Fairy tales, classical music and secrets

AT little Neelsie's bedtime a French woman and a French widower used to wander through his head. My parents, and grandfather, knew them well, via Rene Pauw's Sprokies uit Towerland, Pienaar's ’n Uur in Sprokiesland and other books that remain only a vague memory. How should I have known the widower was Charles Perrault, and the wife Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy? Both grown-ups with very grown-up concerns were present at the birth of the modern fairy tale, and she moreover was immortalised in “The Story of the Donkey's Skin".

That story is retold at the beginning of Clare Pollard's The Modern Fairies by Perrault himself at one of the literary salons held by Madame D'Aulnoy during the reign of his royal fabulousness Louis XIV.

Halfway through, Perrault realises he's trapped in a bit of a mistake. The story of the donkey's skin is actually the veiled story of Madame D'Aulnoy herself. Everything in it is recognisable to its audience, a fairy tale as light satire about the royal court and the scandals of the nobility.

The Modern Fairies is an attempt to show how the literary salons became the genesis of the modern fairy tale.

Perrault was no nobleman, but a lawyer from the upper class. His stories granted him access to Madame D'Aulnoy's salons. She wrote interesting stories herself, including “The White Cat" and “The Golden Branch". She was a cunning schemer and rather mysterious. Yet she did much to free the female writers of her time from their literary shackles, albeit not their social subordination to men.

Perrault was initially seen as her great opponent. Still, he needed her salons and favours to progress from anonymous writer to trailblazer. He was, all things considered, the creator of “The Sleeping Beauty", “Cinderella", “Bluebeard", “Little Red Riding Hood" and many more stories.

True to the intrigues of the courtiers and wannabes of that time, a close bond developed between the two. This bond is the backbone of The Modern Fairies. Of course, the stories told at the salons are well known. What is not known is how randy the people were in Louis XIV's time. That spirit, and all the gossip that accompanies it and produces the most delicious trinkets for the imaginations of the salonnières, permeate The Modern Fairies.

“Cinderella” is also here … I now know more about the background and the level of randiness of the salon. It seems the tale's other title, “The Glass Slipper" was misunderstood by the Madame. You have to hear the French, verre compared to vair. 

“I have always thought the fur slipper was an uncouth metaphor," replies Perrault. “Now it is glass, a modern material, delicate, pristine, shining …”

I do not think it would be good manners for me to divulge the details of Madame D'Aulnoy and her friends' merriment. But at least I can report one of Charles Perrault's almost intimate remarks to her: “That was the agreement that allowed you to return to Paris. Raising illegitimate children in secret is the service you render to the Crown."

His regal swinishness.

You get older while reading this book. A final word from Pollard herself: “I've taken a lot of liberties in telling a good story, from wild speculations about the sex lives of the salonnières to extremely loose handling of the chronology. But I have to tell you, an almost unbelievable amount of this is true."

The Modern Fairies by Clare Pollard was published by Simon & Schuster and costs $23.74 at Amazon.

For centuries, women's role in the development of classical music was just a footnote. Many excellent instrumentalists and gifted composers and transcribers are recorded in the annals as the muse of this or that male counterpart. Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi. The latter's life story is intensely intertwined with that of Anna Maria della Pietà, who was a violinist and conductor in Venice in the 18th century. Harriet Constable tells her story in The Instrumentalist.

It's Constable's debut novel. Not a masterpiece, but a narrative that takes the imagination on a gallop. It is a novel that asks brutal questions about the role of the patriarchy in the development of classical music. Of course, one cannot detach the arts from contemporary practices. What does dawn on one is that Anna Maria della Pietà would have been a celeb among celebs today. Constable makes sure that one will never again look at a modern symphony orchestra without seeing the story of liberation in the line-up.

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable was published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC and costs R385 at Amazon SA.

Definition of intrigue: Four old friends see each other again after years. The disappearance years before of the sister of one of the four hangs among them like an overripe plum. So, one of them has a secret, and the other does not know about it. But people are human beings, and pangs of conscience never go well with love. Sarah Easter Collins's debut  is light reading, with a built-in kick. No secret is safe when people begin to annoy each other. In Vrye Weekblad style, I would say reading time = one evening.

Things Don’t Break on Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins was published by Viking and costs R305 at Amazon SA.

♦ VWB ♦

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