As part of the Once Upon a Time Challenge, Kailana and I are doing a buddy read of the latest collection of Charles de Lint short stories. There are upwards of 30 stories in this collection, so we decided to read a few stories each week and then take turns choosing questions to ask about the stories read. Each Monday we will post our answers to these questions on our blogs. This week it was Kailana’s turn to ask the questions. You can click here to read her answers.
In the introduction Charles de Lint mentions that this collection of previously printed material was chosen not by him but by a Reader’s Choice poll he put up on his social networking pages. He mentions some trepidation over this and admits that he could not resist putting a few stories of his own choosing into the mix. I will be keeping a close watch as I read these stories, gauging my response to the whole collection based on this revelation. When all is said and done Kailana and I will have to talk about stories that weren’t included that we perhaps think more worthy than some that made it, if indeed we find ourselves of that opinion. But for now, let’s get to those questions.
The three stories we read this week were:
‘In Which We Meet Jilly Coppercorn’
‘Coyote Stories’
‘Laughter in the Leaves’
1. What did you think of de Lint’s choice to have ‘In Which We Meet Jilly Coppercorn’ as the first story in the collection?
I am really torn about this one. It was either a brilliant decision or a terrible one. Keeping in mind what I mentioned earlier about the stories in this collection largely being reader’s choices vs. the authors, I did not feel this was a great story to start the collection with. Jilly Coppercorn is one of my favorite de Lint characters. She is near and dear to my heart, in large part because my first experience with his work was in reading Widdershins, which in part was a story written for Jilly and Geordie fans. This story is so slight that had I not known and cared for Jilly, it would have done very little for me.
On the other hand, it is brilliant in that this brief snippet of Jilly’s interaction with the wizard and his guest actually functions as a key to unlocking the door of Charles de Lint’s world. It explains, albeit briefly, just how the fairy world interacts with the real world in the fictional universe Charles de Lint has created.
You mention in your post that this is an edited version of a longer story in the Dreams Underfoot collection. I am glad you said that because I was certain I had read this story before but did not remember it being so short or ending so abruptly. I am not sure why he didn’t include the full story, although its existence in this form gives some credence to the theory that he might just have included it as a more creative way to tell first time readers “this is what my world is all about”.
2. The story, ‘Coyote Stories’, is a good example of a story with a moral message. Would you agree?
I probably shouldn’t have read your answers before writing my own as I feel myself wanting to respond to your answers more than your questions. I will try better not to do so next week. 😉 You mention that Charles de Lint couches important messages in his stories and I would agree. “Moral” may not always be the right word, but the kind of fantasy tradition that de Lint in part taps into definitely has those stories that have a moral. Rarely does he hit you over the head with it as strongly as people like the Brothers Grimm. Instead he addresses very real, prevalent and often very weighty issues in his stories.
Coyote Stories touches on alcoholism. Many of my favorite de Lint stories have tackled the subject of abuse, of drug addiction, of homelessness. I don’t read those kind of stories generally. I see the results of those things in my work in the mental health field every day. If a person handed me a novel that looked like it was going to be about those things, I would more often than not give it a pass. But Charles de Lint draws you in with an impressive ability to enchant you with the fantastical elements of his stories with planting the seeds of greater truths. His fantasy stories are a window into humanity, or perhaps a mirror, in ways that not all fantasy stories accomplish and I have often felt his stories have a great healing quality about them.
3. What did you think of the story ‘Laughter in the Leaves’?
Let me preface this by saying that I did not dislike the first two stories. They were fine. But for all that, this was the first story in the collection that made me sit up and take notice. The first story that gave me that little thrill, that feeling that here, at last, was a Charles de Lint story. I thought this was a fun story. It also was the first of the three, for me, that felt like a complete story with a definite beginning, middle, and end.
For those who haven’t read it, it is the story of a woman plagued by a mischievous spirit, a bodach. There is a kinship of sorts between this story and stories like Beauty and the Beast…stories in which a character has the option to be kind or to be discourteous and the circumstances that follow will no doubt be directly linked to the choices made. Charles de Lint has a tendency to revisit characters in other stories and I am heartened by the fact that he has written more stories about the protagonist, Meran, because I like her.
This was a satisfying story with enough left over to spark a hope for more of the tale to be told.
