You'll do girl, you'll do: Finding Baba Yaga

Finding Baba Yaga by Jane Yolen

Tom Doherty Associates

Pp. 131

This contemporary retelling of an iconic myth is written entirely in blank verse. It is reminiscent of the artful design of a Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls, as elements of Slavic myth, Russian folklore and fairy tales cleverly fit among the contours of American realism. It also explores a number of themes including the nature and power of language, the journey from childhood to adulthood, the relationship between religion and language, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ words, the unique dynamic of female friendships and the mother/daughter relationship. Yolen begins her tale, “You think you know this story. / You do not.”

Teenaged Natasha lives with her parents, and knows she must get away from them and their constant fighting. Ever since her father has discovered religion, it has become worse as he monitors her language and behaviour. She runs away into the forest but, although the woods, stones and water are a recurring fairy tale image or reference, this is not the one familiar from storybooks and the settings are slightly skewed; “The forest opens like a yawn,/ as if it knew I was coming,/ has seen me before,/ can’t be bothered to resist.” We recognise the motifs of the lost child in the woods, but Yolen suggests there is more to the story if we look, listen, and abandon our preconceptions. At the end of Chapter Two, The Runaway, in This Is Not a Fairy Tale she writes, “Expect no princes./ Expect no magic rings./ Expect no glass slippers./ Expect no fairy godmothers. / Expect no singing dwarfs. / Expect no talking dragons. / Expect only/ seven deadlies delivered:/ exhaustion,/ boredom,/ regret,/ hunger,/ anger,/ danger,/ death./ All part of God’s taketh away.”

And then she encounters Baba Yaga, with all of her traditional traits. She lives in a house which turns about on its chicken legs: “It is like living on a house boat:/ the swell of the waves, the turn of the tides,/ a moment of emotion, with the ‘e’ removed.” She is a tough old woman with an iron nose, and the contemporary references to strong women are apparent; “She’s tougher than Clinton or Thatcher ever were.” This clash of realism and magical imagery continues as she explains how Baba Yaga flies through the sky in her mortar, guided by her pestle, but no one see her “unless you count bad dreams”. She flies “across tundra, taiga, major highways,/ avoiding traffic jams, roundabouts,/ only bothering the occasional helicopter/ or low-flying private planes.”

Natasha learns to tell her story, and that “A story is, not always means.” It may be grim – “I think I know now/ there are no happy evers./ Only happy moments.” – but she grows as a narrator, examining the meanings of words and exploring postmodernism through form and structure, drawing attention to the artifice of the narrative. “I am becoming a poet./ I am thinking in metaphors./ I am walking through a poem.”

As Natasha rewrites the myth with herself as the hero of her own story, she discovers that “Stories retold are stories remade.” After all, if we believe critical analysis, there are only seven stories anyway, so we need to refresh them every now and then. In searching for (and finding) Baba Yaga, Natasha is really on a quest to discover her own inner vice, strength and truth. By the end of the book she states, “So, this is a tale/ both old and new,/ borrowed, narrowed,/ broadened, deepened,/ rethreaded, rewoven,/ stitches uneven,/ re-plastered, re-harled, rehearsed, reworked/ until it’s my own.” It is familiar and unique. It is brilliant.