Briar Rose (Coover, Robert)

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest rating I could give, I rate this book a 7. It's hard to stay with. The writing is not bad, but the approach is cynical. Actually, it gives me a feeling that the author does not really like females, and is taking out his aggression on the fair sex by these writings. I could do without being so much in the prince's "head", or the evil fairy's "head" - especially before bedtime. Nobody wants a rotting princess full of worms, either. What ever happened to the other fairies? They aren't here. I can't read this book before I go to sleep. It's not a soothing experience. It's dark; but some people like that kind of thing. I don't find it to be an erotic book in any sense of the word - it is more aggressive than feeling. In fact? the prince does everything short of squatting in front of a mirror to comb his hair back like "The Fonz" from Happy Days, before meeting the princess. "Aaaayyy!" (Gee, I think I would take THE FONZ over this prince, any day!)

This book is brief but dense, and reading it is an interesting experience. A lot of thought has gone into constructing it, and Coover's academic background comes through very clearly. The result, though, doesn't leave a very lasting impression. Perhaps I should read it again.

For a short book, fewer than 100 pages, it is one long, bad, boring read. Save yourself; don't read it if you don't have to.

Newly inaugurated into the Penguin Modern Classics imprint, Robert Coover's Briar Rose & Spanking the Maid presents two novella-length twisted fairytales in the very best Angela Carter tradition.Briar Rose is Coover's interpretation of Sleeping Beauty as a young woman is bewitched to sleep for a hundred years as she waits for the prophesised kiss that will awaken her. In a subversive break from the original story, the bewitching fairy is here both good and bad and so, while she stays to watch over the sleeper, she is also compelled to flood the girl's mind with dark and disturbing dreams. While sometimes the girl dreams of being woken by a handsome prince straight out of a Disney cartoon, on other occasions the prince is a brute or already married or seeking someone else or even part of a gang bent on defiling her.The catalogue of dreams about awakenings, both good and bad, runs on and on until the boundaries between reality and perception of the dreamscape are impossibly blurred. It is a testament to Coover's genius that the reader as well as the characters is left puzzling over what is real and what is not and the ultimate fate of the dozing damsel. Of course, the prince himself doesn't fair much better as, tangled up in the briars that surround the sleeping beauty's tower prison, he is left to imagine all the different ways in which his quest for love could play out.Spanking the Maid is a tale of equal unreality centred on the unusual interactions between a master and his maid. They too are trapped in the same kind of semi-nightmare of repartition as Briar Rose as they seem doomed to repeat the same actions day after day. Each morning the maid resolves to perform her tasks perfectly so that there can be no need for censure, just as the master resolves that he will refrain from administering punishment that day. The master becomes increasingly frustrated that the maid cannot seem to understand how difficult his job is and how he would far prefer to let her carelessness pass unchecked while, in turn, the maid becomes progressively worse as the intensity of the punishment increases.Once again repetition is key here as the requirement to "assume the position" ultimately frees the maid from her sense of obligation about her work while, at the same time, the master becomes increasingly tied down by the need to administer chastisements. Coover's exploration of the eroticism of the co-dependent relationship between the pair [to say nothing of their joint spanking fetish] actually results in Spanking the Maid being a rather chilling tale of obsession and obligation.Briar Rose & Spanking the Maid involves two delightful, if brief, trips down the rabbit hole and into darkly comical mind of Robert Coover. Both of these subversive fairytales carry far more weight that their page count would lead you to believe as the stories [as a whole and in each of their numerous permutations] haunt the reader's mind long after the book has been closed.

Using an unusual plot and structure, Robert Coover examines archetypes of the fairy tale and its characters' existence while the traditional story would be skipping ahead. Taking place during the extended sleep that Sleeping Beauty is cursed to, "Briar Rose" delves into the subconsciouses of the princess, the witch who cursed her to a horizontal nightmare, and a prince that may or may not end up being that charming or "the one".The cyclical nature of the story may be tedious or overwhelming to some readers, but by examining characters who think of nothing, but their dreams and aspirations on a loop, Coover is able to build a story with nuance and develop characters that prove to be too single-minded to find anything near "happily ever after".Not interested in following a standard rendition of the fairy tale, Coover instead delves into the message behind the story examining not only the stereotypes engrained within the female characters, but also those glued to the concept of masculinity. This is not a story of love, but one of convention told in the least of conventional forms.

