The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye

Title: The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye

Author: A. S. Byatt

Publisher: Chatto and Windus (1994)

Genre(s): Fairy tales, short stories, fairy tale retellings

Length: 277 pages, 5 stories

Synopsis: Ranging in tone from traditional stories to modern reinterpretations, these stories explore the very idea of fairy tales from five different perspectives.

My Rating: 4 Stars

My Opinion:

This collection of five “fairy tales” (though it would perhaps be more accurate to say four fairy tales and a novella) is one of the stranger pieces of literature I’ve found. I don’t mean to suggest that it wasn’t enjoyable, but rather that I was not (am still not) quite sure how to enjoy it. The stories, each taken individually, are quite delightful. Several show a self-awareness of their own fairy tale conventions, leading characters to make unexpected decisions that still somehow fit within the archetypal structure of the fairy tale or fable. Together, though, they seem a bit confused. One might argue that there is a logical sort of progression from the first, very traditional story, to the culminating novella from which the collection takes its name. The stories grow steadily less traditional and more self-aware, right up to the literary discussion of the academician characters in the final tale. All right, I’ll buy that. But there are so few tales leading up to that culminating English-major’s delight that the transition between is jarring. I have not given this collection four stars because it is poorly written. On the contrary, the writing is complex and really quite lovely. I’m giving it a less than perfect score because it changes the game on the reader without any warning. One of the charms of the fairy tale genre is that it is predictable, relying heavily on archetypal forms and characters. Even the “unpredictable” modern retellings subvert these archetypes in particular ways. With this collection, the reader is greeted with a lovely traditional fairy tale, but quickly finds that the rest of the book is increasingly less traditional. The structure, perhaps, is making a statement, but when all the reader’s expecting is a collection of fantasies, the statement is a bit hard to swallow.