Well folks, those are our three stories for this week. I hope you’ll visit Kailana’s site and comment on her answers. I also hope you will join us next week as we delve further into this collection of a gifted storyteller.
hm… I have to agree that moral probably wasn’t a good word… I was having a hard time coming up with a word for what was ruminating in my mind. My mind had one idea, but I was having a forming it.
I have to admit that I chose to read Dreams Underfoot AND this book in close succession… That was probably a bad idea in retrospect, but at least I am finished Dreams Underfoot at this point. The Jilly Coppercorn story in its whole is better in Dreams Underfoot… This was just a snippet.
The third story was my favourite, too. I feel like I have read it before, but I can’t remember where at this point. I was just reconnected to the characters because I had just read an earlier story about them in Dreams Underfoot. Once I have read everything I need to reread in some sort of order because my mind is all over the place it seems!
Kailana: It wasn’t meant to be a commentary on your choice of words, I hope you know. Again, after reading your comment about how you weren’t sure how you wanted to phrase the question I kind of went off on that.
I have “read” most of Dreams Underfoot. I got the audio during last year’s challenge and listened to most of it. There were a few stories that had really bad scratches and skips on the disks so I wasn’t able to complete those stories. Need to go back, get the book, and read then. I do remember liking the Jilly story.
I vaguely remember the story about them in Dreams Underfoot. Now I definitely want to read it again.
I love de Lint’s work. I have been reading him for years now. His short stories suck me in like nothing else.
Nulaane: I completely understand that feeling! 🙂
First of all, lovely cover. Who is the artist?
I like these Q&A posts you do every now and then. They give a lot of insight into the book, both of you participating, viewpoints about the author of the work involved. Sometimes – this time, certainly, I feel a bit of an outsider, as I tried one De Lindt book (cannot recall which one, but I have others – Spiritwalk and Moonheart – on the shelf) and it seemed too stiff, somehow, for the fantasy experience I wanted at the time and I have not gone back to him. I know you like the author a great deal, but that one try didn’t click with me.
The discussions you have about the individual stories, and their place in the larger framework of the collection are the highlight of these posts for me. I will be eagerly awaiting more.
Per haps part of my problem with De Lint is just what you say in your answer about “Coyote”:
[De Lindt’s writing is] “a window into humanity, or perhaps a mirror, in ways that not all fantasy stories accomplish ”
When I read fantasy, I want to escape the every day world, especially the one in which I worked as a social worker, manager and social programs administrator for 36 years. So give me dragons, wizards, swords and heroes and villains, not windows on humanity. That I can get in the newspaper, unfortunately.
Carl: Oh, I flipped through Dreams Underfoot again and I had forgotten that Meran is in the Jilly story earlier in the collection, too. She’s an intriguing character. I wonder if I have read more about her and just don’t remember because it was just one story out of many… I think I had read the story in this collection before, but I have no idea where.
I am enjoying our ‘tradition’ of reading de Lint books together.
RkR: Yes, many of the stories that de Lint writes contain elements of truth, or a mirror as Carl words it, so I can understand why you might want to avoid them. For some reason it doesn’t bother me, but it is not something that I go looking for either… It just seems to work when it is de Lint. Just my two cents, I actually didn’t enjoy my first experience with de Lint. So, don’t write him off entirely… It took me a couple years, but I read The Onion Girl for probably this challenge because people were posting about him a lot and I was starting to feel like I was crazy for not liking him. And, that time he clicked… Now, he is like visiting with an old friend. 🙂
I don’t “love” short stories but I do love the cover of that book.. had to go check who did it and I really wasn’t surprised to see it was Charles Vess !.. noting the art art nouveau in the cover !
see this is why I shouldn’t shelve books before I actually read them. I forget that I have them! (but, the alternative is stumbling over ceiling high piles of books, so….maybe not!) anyhoo, I’ve got this one! I need to read it! Thanks for reminding me… ^_^
oh yes Deslily, I bought it for the Vess cover also, I figure i’ve probably got almost all of the stories in other collections but couldn’t pass up that cover. 😀
Sgist: I got this one from my friend Pat for my birthday, but you could bet good money that I would have bought it for myself just because of the cover, regardless of whether I had/have read the stories before or not.
Deslily: Yes, I fear we are never going to convert you to the short story love. 🙂
Kailana: As a bit of a spoiler (which you may already know) we get more Meran right away with our reads for this week! I’m going to be sending you my three questions momentarily. I got a chance to read in a park today and it was lovely to be reading these stories there.
