Kelly Barnhill

I enjoyed--although that is too light a term--this when I read it, but it has also stuck with me. I appreciated the minimalist approach here, which befits a contemporary revision of a traditional (there are actually several versions) fairy tale. Barnhill really understands how fairy tales work and has resisted the temptation of many of her contemporaries to over-elaborate on them in their own retellings. The narrative feels claustrophobic, but at the same time leaves a lot of gaps and spaces for us to think our way into the story and its implications. Traditional fairy tales are often more deeply ambiguous than many believe, particularly if we are familiar only with the sanitized versions of the much darker originals collected by the Grimms, etc. In this case much of the ambiguity comes from a single question: why is such an old, familiar story--a woman whom submits to abuse and abandons herself and those around her--one that too many people inhabit anew, and as if for the first time, everyday? Her teenage protagonist provides one set of answers: we inhabit a world where people see and don't see what is right in front of them.

Much of the attention this book has garnered--and you can see it in many of the other reviews here so far on LT--focuses on gender issue. However Barnhill's interest in the gender dynamics is wrapped up in a broader examination of cultural shifts in technology, farming, commerce, and the art market. Many of those elements nag at the edges of consciousness while reading the book (the creepy agribusiness next door, the fawning online collectors for the mother's art); this is, fundamentally, a smart story about how private abuse is fostered by a broader culture that turns a blind eye to all kinds of abuse.… (mehr)

The book is gripping, challenging, emotionally satisfying and worth reading. But the reviewer is not wrong who notes that the dragons who return are... baking bread, organizing book clubs, knitting... doing all the things that they did before. Life has not changed for them.

What does this mean? "The good life is just like the old life, only without men"? "Internal change changes everything: before enlightenment cut wood and carry water, after enlightenment cut wood and carry water"? The message is mysterious and obscure.

Although, bakery dragons and alternative schooling dragons -- that is just the sort of thing that would happen in Madison. There's not a whole lot of evocative sense of place writing in this book. The author is better at writing people than places, and that's okay; it's certainly better for a book to have plot and character than geography, if you have to choose. But the dragon culture is pure 1970s Madison, after the riots were over and the Vietnam War ended. I recognized the milieu and the dragon spirit.

The dragons who flew off to the moons of Jupiter, though? They were awe-inspiring. I wish we heard more about them.… (mehr)