sick

Robert Coover is a writer's writer, a prose stylist with a hugely inventive and influential body of work behind him that has earned him prizes, fellowships and the admiration of countless other wordsmiths. My only previous experience of his work was a story contained within McSweeney's 16. Called Heart Suit, the story was printed on 14 oversized playing cards and by beginning with the King and finishing with the Joker the other 12 cards could be shuffled and read in any order. It was a nice idea although the self-contained nature of each card meant that there wasn't an awful lot to be gained narratively speaking from the shuffling. Four works of his are now getting the Penguin Modern Classics treatment with new introductions and I began with this collection of two novellas (at about 80 pages each are they long stories, novellas..?) billed as 'darkly playful introductions to Coover's writing.' John Banville provides the introduction to this volume and points out that"Any reader who cared to know just what it is like to write a novel will be well instructed here, and will come away from the experience suitably chastened, cheeks aglow from a lesson expertly administered."He is talking here about Spanking The Maid, a brilliant piece of writing on writing, presented as the interactions of a maid and her master. Each morning it seems they are doomed to follow the same pattern of events; she determined that today will be the day that she gets everything right, he that he will manage not to end up where he always does, administering the usual punishment. He is the writer, she the writing and the frustrations of the process are brilliantly illustrated through this master/ servant relationship. The bond between them couldn't be closer of course 'for though he is her master, her failures are inescapably his.'Both novellas have the same slightly disorientating feel, alternating between the two viewpoints but not following a traditional linear structure. There is lots of repetition; of action, reaction and even text; but the subtle differences each time mean that it doesn't feel repetitious but rather like a piece of music that returns to its themes with different instruments. And the very act of writing is repetitious of course and Coover fully exploits his set-up to show the frustrations of trying to get it down right, recalling in his efforts the famous quotation of Beckett's - 'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' And that of course is why he cannot give up, must try again each day even if it does end up with the same punishing conclusion. His life is consecrated to hers and so even if it is her in the traditional role of subservience, and she who receives the spanking each day, he is no more free than she is, committed to his role of master even though that too ends in failure each day.Briar Rose is Coover's play on the fairy-tale of Sleeping Beauty. A maiden bewitched to sleep for the last hundred years awaits the kiss from the questing prince that will awaken her. So far so familiar, except that Coover's story plays with conventions a little. Our maiden is accompanied by an old crone who seems to be both good and bad fairy, filling her sleep with tales of her rescue where her prince is sometimes exactly as you might expect but can also be married to someone else, or violent, or just one of a group that arrives to defile her. There is something very chilling about these different versions of awakening, coming as they do in sleep so that she, and even we, struggle to know what is real and what imagined, what conscious, what unconscious.Our hero meanwhile has found the beginning of his quest to be almost laughably easy but it isn't long before he is mired in his task and beginning to question why he is bothering at all. Once firmly caught up in the briars that surround the fabled tower, and give the heroine her name, he realises that he is compelled to continue 'not for love of her alone, but for love of love, that the world not be emptied of it for want of valor.' Just as the maiden dreams different versions of her rescue so too our hero imagines the many ways his story might play out so that even as he remains trapped in the briars, as much a prisoner as the woman he seeks to rescue, he can transport himself to her chamber and their romantic union.In both stories it seems, it isn't the characters who are in control of their destinies but some other force far more capricious. The illusion of satisfaction continuously eludes both master and maid, and for prince and princess it is that old crone, the fairy, the storyteller who may have created not just the narrative but the characters themselves."The good fairy's boon to this child, newborn, was to arrange for her to expire before suffering the misery of the ever-after part of the human span, the wicked fairy in her, for the sake of her own entertainment, transforming that well-meant gift to death in life and life in death without surcease. And, in truth, she has been entertained, is entertained still. How else pass these tedious centuries?"I opened by saying that Coover is a writer's writer and by that I mean that as a reader I appreciated rather than really engaged with both of these novellas. They don't offer up the usual narrative comforts (and a good thing too), something that I expect to be repeated in the other story collection Pricksongs and Descants, so I shall be intrigued to see what he achieves within his novel, Gerald's Party. The playfulness is enjoyable and that sinister undertone keeps it always interesting. No wonder there are so many who want to see Coover's reputation cemented.

Earlier this year, I discovered American author Robert Coover when I read his volume in the Pengiun Mini Modern Classics series. One of the three stories in that collection, a novella called 'The Babysitter', was a mini masterpiece; the other two were pretty good too and I duly resolved to read more of this fascinating author, and soon got the opportunity - and here I am.From my Coover reading so far, it would seem that he has two main preoccupations - fairy tales and sex.These come together in Briar Rose which is a reimagining of Sleeping Beauty. Coover's version though is nothing like you've read before. It's dark and nasty, but totally unlike say how Angela Carter would treat it. The familiar elements are there: a princess has pricked her finger on a spindle and lies asleep for a hundred years, and a prince arrives to battle through the briars and greet his true love with a kiss. That is where the similarity ends. Coover imagines what might happen if the wrong prince turned up and raped the princess? What if the princess grew old while asleep? What happens to her bodily fluids? - Yes! There are hundreds of possible outcomes and he leads us through them in a series of vignettes. We're never sure whether the princess is dreaming them, or whether they happened and she is doomed to go through it all again until the right prince comes along. Meanwhile, between these iterations from sleeping beauty's point of view, are a similar set of the prince. Wondering what she'll look like. Will he be the first. Will he be the one? He battles through the briars for ever it seems, and he begins to wonder if it was worth it...Spanking the Maid has a similar structure. Each day, a maid arrives to clean her master's bedroom, but she always gets something wrong and has to be chastised for it. She tries so hard, but can never reach perfection, and submits to her punishment, resolving to do better next time. Her master, doesn't want to administer it, but feels he has to, to teach her a lesson. Coover describes the daily spanking in great detail and I was just wishing for it to end.Coover employed the same stylistic tricks in 'The Babysitter', (which is in his collection  Pricksongs & Descants along with several more fairy tales). However in that story, the multiple viewpoints and retelling of events did creep towards a real climax and a thoroughly resolved ending. Both of these novellas had a `There must be more to life than this' feel for me, and finished on a whimper rather than a bang. They were both thoroughly distasteful too, full of base emotions, not a whiff of fairy tale romance to give any relief!Although I did wish for both stories to end so I could be released from the vicious cycle of the recesses of his imagination, the writing was compelling. I do feel I would need more stamina to cope with a full length novel of this intensity though. Pricksongs & Descants

