Happy Halloween
So I’m sitting in my house, in bed, with most of the lights out. I am hiding from the teenster trick-or-treaters. Call me paranoid, but I walked past several youngsters on bikes in masks on the walk home from the train. This isn’t the riots people.
In keeping with the Halloween mood, I thought I’d read one of the Grimm Tales in Phillip Pullman’s new book:
Grimm Tales for Old and Young by Philip Pullman
Publisher: Penguin Classics
IBSN: 9781846140266
I’ve had this in my TBR pile for a while now after reading lots and lots of its reviews. As per usual I have too many books on the go, so instead, I thought I’d read a tale at a time.
Tonight…because it sounded creepy….I read ‘The Girl With No Hands’.
To be honest, it wasn’t that creepy. Weird though. It’s a story about a miller who unwittingly sells his daughter to the devil. This is only at first. The miller cowardly goes on to cut off his daughters own hands to save himself. Some crazy deal with the devil.
The daughter leaves – I would! – and because she is so good in spirit and angel looks after her and brings her to food and shelter. And they all live happily ever after. Forget about the devil? Yeah you did! He’s still trying to mess everything up, bur bear in mind this is still a fairy tale – so everything works out ok in the end. Well, I wouldn’t be that happy with having spent years of my life in peril, but ok, sure, be happy about it.
Pullman’s tone is easy to read and I liked his explanatory paragraph at the end, but I’m not sure how gripping it would be to read in full.
Anyways, have a spooky evening y’all.
Reading In The Evening 