Thorny Issues: Briar Rose

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

Tor

Pp. 281

Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose is one of a series of re-told fairy-tales created by Terri Windling, who states in the foreword, “For countless centuries, storytellers have used the richly symbolic language of fairy tales to explore all the dark, and bright, and shades of gray of the human experience. Jane Yolen knows this better than most. And does it better than most.” Yolen takes the story of Briar Rose (also known as Sleeping Beauty) and links it to the Holocaust in ways that seems perfectly feasible while simultaneously fantastical. It is a Young Adult novel, with simplistic and unrealistic plot devices and characterisation, but it is also interesting reading for anyone who understands the power of the land of make believe.

Rebecca Berlin (Becca) is a young woman who has grown up hearing her grandmother (Gemma), always telling the same story, Briar Rose, in exactly the same words. No one knows much about Gemma, but after her death, Becca finds a box of personal effects which leads her to think there may be a war-time past. Her editor, Stan, encourages her to go to Poland to seek out the mysterious past of her grandmother. With the ease of stories over reality, he arranges her travel and translator through his journalistic contacts, so that when Becca reaches Poland she is assisted by a woman named Magda an incredibly hospitable tour-guide, translator, and unlocker of gates both literal and metaphoric.

They conveniently find a man, Josef Potocki, who knows Gemma’s story, which he relates to them in the middle third of the book – a story within a story, within a story. It transpires that the castle is a concentration camp, the brambles are barbed wire, the sleeping beauty is gassed, and the prince’s kiss is the breath of life. Tales are told as a means of coping with events, and if they are painful and don’t provide relief, one wonders what is the point. Becca is desperate to paint herself as the heroine in this tale; the Cinderella of the story. She can’t wait to return to America and boast to her sisters that she found the truth, even though they thought she was crazy for trying – yes, there are two of them with similar names (Sylvia and Shana) and she is the youngest.

The fairy-tale tropes loom large throughout the novel, and the narration is tightly constructed at the expense of character. This is satisfying in and of itself, and true to the genre. It may read like a creative writing challenge, but it certainly passes the test it has set itself.

The Rose Bower from the Briar Rose series (1885-1890) by Edward Burne-Jones