Deerskin
Robin McKinley's Deerskin has been haunting me for a while.
I first heard about it back in high school. I read and fell in love with a short story. I forget the name and author of that story and have thus been unable to find it again. But somehow the fact that it was inspired by a book called Deerskin stuck in my head. Over the years I've wanted to read it, but I've had a hard time finding it. Sometimes I got distracted by other books and simply forgot that this was the one I went to the bookstore to find. More often I looked and looked but couldn't find it. I considered ordering it online once or twice, but a part of me felt like that was cheating. I can't really explain that except to say that I'd lived with this book in the back of my head for so long that I felt like I needed to stumble on it naturally.
And I finally did.
Last weekend, after spending too long at the mall looking for a pair of jeans and failing to find a dress for my rehearsal dinner, I wandered into Barnes and Noble to recharge. I was browsing, not even intending to buy anything, when my eyes fell on Deerskin. I wasn't even in the right section of the store. The book had been mis-shelved. It was clearly a sign.
After I bought it, I found the strength to go to another store where I immediately found the perfect dress for my rehearsal dinner. Obviously a sign.
From what I've read over the years, Robin McKinley mostly retells fairy tails. Deerskin is a retelling of Donkeyskin, one of the darker, more twisted fairy-tales out there. Which is saying something.
The tale goes something like this:
Once upon a time there was a great king who married the most beautiful woman in the world. They were deeply in love, and under them the kingdom prospered, until one day the queen grew ill. Before she died, she made her husband promise that he would never marry again, unless he found a woman even more beautiful than herself, thinking this would ensure that the king never married again. Upon her death, the king fell into a deep grief.
The years passed, the king began to heal, and his daughter reached womanhood. It was soon apparent that she was at least as beautiful as her mother had been, if not more so. The king became obsessed and declared his intentions to marry his own daughter, fulfilling his promise to his first wife.
The princess sought to stave off this wedding by making increasingly difficult demands. A dress the color of the sky, a dress the shone like the moon, a dress as bright and terrible as the sun. Finally, the skin of her father's favorite donkey, which she used to disguise herself and escape her obsessive father.
Robin McKinley expands on this tale, building the suspense and horror and spending a lot of time on the after-effects of the king's treatment of his daughter and her slow healing process. Deerskin was a difficult book to read. There's rape and abuse, and the added horror of the king's subjects siding with him. The princess struggles mightily with PTSD after she escapes, and it takes her the rest of the book to come to terms with what happened to her.
But that's not to discount this book or this story, which was one of my favorites even when I didn't have a name to put to it. The princess suffers, but she also saves herself, something that's all too rare in those classic fairy tales. There's no knight in shining armor here, no gallant prince or kind woodsman to swoop in and rescue the princess. She escapes, and she learns how to take care of herself, relying on her own wit and courage. She ultimately finds a way to rebuild her shattered life and be happy again. It's the best kind of fairy tale.
She also doesn't need a man to save her from the dragon she encounters. Because she's just that awesome.
I first heard about it back in high school. I read and fell in love with a short story. I forget the name and author of that story and have thus been unable to find it again. But somehow the fact that it was inspired by a book called Deerskin stuck in my head. Over the years I've wanted to read it, but I've had a hard time finding it. Sometimes I got distracted by other books and simply forgot that this was the one I went to the bookstore to find. More often I looked and looked but couldn't find it. I considered ordering it online once or twice, but a part of me felt like that was cheating. I can't really explain that except to say that I'd lived with this book in the back of my head for so long that I felt like I needed to stumble on it naturally.
And I finally did.
Last weekend, after spending too long at the mall looking for a pair of jeans and failing to find a dress for my rehearsal dinner, I wandered into Barnes and Noble to recharge. I was browsing, not even intending to buy anything, when my eyes fell on Deerskin. I wasn't even in the right section of the store. The book had been mis-shelved. It was clearly a sign.
After I bought it, I found the strength to go to another store where I immediately found the perfect dress for my rehearsal dinner. Obviously a sign.
From what I've read over the years, Robin McKinley mostly retells fairy tails. Deerskin is a retelling of Donkeyskin, one of the darker, more twisted fairy-tales out there. Which is saying something.
The tale goes something like this:
Once upon a time there was a great king who married the most beautiful woman in the world. They were deeply in love, and under them the kingdom prospered, until one day the queen grew ill. Before she died, she made her husband promise that he would never marry again, unless he found a woman even more beautiful than herself, thinking this would ensure that the king never married again. Upon her death, the king fell into a deep grief.
The years passed, the king began to heal, and his daughter reached womanhood. It was soon apparent that she was at least as beautiful as her mother had been, if not more so. The king became obsessed and declared his intentions to marry his own daughter, fulfilling his promise to his first wife.
The princess sought to stave off this wedding by making increasingly difficult demands. A dress the color of the sky, a dress the shone like the moon, a dress as bright and terrible as the sun. Finally, the skin of her father's favorite donkey, which she used to disguise herself and escape her obsessive father.
Robin McKinley expands on this tale, building the suspense and horror and spending a lot of time on the after-effects of the king's treatment of his daughter and her slow healing process. Deerskin was a difficult book to read. There's rape and abuse, and the added horror of the king's subjects siding with him. The princess struggles mightily with PTSD after she escapes, and it takes her the rest of the book to come to terms with what happened to her.
But that's not to discount this book or this story, which was one of my favorites even when I didn't have a name to put to it. The princess suffers, but she also saves herself, something that's all too rare in those classic fairy tales. There's no knight in shining armor here, no gallant prince or kind woodsman to swoop in and rescue the princess. She escapes, and she learns how to take care of herself, relying on her own wit and courage. She ultimately finds a way to rebuild her shattered life and be happy again. It's the best kind of fairy tale.
She also doesn't need a man to save her from the dragon she encounters. Because she's just that awesome.
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