I love this tradition as well. I only wish I wouldn’t have let you down with Someplace to be Flying last year. I want to get back to that one.
RkR: If you’ve read the other comments than your question is probably already answered, but just in case, Charles Vess is the illustrator, and this is one of my favorite works. It looks particularly lovely in Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess.
De Lint is definitely not of the wizards, dragons, etc. school of fantasy. While I like that brand of fantasy, I really do, a little goes a long way for me which is why I don’t read large chunks of it at any one time. One of the reasons I like Charles de Lint’s work so much (and Gaiman’s, and, for example, The Wood Wife by Terri Windling) is that these authors of what might be termed “mythic fiction” have the ability to interweave folklore and mythology into their wok in a way that never seems silly. Whether it be fairies or goblins or old gods, etc., they are handled with a sense of seriousness (with a nice balance of non-farcical humor) that acknowledges the weight these legends, beliefs, etc. once had in the world and, for some few people, still have. This also works, in my opinion, because de Lint’s humans are cut from a cloth of authenticity as well. They are broken, some are, but not so broken as to make you want to turn away or avert your eyes. Their interactions with beings that should not exist sometimes allow them to see their troubles from a different perspective and begin a course of healing. Sometimes it makes things worst. And some of de Lint’s characters can never achieve the openness to ever actually see these creatures. The fact that, in his Newford stories, he has all these characters living in this city and having their lives intersect with one another makes for some very interesting storytelling over the course of many novels and short story collections. I wish I knew what novel to point to do say, “This is the definitive de Lint novel. You’ll either love him or loathe him based on your reaction to this book”, but I haven’t delved far enough into his work to be able to judge that.
Just like “traditional” fantasy, I wouldn’t want my reading to be made up entirely of this kind of fiction. But I enjoy de Lint enough that I coudn’t imagine going through a spring time without dipping into his work. It seems to go hand in hand with me.
De Lint is one of those authors who has been on my to read list for ages and ages. I’m really beginning to wonder if I should do some sort of “best of” type reading where I take a month or two and focus on the best of a particular genre…
Trisha: If you do, let me know. It would be fun to see what you decide to read and how you react to it.
Moonheart was my first DeLint novel and still my very favorite. I want to live in Tamsen house soooooo badly, a huge musty Victorian with rooms upon rooms and great dusty attics was my childhood dream…and now in my impending dotage my fondest fantasy. ^_^
Charles de Lint is one of my favorite authors… I may have to read this. I might have to go on another de Lint spree…
Daphne: It is a good spree to go on. I’ve already read the three stories for next week and have my post ready to go for Monday. They were three really good stories!
Sgist: I have yet to read Moonheart. I *think* I have a copy of it on my shelves, but am not sure. Tamsen house sounds wonderful!
It takes up an ENTIRE city block! (fictional of course)
I always imagined it as The Dakota building in NYC. ^_^
Ah, the Dakota. I’ve been in love with that building ever since reading Time and Again by Jack Finney. Marvelous book.
Your blog features some fantastic artwork and the cover of this book is one of my favourites.
I haven’t heard of the authors or books you feature but you’ve mow got my interest.
I’m glad I stopped by.
Paul.
Time and Again sounds *very* interesting i’ve got it on order from PBSwap.
Thanks for the referral!
Me too, Paul. Thanks.
Sgist: You need to read it, it is a good one.
Carl: Yes, I read the stories after I got your email with the questions. 🙂
For future reference, on my TBR pile by de Lint that I haven’t read I have:
Spirits in the Wire
Memory & Dream
Widdershins (Which I know you have read…)
I think I might have another one… I just couldn’t locate it easily. I just purged books and I am still putting my shelves back to rights…
I love Charles de Lint’s short stories. I read Dreams Underfoot years ago. Such a fantastic collection. I’ll have a look if I can find this one although I think there might be many from Dreams Underfoot in it.
Caroline: I believe there are a few, for certain. If you haven’t read his newest short story collection (prior to this one), Muse and Reverie, I strongly recommend it. It is wonderful.
I’m going to have to look back. I’m not sure if I’ve read Memory and Dream or not.
I want it just for its cover…
GeraniumCat: It is beautiful, one of my favorite Charles Vess illustrations.