Diane PurkissBesprekingen

Very good and detailed account of the history of English food from a rather different perspective. Attacks Elizabeth David with gusto, for example. Looks at both general issues (eg breakfast) and specific (eg fish).

I bought this book and was pleasantly surprised by its size. It's lighter and smaller than I expected (9" x 6.25" x 1.75")

There wasn't much info online so I took a chance and now that it is in my possession, I have an opportunity to see what the book offers and.... yikes. It's not really my thing. I've added all the contributors and you can see they're mostly from the last 2 centuries. So now I feel like I'm in school reading my histories.

Also the layout is unusual. All the contributors are listed in the back of the book with a little bio. The stories are listed in the front without any author credit!? See screengrab: https://gyazo.com/6039c0280ff27ad2536a3c746987331d

I'm not sure, part of me wants to re-sell it. I'll skim a bit and decide soon.

Contributors: Im Bang, Yi Ryuk, James Scarth Gale (Translator), George W. Bateman, Abbie Farwell Brown, Elsie Finnimore Buckley, E.A. Wallis Budge, Margaret Compton, Jeremiah Curtin, Jonathan Ceredig Davies, F. Hadland Davis, Elphinstone Dayrell, George Douglas, Alice Elizabeth Dracott, George Grey, William Elliot Griffis, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Francis Hindes Groome, H.A. Guerber, Florence Holbrook, Douglas Hyde, Eleanor Hull, Joseph Jacobs, W.F. Kirby, Ignác Kúnos, Andrew Lang, Edmund Leamy, Charles Godfrey Leland, Thomas Malory, Minnie Martin, Frederick H. Martens, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, James Mooney, Sophia Morrison, M.I. Ogumefu, Yei Theodora Ozaki, Norman Hinsdale Pitman, W.R.S. Ralston, A.G. Seklemian, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Charles Montgomery Skinner, Lewis Spence, Chauncy Hugh Stigand, J.R. Walker, Alice Werner, E.T.C. Werner, William Drake Westervelt, Lady Wilde, Richard Wilhelm, Albert Henry Wratislaw, William Butler Yeats

I found this book to be literate, well researched, provocative and a definite expansion in the field of fairy literature. This is a scholarly work by a scholar and should be read from that prospective. This is a volume that takes some savoring and not a skimming.

This history is long and detailed and provides a good sense of what it would have been like to live through the English Civil War in the 1640s. Not just military history, but the religious dynamics creating turmoil, the witch hunts, the dramas of families and lovers, and politics of Charles I and Parliament are all discussed, providing an impression of a tumultuous age. I particularly enjoyed the author's explanation of how, in this time, even cookbooks were political. An excellence book for understanding this period of English history.

Purportedly a history of fairy tales, this book serves neither as a history nor a particularly good resource about legends. I had to give up on this after this passage,
"In later stories, Peter [Pan:] is joined by boys who have fallen out of their perambulators, their suspiciously womblike perambulators (is this a mere bowlderization of miscarriage--miscarriage--or stillbirth?)."

What. WHAT? I started skimming after that. It's not a very well organized book, and Purkiss's logic is all over the place. Her conclusions are alternately disappointingly obvious and amusingly crazy-eyed. Near the end, I discovered an entire sub-chapter about X-Files fanfic. Oh dear.

Like the War itself, I think it sounds a lot more interesting than it actually ends up being. I know that the point of the book is to look at how the war effected individual and everyday lives, but there are so many threads in the story lines, it's impossible to get invested in any of the players.

My one visit to Oxford was long ago as an 18-year-old on a choir tour of England. Our chaperones normally kept a pretty tight rein on us, but for some reason this time they actually let us roam around by ourselves for a while. I was in literary heaven. I visited Blackwell's bookstore, found "Alice's Shop" (the model for the sheep's shop in Through the Looking Glass), and ended up at the Bodleian Library which had a wonderful exhibition of children's books from the Opie collection. It was truly a magical day for a bookaholic teenager, and I still remember it fondly.

Last year I found out that the Bodleian was having another exhibition that sorely tempted me to fly across the Atlantic once more. Magical Books: From the Middle Ages to Middle Earth featured artifacts related to the work of some of my favorite authors, including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Susan Cooper, Philip Pullman, and Alan Garner, known as the "Oxford School" for their ties to the university. Along with ancient scrolls and manuscripts from the Bodleian collection that are known or presumed to have inspired their work, there were artifacts from the authors themselves, such as Lewis's hand-drawn map of Narnia, Tolkien's dust jacket design for The Two Towers, and a set of replicas of the Six Signs of Power made for Susan Cooper.

