Recently, acquaintances from England, Anthony and Sue Dunsany, decided to come on a tour this Spring to America with their son Edward now nineteen, their sixteen year-old daughter Lucia and their youngest, Lirazel, a pretty girl of eight who resembles her mother both in looks and character, with large grey pensive eyes, long auburn hair and a beautiful serene smile. On a sunny mild day in New York, plans were made to visit some of the major museums during their week in the city, and young Lirazel decided that she would like to keep me company at home until we all met up again for an early dinner on the town.
She has a great affinity for reading and was shortly inspecting my bookshelves while I was addressing some correspondence. Setting my pen aside for a moment, I asked her what would please her the most and she replied 'a classic fairy tale'. There are so many, and perhaps you have read them all, but Lizarel quietly asked if I had a copy of Beauty and the Beast. It's my all-time favorite, she explained, and I never get tired of it. You know I have always felt a bit sorry for the beast in the story and Beauty is not only brave, but she is kind to him in the end when she realizes that he loves her and would like her to stay with him so that he will never be unhappy, lonely or mean again. This made me smile because I remembered how I was always a little disappointed when the Beast turned into a prince and that good looks are not the most important things in the world.
So I pulled out a newer version of this great tale by the author Max Eilenberg, illustrated by the beautiful artwork of Angela Barrett. In 2006 the two of them had produced one of the most unusual and breathtaking adaptations of Beauty, and Angela Barret won The Kate Greenaway Medal Award when it was published. Handing it to Lirazel, I mentioned that she might find it quite different, and she promised to give me her best opinion after curling up on the sofa and settling down for a comfortable read.
It will be interesting to hear what she has to say, I thought, having placed the book away after reading it a few years ago. I remembered it so vividly because towards the end, there is a large picture without any text when Beauty is lying in an isolated forest in the heavy snow with her arms around her Beast, and the pity and desolation of it all evokes the most powerful and sorrowful emotions that an animal lover might feel on the loss of their pet.
The author Max Eilenberg was to say, and I quote: 'Beauty and the Beast is a strange, magical story about learning to love, but what also makes it fascinating is that it is also about fear and loss'. He decided to place the setting in the nineteenth century when money, convention and appearance mattered perhaps even more than today, and see what happens when a family loses everything.
But, more important, what did young Lirazel think? 'It's beautiful and funny and sad but happy. I liked the Beast because he looks like a huge neglected wolf-like creature with large fangs who is hungry and thin, and doesn't wear a suit on, or any rings, or live in a castle but a beautiful magical candle-lit house and when he turns into a prince, he's not perfect in looks, and Beauty is kind of pleased that he is not a picture-book prince the way she had always imagined when she was a child. And at the end she tells him that 'I loved you anyway, just the way you were'.
And, what about Mr. Fortune, Beauty's father, an impoverished merchant who lost everything? He is a happy man again and delighted with his son-in-law and at last hearing, he is still showing the wedding album of his daughter's wedding to any kind person who wishes to see and hear about it. 'Always knew she'd make an excellent match. Best son-in-law you could wish for. Fabulous gardener and brilliant with his roses', he always likes to say.
For Shannon, the girl out of a fairy tale, from a friend thinking of you on this beautiful Spring day.
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