Robert Coover has recently been added to the list of Penguin Modern Classics authors, and this book is an interesting collection of two of his novellas. In these stories, Coover takes parable or fairy-tales and twists them until they are almost unrecognisable, playing with the form and story. Briar Rose is the story of Sleeping Beauty reimagined and retold repeatedly: it is told from the perspective of the wicked witch, who is forced to tell Briar Rose the tale of a princess who falls asleep after pricking her finger on a needle, and must wait for her prince to come and wake her, over and over; from Briar's perspective as she dreams and worries about who will wake her; and the prince, who is stuck in the briar patch that surrounds the castle, each time becoming more lost and bewildered. Coover writes the story so that it is possible for each new imagining to be reordered and not lose the sense of the story, which presents a somewhat disorientating experience for the reader as the story repeats in triplets, each time becoming subtly different and never quite resolving itself.Spanking The Maid is just as disturbing for the reader, telling the story of a prince and his inept maid, working through a perpetual dance of the maid making a mistake - a wet towel, broken window, dirty bed - for which she must be punished. Again, the sections could really be placed in any order and it wouldn't affect the readability, but this second story is slightly less bewildering than the first.Coover brings a subtle humour to these stories, lacing the thoughts of the prince for example with wit as he becomes more and more exasperated with his maid and contemplates giving up. They are excellent examples of writing and playing with form, but they are not easy to read and to make sense of them, they need a dedicated reader. This may put off casual readers, but those who are willing to delve further into the book will be rewarded with an engaging, often funny set of stories.

The author, Coover, shows us why writing is called a craft. Nearly every word is carefully chosen, every turn of phrase linked to its precursors, each thought packed with meaning. The book is sublimely worked by a master craftsman. But what a strange work!The first of these twin novellas, Briar Rose, is Sleeping Beauty told from three different perspectives: the teenage princess, locked inside her dreams for a century; the old fairy, who must teach Rose her purpose; the confident prince, hacking his way to heroic status past the bodies of those who died before him. It's an introspective piece, very funny in places as the fairy tries to keep herself motivated by giving her charge ever more peculiar dreams.The dreams are almost entirely about sex: perverted sex, painful sex, incest, bestiality, violence and some things you'd hardly associate with sex at all. In spite of all her dream sex, the princess never reaches fulfilment - she waits for her rescuer to fill her, physically and metaphorically, with love.Meanwhile, the optimistic young man outside the castle suffers his thorn-inflicted wounds bravely, sustained by thoughts of love and glory. Sadly for our princess, it seems the glory moves him more than love - we know he'll never be satisfied in his quest, but neither he nor Rose is aware of that yet.If the story has a meaning - and I'm not sure it does - it would be about dissatisfaction and futility. Briar Rose, the embodiment of female beauty, is a sex object where really she yearns for love. The prince strives and suffers for recognition: but will any crown be big and bright enough for him? As a comedy crone with magic powers, the fairy has to do her repetitive job for as long as it takes: infinite power brings tedious responsibility.Coover's second story, too, tackles power and sex but in a very different way. A rather unpleasant old gentleman beats his maid's bare bottom for her daily housekeeping errors. Spanking appears to be his life's work - he has 'manuals' - and the work of the maid may be not so much cleaning as being whacked. There's great humour and insight in this tale, too, but I found it repugnant: the master-servant relationship depicted here is abuse writ large.From the maid's initial trust that her master does, really, want to teach her perfection to the story's chaotic end, the mechanism of abuse is tracked and coloured with both players' desires. The disgusting old man is a victim of his own hatefulness, locked in a pattern of pain that seems to have been imprinted on him in boyhood. His victim, the maid, gets trapped in his pattern by her over-willingness to please. I learned rather more about different kinds of whips than I needed to know.As others have said, there's an enveloping hallucinatory quality to these stories. Above all, they're descriptive. Coover's imagery drags you and keeps you in a mysterious place that's none too pleasant, but feels comforting at the same time. The two stories are linked, linguistically and idealogically. They should be read together.