My sister has talked so much about Fables for months (I mean, not ceaselessly, just when it came up), and yes, I mostly ignored her; and I also mostly ignored Nymeth, who has been saying how good Fables is (are?) for a while too. So now I am sorry that I ignored y’all, because I grabbed a volume the last time I was at the library – I really wanted Goodbye, Chunky Rice but they didn’t have it – and I read it last night.
It was the fifth volume, which isn’t a genius way to start out a series. I think it’s funny that I have this mindset where I think it’s totally fine to start in the middle of a series of graphic novels, when I would never ever ever do it with regular books, or even with a TV series. I read the second volume of Sandman first, and if the bookshop guy hadn’t stopped me, I would have read the fifth straight away after that, because it was the only other one the bookshop had in. This cavalier attitude towards correct order really needs to go.
According to Nymeth, any remarks on current Fables issues will be spoilers for previous ones, so I won’t say anything about the plot. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, the premise (and I may be making serious mistakes here because I have only read the one volume) is that all these fairy tale people were chucked out of their homeland(s?) by a mysterious person called the Adversary, and they have started their own community in New York, called Fabletown. They have their own mayor and everything.
It was charming. I must read the others. Also, it made me want to hunt up every one of Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books and read those stories over again. I love, love, love fairy tales. I like “Rapunzel” because I have very long hair, and I liked “The White Cat” and “Trusty John” a lot; I loved Ali Baba and the story about the fisherman and his wife; and particularly I really like “The Six [or Wild] Swans”. And “The Frog Prince” also.
Speaking of fairy tales, did anyone besides me read Mary de Morgan’s fairy tales? She had some wonderful ones. My two favorites (though she wrote a bunch of them) were “The Heart of Princess Joan” and particularly particularly, “The Necklace of Princess Fioromonde.” They should make a film of “The Necklace of Princess Fioromonde.” I think it could make a lovely film. Or, oh, even better, someone should write a book of it – it could be totally brilliant and subversive, because yeah, she’s evil, but she doesn’t want to get married and why the hell should she? Mm. This could be great. If you have not read this story, you totally should. I have a necklace that I wear every day – it’s just a Julian of Norwich medal because she’s my patron saint – and whenever I’m putting it on or taking it off, I think of this rather creepy story. I do not want to become a bead.