2.5 starsI found myself enjoying very few of the stories. The stories I did enjoy are limited to: The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Little Match girl. These also happen to be Hans Christian Anderson's most enduring and recognisable stories and perhaps that is why I liked them- because I had often encountered them in my childhood.However I found almost all the other stories completely boring (which I believe is why it took me months to finish this book). I also found the stories quite juvenile (though I suppose they are fairy tales and therefore aimed at young children). Just not really my thing I suppose. Ah, the fairy tales of H.C. Andersen, where nobody lives happily ever after. Or almost nobody. Thumbelina gets to marry a king and live in a flower. But most of the love is unrequited. Like "Ib and Little Christine." Ib releases the girl he loves to marry another because that other has more money, and he wants Christine to have a better life. But her husband squanders the money, and Christine ends up dying in poverty. The "happy ending" is that Ib adopts Christine's orphaned little girl. Like "The Little Mermaid" who kisses the prince goodbye as he sleeps in his marriage bed with his new wife. The "happy ending" is that the little mermaid gets a kind of immortality by joining "the daughters of the air." Like "The Ice Maiden," who tries to lure Rudy, an alpine climber, to his death on the mountain peaks, but she never can. On the night before Rudy's wedding, the Ice Maiden finally gets him, by drowning him in glacier melt waters. The "happy ending" is that his fiancee is warned in a dream that it was just as well they never got to marry, because she would only have cheated on him anyway. How's that for a heart warmer? Few of these are feel-good stories. But there are good feelings in them. Kindness and simplicity and honesty are praised. Vanity and meanness are condemned. The style is conversational. An attempt was made to translate the ironic, clever, joking turns of phrase that Andersen used, and which don't come through in the children's books made from his tales. Some of the stories are just plain weird. Some of them sound like they were made up on the spot and never edited. The weirder stories make me say, "Huh?" but the best have a haunting quality that sticks with you.
What do You think about Andersen's Fairy Tales (2013)?
Most amazing fairy tales. The symbolism in each story is what really hooks me every time :D
—Hedwig
this is the worst possible book of fairy tales for any kid on the face of earth-_____-
—trinity27
