Once Upon a Time VIII - Short Story Quest III - The Case of the Four and Twenty Bl... by Neil Gaiman

[byslantedlight]

This quest involves the reading of one or more short stories that fit within at least one of the four genres during the course of any weekend, or weekends, during the challenge. Ideally you would post about your short story readings on Sundays or Mondays...
Fantasy - The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Neil Gaiman
Folklore - Bells by Hugh Lupton
Fairy tale
Mythology - Wildfire in Manhattan by Joanne Harris

This weekend's short story is from a book I picked up in the library yesterday, Neil Gaiman's M is for Magic, a book of short stories for the young. Well, I think they're supposed to be for the young...

The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds was, coincidentally (?) another story I'd describe as from a hard-bitten cynical Manhattan view of the world...touching on the gum-shoe in tone (as I wrote about Wildfire in Manhattan) - but even more so. Jack Horner is a hardbitten gumshoe. It's pretty certain that he doesn't live in Manhattan, mind - he's investigating the case of a certain someone who fell off a wall - and whose sister Jill Dumpty believes that he was pushed...

The story that follows is full of both cleverly inserted nursery rhyme characters, and cleverly inserted nods to the gangster-type world of the hard-bitten gumshoe, and it's an enjoyable read in an in-on-the-joke kind of way. It's all our nursery rhyme fantasies churned up with American detective fantasies, and it's amusing.

The bit that threw me was the middle ground - the sort of fourth wall, I guess - of the story. The book looks like it's written for kids, but the subject matter isn't. Which of course kids love, so it's presumably written for kids. Plus Gaiman talks in his introduction about loving short stories when he was a kid. And the other wee preface is a simple note Writing imaginative tales for the young is like sending coals to Newcastle. For coals. Although really that could go either way - maybe it's us "grown-ups" who need them most.

Okay, but the reason I was thrown by the ambiguity (which I'm usually rather partial to - I hate it when books are categorised as for this-or-that person) was that Jack Horner was the type of gumshoe who all but goes hubba-hubba at a beautiful dame. When said beautiful dame turns up with the case for him (as she should, in the meld of these two worlds), and whenever he sees her again, he's all about leching over her curves. And even though I know it's part of the gumshoe genre, if this is a book for kids, I really wish he hadn't included that part of the stereotype, cos there's too much of that still out there in the world. As if he wouldn't have taken the case if she hadn't been beautiful and with curves in all the right places. Because I hate the idea of kids growing up with that in the back of their heads, boys and girls... and I don't think Gaiman's books and stories are like that really, it's just... that jumped out at me in this one, and I really wish it hadn't cos it could have been left out without the rest of the story suffering. So... a gargh moment, that carried on throughout because it came in at the very beginning.

Overall... well, it was a coincidence, cos this was just the first story in the book, but that's two once-upon-a-time-meeting-the-modern-world stories I've read, and although they've both been fine, neither of them have grabbed me in the way that once-upon-a-time usually does. Is it the modern-mix in general, or just this particular genre of modern mix? Perhaps we shall see as I read more short stories... *g*

Comments

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

Hey there! Just wanted to say, I've been looking at your recent book reviews as they come by and sort of indirectly enjoying your enjoyment - but I haven't thought of anything to say, as I haven't read any of them and quite a few are in genres I don't really know much about. And then I thought, well, you can't actually see me sitting here nodding silently but with nothing to add, useful or otherwise - so I thought I'd just say hi. The sun is shining like anything, and I am faffing around at the computer paying bills ... argh. I hate that. Never mind. Off to pick up Zoic#2 in a minute, so there'll be a few minutes of sunshine on the way at least!
::waving from the Smoke::

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hello again! It's good to know that you're nodding silently, but even better coming to say hi even if you've nothing to say about the story... relevant comments totally not compulsory. I figure most people won't have read the things that I read, or even be vaguely interested in picking them up (though it's nice when they have/are, too *g*) so the listing bit is as much just a record for me as anything else. I keep thinking that one day I'll make a proper post again, about life, and maybe with a photo or two, but then I get all well-no-one'd-really-care, so I don't... but maybe one day. Not that there'd be anything to comment about then either, really, come to think of it! Ah well - hey-ho!

The sun's shining here again this morning too,which is a rather cheerful thing, and little tree out my window is seriously spring-green, though the big trees over the road aren't at all yet - I'm a bit worried about them, to be honest... Mostly the fields around are all covered in yellow rapeseed now, and smelling... sweet. A bit too strong and sweet at times! But still - pretty! *waves fro the yellow-covered countryside*

[caffyolay.livejournal.com]

Haven't heard of this book of Gaiman's short stories... didn't know he'd written a volume for kids in fact... if they are for kids because your description sounds like a very odd children's story. I think that would have thrown me too. I'm becoming a bit odd in my old age because I no longer want that in my adult reading either. Months ago I started a sci-fi - written by a woman - and within the first few pages the main female character was telling us about her wonderful 'curves' and how she knew how to use them to great effect... and so on and so on, blah blah blah. I lasted about twenty pages. P then read it and had no problem, but then he's a 'bloke' and doesn't have my weird sensitivity to this kind of thing. I might have understood it had it been written by a man as men sometimes do write these fantasy women into their stories... but women don't generally. And I didn't really think Gaiman did either. How odd.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of them either, although I accidentally picked up another book of short stories I'd thought were his a few weeks ago - they turned out to be ones that he'd chosen for a collection. Still good. *g*

I kind of presume Gaiman was including the curves bit because it's part of the genre he was using for the story, but... it just felt a bit icky, in an everyday sexism kind of way, cos if we don't show it as normal to kids, then maybe they'll grow up realising it isn't normal... *sighs* I suppose that's probably how it went though - one of those things that you don't realise might be sharp-poking sexism because it's such an everyday thing, if you're not particularly one of the people at the sharp end.... as you say, I don't get the impression that Gaiman is like that at all, from his other books and blogs...

One thing I have realised over the years - being a woman doesn't stop people from joining in with all kinds of unpleasant sexist thoughts and behaviour.... I've got to admit, my first thought about the author of that book is to wonder whether she's either unsympathetic to any woman who's not all about their figure, or else is off on a bit of wish-fulfillment brought on by other people's attitudes to women... I'd like to think she was all empowered and proud and that's why she included it - but then why pander to the worst attitudes of society like that? *sighs*

It was a very clever, witty and amusing story in other ways, though!