Title: The Story of the Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bete)
Author: Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (1695-1755)
Originally published: 1740 (Originally written in French)
Dates read: 4/7/18-4/13/18
Back to the Classics category: Classic in Translation
Find out more about the Back to the Classics 2018 reading challenge HERE.
Read my other book reviews from the challenge HERE.
Favorite quotes:
"This rose has cost me dear. It is not in money, however, and would to Heaven that I might have purchased it with all I am yet worth in the world."
"How do we know, perhaps the dreadful fate which appears to wait me conceals another as happy as this seems terrible?"
"You should not take counsel from your eyes alone. You should let yourself be guided by gratitude. By doing so, you are assured you will be happy."
"How many girls are compelled to marry rich brutes, much more brutish than the Beast, who is only one in form, and not in his feelings or his actions?"
"I knew not how much I loved you. The fear of losing you has proved to me that I was attached to you by stronger ties than those of gratitude. I vow to you that I had determined to die if I had failed in restoring you to life."
"Generous Fairy! For mercy's sake, do not allow Beauty to depart! Make me, rather, again the Beast that I was, for then I shall be her husband. She pledged her word to the Beast, and I prefer that happiness to all those she has restored me to, if I must purchase them so dearly!"
Review:
Madame de Villeneuve's tale is credited as the oldest known version of Beauty and the Beast. This translation is an easy and quick read. With it originally written in 1740, I expected it to have old style English, but it's very modern. It doesn't actually have names for any of the characters. They all just have nicknames or titles: The Merchant/Old Man; Beauty; Beast; Good Fairy; Old Fairy; etc. This sometimes got confusing because some characters had the same/similar titles (there were multiple characters titled 'Queen') and other characters weren't just called by one nickname (ie Beast/Prince).
What's interesting is that Disney's Beauty and the Beast is actually only the first half of the book. The second half of the book tells the backstory of the parents of both Beauty and the Beast and how they came to be in the situation they were in. Basically, the Beast becomes human and reunites with his mom and the Good Fairy. He tells Beauty his perspective of growing up and how/why he became the Beast. Then Beaty's father shows up and the Good fairy tells everyone about what happened to the parents that led to the whole "Beauty and the Beast" situation.
This got confusing due to no one having names and because it was unchronological. It was also disappointing because the backgrounds were told as summed up pasts and not as full stories, like the first half of the book was. The idea of "show don't tell" was not followed at all in the second half of the book. I wish that the book was in order and told all in the form of a story with much more details. I would have loved to hear more about the Faries and both sets of parents. There was so much great potential and it just seemed to be tagged on to the end of the Beauty and the Beast part of the tale as an afterthought.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorites growing up and I was excited to read this. I was expecting more of a Grimm fairy tale, but this actually does have a positive ending. The basic premise of the story was there, but many things were different as well - which I expected.
The enchanted rose the Beast was offered at the beginning of the movie that he refused? Was actually a marriage proposal by an ugly, old, mean Fairy (that wasn't a beautiful enchantress in disguise). He refused and since she believed it was only because she was ugly, she turned him into a dumb Beast (he is "stupid" not "ferocious"). The only way he would change back is if a young lady married him out of true love, of her own free will.
Beauty's father isn't an inventor, but a rich Merchant who then loses all his wealth and moves to the country with his 6 sons and 6 daughters. His sons seem like generally good people, but his daughters are very vain and needy. All except the youngest daughter, Beauty, who is kind, generous, and optimistic. When the Merchant leaves to try to regain some of his wealth, his daughters ask for all sorts of lavish gifts, except Beauty who only asks for a simple rose.
The Merchant gets lost on his way home, accidentally discovers a palace, and eats a lavish meal set out for him. He tries to find the owner to thank him, but it is in vain. On his way out he notices rose bushes and decides to pick some to give to Beauty. The Beast confronts him saying that he fed the poor man and the Merchant has repaid his kindness by stealing from him. The Beast tells the Merchant he will go home and one of his daughters must volunteer to come live with him forever. After some trickery, the Merchant agrees and heads out. Upon hearing her father's story, Beauty volunteers since it was because he was picking her a rose that he got into this situation. The rose in the story had more to do with Beauty - the Beast did not have an enchanted rose.
Beauty and her father go to the palace together and they do get a chance to say goodbye before her father leaves. There are inanimate, though lifelike, statues everywhere. You find out much later that all the staff was turned into statues until the curse was broken. There is a big library, as well as a room full of instruments she could play. There was a large aviary of rare birds that would sing to her, monkeys that attended to her needs and performed plays, and parrots that she could have conversations with. She was allowed anywhere in the palace - there were no "off limit" places.
There also isn't a magic mirror, but there's a room in the palace with several different windows that open onto different stages around the world and she could watch the performances. She would have dinner with the Beast every night. He would ask basic questions like, "How did you spend your day today?" and "Is there anything I give to make you happier?" He always ended the night asking Beauty to mary him, she would say no, and he would leave until dinner the next night.
There is no Gaston, but when she leaves the Beast to visit her family, all her sisters' suitors dump them to pursue Beauty. Her father tries to convince Beauty to marry the Beast since he isn't as mean as they thought he was. While she is at the palace, Beauty has dreams about the handsome Unknown, which is actually the Beast in his human form - but she doesn't know that. She falls in love with her dream, which is why she hesitates in marrying the Beast. One night, in a dream, the Unknown goes to kill the Beast and she gets in the way to protect him. This, as well as seeing the Beast almost die in actuality, leads her to agree to marry the Beast.
I'm not going to get into the second half of the story much because it's confusing and this is already a long blog post. You find out that the Merchant isn't actually Beauty's father, but that she is the daughter of the King of Fortunate Island. Beauty is not only royalty by birth, but is half fairy... and cousin to the Beast/Prince. You find out that, as an infant, Beauty was cursed to become the bride of a beast. She was cursed years before the Prince by the same Old Fairy that proposed to him. Beauty was cursed because she was the offspring of an illegal marriage between a fairy and a human. It was viewed that, just as the Fairy married beneath her kind to marry a human, their daughter would also mary beneath herself to marry a beast.
It's a good book, I just wish it was in chronological order, and much longer so we could have an expanded backstory to The Beauty and the Beast. Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve have the last words:
"The Queen, mother of the Prince, caused this marvelous history to be recorded in the archives of her Kingdom and those of the Fortunate Islands, that it might be handed down to posterity. They also disseminated copies of it throughout the Universe, so that the world at large might never cease to talk of the wonderful adventures of Beauty and the Beast."
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