Alas, I wasn't able to make it in person, but the Bodleian did put up images of many of the exhibited item on their website, which you can still view here. They also produced a companion book called Magical Tales: Myth, Legend and Enchantment in Children's Books, which I promptly purchased. It is a lovely high-quality paperback, about 7 inches square, with a nice, heavy wraparound cover (I love these because I can use them instead of a bookmrak), excellent layout and typography, and beautifully reproduced full-color images. So just as a physical object, the book is certainly a success.

Content-wise, the book contains five academic essays. The first is a general consideration of "magical books," which can refer both to ancient books of spells and alchemy and to modern fantasy literature about magical happenings. The next three essays take on three areas of influence and inspiration for children's writers, particularly those of the "Oxford School": Northern mythology, the Middle Ages, and Arthurian legend. The final essay looks at the book itself as a magical, transforming object, in the form of early movable books for children. With a generally readable, engaging style, each essay gives a decent overview of its respective topic. Sometimes I wished for a bit more depth, as the essays tend to briefly survey a lot of books without going much into any one of them, but there isn't really space for that in this small, heavily illustrated book. (Note that those illustrations include some drawn from the Bodleian exhibition, but not all; it's not a "catalogue" of the exhibition. The map, dust jacket, and replica signs mentioned above, for example, are not included.)

So, for some armchair traveling into the sources of my favorite magical books, Magical Tales was a great investment, and a lot cheaper than a plane ticket. If you share my love of these fantasy classics, you might want to take a look at it too.

Originally posted on The Emerald City Book Review
emeraldcitybookreview.blogspot.com

This book attempts to dethrone our contemporary understanding of pretty little cute fairies (think the modern Disney revamp of "Tink" and all her sisters/cousins) and reconstruct a darker and more sinister lineage for fairies in Western culture. In chronological order, Purkiss moves from prehistoric periods to the present, studying how changing historical contexts have altered our interpretation of and relationship to fairies. I enjoyed the book but I do have some concerns with it.

It is published by a university press, but it is trying to be a popular history. I think this is a problem. It is neither fish (truly rigorous academic study) nor fowl (truly popular, accessible text). The author uses psychoanalytic and poststructuralist theories in places, and elsewhere the tone switches to an overly simplistic, conversational banter. It felt as if the editor was trying to satisfy two markets with the book and what resulted was a bit disjointed. Also, while the book appears to be well-researched, I take issue with the first couple chapters in which basically any ancient demon or liminal figure is redefined as a fairy. I learned something new reading this book, but I ended up feeling pretty neutral about it.

A collection of articles to accompany an exhibit at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (which I unfortunately did not see) on children's fantasy and its connections with genuine magical books (grimoires) ad mythology. I had understood it focused on the Inklings and was rather disappointed to find it did not do so consistently; they are mentioned (particular in the articles on the magical Middle Ages and once and future Arthurs) , but many other modern children's authors are included --Alan Garner, who rally did use grimoires and also used Arthurian and folklore material, Susan Cooper who used Arthurian material (memorably in The Grey King, though that is not discussed) , Philip Pullman who used an Oxford setting for his angry response to the "Oxford Christians" (though the critic here notes he actually shared some values and themes with them, such as self-denial) and others I know less such as Diana Wynn Jones . The last article on pop-up books has almost nothing to do with the Inklings or the writers mentioned elsewhere, though it does include one pop-up story by E. Nesbit, who is discussed in the Middle Ages essay as well.. Overall, a mixed bag but parts of it are interesting.

This is what I call a serious study. Purkiss examines fairy lore all the way back into the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, moving through history up to today's obsession with aliens and Elvis. She cites numerous examples of fairy folklore, literature, comparative studies... there are more references here in the endnotes than I've seen in some academic textbooks. She really did her research, and wrote a fascinating and compelling book to go along with it. Forget dry history or lifeless folklore. While I may not agree with all her conclusions - and in some cases I wonder if her conclusions are pushing the boundaries of the evidence - this book is definitely worth reading for those who are interested in folklore, mythology, or faerie lore.

A good book to cover the sweep of this period of English history. I was a little disappointed Purkiss did not spend more time discussing the basic ideas that were the impetus of the Civil War - no taxation without representation, the limits of monarchical power, the rise of popular politics - but perhaps I over estimate their importance. Purkiss did very well conveying the confusion and anarchy of the times, and the sense that society was unraveling that many participants felt. Still, a little more politics with the social studies would not have been amiss.½

This book is fascinating. Don't know how accurate it is (I definitely have misgivings about the classical portions) but the chapters on the Victorian era are great!

GBIP