Girl to the Rescue

Audio/Picture book of the week: East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Rabbit Ears Productions.

This story’s original version is a folktale collected by Asbjornsen and Moe, the Scandinavian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm. Compared to the original, D. J. MacHale’s retelling is leaner, excising a wicked stepmother and a few steps of plot after the girl arrives at the castle. The story does not suffer from this paring down, but instead is better focused on the girl’s courage and determination. She is in league with Clever Gretchen, Tatterhood, Mastermaid, and other feminists of the folklore world, the opposite of a passive maiden in distress.

Max Von Sydow’s voice and Lyle Mays’ music are the stars of this show. Rabbit Ears productions are picture books with an audio CD, and the readers are Hollywood stars. I can’t think of a better choice than Swedish actor Max Von Sydow for this Scandinavian folktale. For me, Von Sydow’s deep voice conjures up images from "The Seventh Seal" and other “ultra-serious” Ingmar Bergman films. Lyle Mays’ musical score, synthesized rather than orchestrated, is like the weather in the way it shifts, swells, dies away, and returns. It perfectly reflects the characters of the four Winds in the story.

I love the mystery surrounding the nightly visitor to the girl’s bedroom, and the dual nature of the white bear’s enchantment. I wonder whether the screenwriter(s) for the movie “Ladyhawke” had this enchantment in mind when they began their own story. Another thing I like is the twist that the Beast in this story is perfectly well-behaved, whereas it is the short-sighted Beauty whose heart needs refining. I like the pattern as the girl goes in turn to each of the four Winds, and I like the repetition of the question, “Are you afraid?” from both the bear and the North Wind.

Vivienne Flesher’s illustrations are like vague recollections from dreams: floating, fuzzy, and primitive, yet richly colored. Like Egyptian murals, only essential objects and people are shown, and they are portrayed as flat. Washes of color are placed behind each scene instead of detailed backgrounds. This style keeps the essence front and center with no distractions.

Several hints of the Middle East are placed throughout, such as domed architecture, turbans, golden sand, and toga-like costumes. They don’t seem to be in harmony with the story, but there is only one case in which the tropical setting can be said to specifically contradict the story. The first line of the story states that the peasant farmer and his family live “hidden deep in the blue forest of Norway,” but a depiction of their newly-prosperous dwelling a few pages later includes a palm tree and an elephant in the yard.

A new, exotic setting for this story could work, but to be genuinely done would require even more than just the elimination of the word “Norway”. The author would need to be involved, using words to convey climate, geography, culture, and so forth, fully grounding the story in its new time and place. As it currently stands, the exoticism comes across as a flawed attempt, and it’s not clear whether an editorial oversight occurred. It’s possible that the editors chose to leave this discrepancy in place, reasoning that the pictures are meant to be dream images and therefore don’t have to be tied to physical setting. Truth be told, for me, who listens to the audio in the car, captivated by Max Von Sydow’s deep intonations and carried aloft as the music swells, the book itself isn’t needed.

Credits: written by D. J. MacHale, illustrated by Vivienne Flesher. Read by Max Von Sydow, Music by Lyle Mays. Copyright 1991 (the year I graduated high school!), this is still in print as a Playaway Audio or as part of the CD "Rabbit Ears Treasury of World Tales, Vol. 1". Yes, this is the same D. J. MacHale who has gone on to write the Pendragon series in juvenile fantasy.