#sondheim understood this with into the woods; the deconstruction of narrative itself is able to happen because we are able to believe in -> | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iphigeniacomplex · 5 months

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it’s very easy to tell the good satires and pastiches from the bad ones because the bad ones are too afraid to live within the form. like if you are doing work with fairy tales and you are refusing to look closer at the underlying logic and unspoken rules of what can seem at first to be a senseless form, you are not going to create meaningful work. to borrow a turn of phrase originally used by maria tatar, if you refuse to enter “the house of fairy tale” as anything more than a gawking tourist, you will miss the particular order to the way the table is set, the rooms that are locked vs the rooms that are simply difficult to enter, the set of the floorboards and the position of the furniture. whatever you build will then be a gilded imitation of how you believe the house of fairy tale ought to look, the table set according to your educated specifications and every door open. there can be no interrogation of themes from a writer who views the form as beneath them!

#it speaks!#sondheim understood this with into the woods; the deconstruction of narrative itself is able to happen because we are able to believe in ->#<- the fairy tale logic he employs prior to this.#its a kids book but adam gidwitz understood this with a tale dark and grimm!!#cant speak for the rest of the series but that first book uses the absurdity of fairy tale logic to speak about the absurdity of ->#<- adulthood and the pedagogy present in many fairy tales to discuss the ways parents hurt their children.#rule of threes is important but theres so much on my list ive yet to read; always welcome recommendations.#fairy tales #into the woods #<- this comes from musings on how successfully i feel that musical functions so it gets the tag

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