to their intended audiences, tell stories of black and white, good and evil. Once we all grow up, though, we realize that the world is many shades of gray. McGuire's stories reflect that adult knowledge. That is why this story is so fun to read. I voraciously read fairy tales as a child, and McGuire has allowed me to revisit the stories of my childhood while entrancing me as an adult. His are quick reads, which is somewhat disappointing, because the end always comes too soon.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and I will be waiting for my 'prince in shining armor' to write me another grown-up tale!
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Oxzillia Schmitt (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
This is a book that turns the story of Cinderella totally upside-down. Part historical fiction, part fantasy, part coming-of-age novel, this book tells the story of Iris, a young girl lacking in good looks, who is forced to leave her home in England when her father is murdered. Her mother, the harsh Margarethe drags her and her simple, dull sister Ruth to Holland where they are to live with their Grandfather. Unfortunately their grandfather has died without their knowledge and they are left homeless and penniless.
Over the course of the novel they become involved with the rich tulip merchant--van de Meere-and his uncommonly beautiful daughter, Clara, who is fated to become Iris's stepsister. Clara is strange and haunted. She never leaves the house and claims to be a changeling child. When Margarethe marries van de Meere, Clara retreats to the ashes; determined not to be seen, while Iris slowly finds the confidence to unveil the treacherous secrets that surround her life.
This book is extremely well written and is way more than a fairy tale. The twist at the end was really unexpected. The last two sentences are really beautiful, too.
"But to be most effective, the faces of children would need to be painted in a blur, the way all children's faces truly are. For they blur as they run; the blur as they grow and change so fast; and they blur to keep us from loving them too deeply, for they protection, and also for ours."
Anyway, I still can't decide whether or not his book was as good as wicked. They are both amazing in different ways I guess. I did find Confessions took a long time to get to the actual Cinderella part but that's just me. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to see the happy, boring little story of Cinderella that we've all heard so many times, gutted, torn into tiny pieces, and then put back together again to create this masterpiece.
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