Have my Babies, Neil Gaiman
I think of her hair as black as coal, her lips as red as blood, her skin, snow-white. As do I. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a fairy tale, nay, a beloved fairy tale about a young, beautiful girl with hair as black as ebony, lips as red as blood, and skin as white as snow. It is the story of the triumph of good over evil; of the victory of an innocent, loving and beautiful child over her clever, evil, equally beautiful step mother. But Neil Gaiman doesn't think so. Why? Because he's Neil fucking Gaiman and he can ruin any fairytale he wants.
You see, it's all about perspective. The kind and gentle (for the intents and purposes of this story only) stepmother says, "They call me wise, but I am far from wise, for all that I foresaw fragments of it, frozen moments caught in pools of water or in the cold glass of my mirror. If I were wise I would not have tried to change what I saw. If I were wise I would have killed myself before ever I encountered her, before ever I caught him."
"Wise, and a witch, or so they said, and I’d seen his face in my dreams and in reflections for all my life: sixteen years of dreaming of him before he reined his horse by the bridge that morning, and asked my name." At the ripe age of sixteen, she finds herself in love with the beautiful king of the land. Sixteen and but a child herself, she finds herself married to him, and caring (I use the word loosely here) for his five year-old daughter. Her eyes were black as coal, black as her hair; her lips were redder than blood. ... Her teeth seemed sharp, even then, in the lamplight. But of course, everything about the daughter is not as it seems, and tragedy befalls our heroine.
A landscape, unrecognisable after a snowfall; that is what she has made of my life.
Saying anything beyond this would, of course compromise the build of the story. I will say this, though; this book is not for the faint-hearted, as beautiful as it is. Neil Gaiman, you perverse weirdo. I didn't think I could ever love you more, but see, now, I do.
I'll leave you with this...metaphor. Autumn is the time of drying, of preserving, a time of picking apples, of rendering the goose fat. Winter is the time of hunger, of snow, and of death...
