September 27, 2019
Happy Friday, friend!
Since the posting of The Calico Cloak, I’ve been having discussions with the Librarian of Sex & Death about the origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story. I found it pretty interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you.
They’d mentioned The Grandmother’s Tale as a very early version of a story that was traditionally only spoken. It's nearly impossible to know the true origins of almost any story in the oral tradition, happily we are large enough to hold an endless selection of unwritten tales here at The Boundless Library.
There's a
really great short film by David Kaplan from 1997 with a modern take on The Grandmother’s Tale. I strongly recommend you watch it now, if at all possible! Narrated by Quentin Crisp, it plays with our
assumptions about both the girl and the wolf. She is given more agency and he is more child-like, even playful, with an ambiguous gender, gothic stylings, fanciful dancing, and a fear of Red Riding Hood’s more… forward nature.
It’s particularly telling that at the end, when the wolf arrives just as Red Riding Hood closes the door, we see a claw running sensually over her face, the wolf inside with her. The not-so-subtle winks and nods and pokes from the Librarian of Sex & Death drive home the implication of… I think we all get the point.
I pulled a copy of Charles Perrault’s late 17th century Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, where granny dies, Red dies, and the wolf is fat and happy. Chuck’s stated “moral” is that young people, and especially young girls, get what they have coming to them if they listen to strangers. So grim!
And speaking of grim, after the Grimms get their hands on the story in the 19th century, to the chagrin of the Librarian of Sex and Death, much of the sexuality and gruesome elements were removed. A bit against type on the violence for the Grimms, right? They introduced the huntsman, and take a lot of the agency away from the girl, having her rescued rather than slyly escape on her own.
By the 1900s, the “stranger danger” warning is synonymous with Little Red Riding Hood. The girl is now younger, often around 5 or 6 instead of a late teenager. And as we get closer to today, many versions of Red Riding Hood have no death whatsoever! The grandmother is stored safely stashed in the wardrobe! The huntsman scares off the wolf, lesson learned! Everyone living happily ever after! Like, what even is the point?!
I was left with an interesting question after watching the Kaplan film with the Librarians. Could it just have been all a dream? At the beginning, when Red touches the water and the screen briefly wobbles, are we entering her fantasy? There is an attractive dancing wolf, a very judgemental talking cat in a surreal, German Expressionist cottage, and just a touch of accidental cannibalism. The final shot is pretty dreamlike too. So did Red get exactly what she wanted from that wolf — or is she just dreaming it all by the lake?
To the dream, Sex & Death says “Hells no!”, while Childhood Studies gives an emphatic, not to say pedantic, “Of course!” Me? I think I’ll be thinking about it for some time to come.
If you have not yet subscribed to Borrowings, you can listen here. I’ll be posting another episode on Thursday next week. Podcasts like these really benefit from ratings and reviews on iTunes, so if you like what we’re doing, please take a moment to let others know and help to spread the word.
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Our first story, A Feather In Dust, is available as a pre-order. If you want to really see what The Boundless Library has planned, this story of a circus in the dust bowl of the 1930s is a withdrawal you’ll want to make.
We currently have our Compleat Cardholder kit and the smaller Essential Cardholder kit available to purchase in our store. Both contain a wonderful shirt with a warning about the dangers of this Library.
Molly says I need to wrap things up, there are some pretty ominous sounding chores ahead. I’ll write again soon, I promise.
Best,
Alice
Apprentice (of sorts)
The Boundless Library