First, you said:



This is patently incorrect. The stories were stories that were meant to be told to children. The name of the book is, I repeat, Kinder- und Hausmärchen. The Brothers Grimm revised the stories specifically to make them more acceptable to children after initial criticism regarding overt sexuality in the stories. Someone who did not intend for the tales to be told to children would simply not do this. Dostoevsky would not rework The Brothers Karamazov if he found out people were using it as a bedtime story for children. That wasn't his intent (and of course, he died before he could finish the second part, so he had no time to revise anyway, but that's beside the point).

The overarching interest of the Brothers Grimm in folklore was to preserve national traditions. This is why many stories they heard were excluded. They wanted to preserve the GERMAN stories. They certainly intended for adults to buy the books that they published, but it wasn't because they felt the stories were for adults. It was part of the Romantic (as a movement in the arts) notion of a national identity. However, the stories were still stories for children. Your review implies that somehow, the stories were really for adults but were "degraded" into being childrens' stories. That is directly misleading.

Then, you go on to say, in response to my points:



Dozens of variations? Dozens? That implies around 40 or more variations of each story, to be charitable. I'm fairly certain that the variations are minor and the numbers of variant writings are far lower, so let's cut the hyperbole. In addition, you're not reviewing dozens of variations. You're reviewing the stories that the Brothers Grimm set to paper. To say that, because a different version contained anti-religious statements, there is an anti-religious "foundation" or "echo" remaining in the Grimm stories, is to impute something that isn't there. That would be like saying that Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? is an excellent example of the use of dactylic hexameter on the grounds that it is a retelling of The Odyssey.

Not only that, but saying that the anti-religious tone had dwindled to "naught" as the result of the passage of time is to imply that there weren't variant versions floating around in the German oral tradition that were anti-religious, or in other countries.



I didn't say there weren't deeper meanings. My point is that you shouldn't talk about meanings that aren't there and avoid the ones that are. You're writing a review of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, not a thesis on the evolution, variation and meaning of the fairy tale generally. The "several other variants that for obvious reasons are not as readily available" can be reviewed if you want to, but they really aren't relevant to any discussion if no one you are discussing the works with has access to them. If you want to review The Great Cat Massacre, go ahead.

A far better thing to have done in this post, however, would have been to actually discuss the book you were reviewing in more depth and with more clarity. For example, Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkäppchen) is described in the first sentence as "eine Dirne", which at the time could mean "a lass" but is now solely a term for prostitutes.

Not only that, but look at the interaction between parents and children, which is often quite ghastly. Hänsel and Grethel's OWN MOTHER suggests driving them out into the forest to fend for themselves (this was changed in the later versions to a stepmother, but my book is from the original edition - it was shocking). In the story of Cinderella (Aschenputtel), the name is a cruel nickname given to her by her stepsisters, yet her OWN FATHER uses it when he addresses her in direct speech for the first time in the story. That by itself is worthy of note.

Rather than mention all of these things, however, you turned the review into some vague and nebulous summary of fairy tales generally.

I'm not saying these things to try to offend you, but rather, as constructive criticism of someone who generally writes more pointed and relevant reviews, and concerning a work that has a lot of interesting things going on that didn't get mentioned in your review.