A Review of Fairy Tale by Stephen King: The Fairy Tales Are Wrong

I give Fairy Tale a 2/5 rating, not because it’s a bad book, but because it gets the fairy tales wrong, fizzles out towards the middle, and doesn’t leave much of an impression. There are far better interpretations of fairy tales, much better dark fantasy books with horror elements, and far better Stephen King books to pick from.

I’m a tepid fan of Stephen King. I’ve read some of his short stories and novels, and I’ve liked them. He’s clearly a talented writer, especially when writing about substance abuse and alcoholism. That talent shines through in the first 1/3 of Fairy Tale.

Spoiler-Free Review

The first hundred pages are a slice-of-life story about the teenage protagonist, Charlie. It starts with him saving a grumpy old man (Bowditch) and then befriending him and his dog (Radar). As he’s doing this, we learn about how his mother died in a tragic accident, and then his father fell into alcoholism.

Charlie is a tall, strong, popular, smart, well-read 17-year-old boy who’s the star of the baseball and football team. He’s extremely capable and always does the right thing. He’s a Gary Stu. But he’s also fairly likable, so I didn’t mind it too much.

All of this is well-written, but the real intrigue is the looming dread of whatever is hiding in the old man’s shed.

We also get references to fairy tales, which irked me because Stephen King gets about half of it wrong. For example, here’s what he says about Jack and the Beanstalk (original fairy tale here):

1. King says that Jack and the Beanstalk was originally a dark fairy tale, but they removed the part about the giant murdering Jack’s father to make it more appropriate for children. That’s backwards. Versions of this story have been told for thousands of years. The part about the giant murdering Jack’s father was added by Benjamin Tabart in 1734 to give Jack justification to kill the giant, making the story morally cleaner. The original was about a scoundrel stealing treasure from an ogre, not about a hero avenging his father’s death.
2. King says that the giant’s saying, “Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman,” comes from King Lear. The first recorded instance of the rhyme comes from Thomas Nashe in 1596, with Nashe saying that it was a popular old poem of unknown origins. King Lear came almost a decade later (1605). But it may be even more interesting than that. It seems that Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum is rooted in ancient Gaelic and translates to “Food, good to eat, sufficient for my hunger.” So it could be that it’s an even older Celtic rhyme disparaging English invaders. (And Jack is both English and an invader.)
3. King says the giant’s name is Gogmagog. In most versions, the ogre is unnamed. In some, he’s named Blunderbore. It’s only in Tabart’s cleaner version that he’s named Gogmagog. Tabart got the name from the legend of the founding of Britain (as written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1136), where the Gogmagog is the leader of the giants.

These aren’t huge errors. The fairy tale is so old that it’s hard to tell what’s true. The issue is that King is whispering these old secrets, telling us we’re learning the true history of a fairy tale that was dumbed down for children. But the more faithful 1890 retelling by Joseph Jacobs is much more popular. Most of us are familiar with the original fairy tale, and now King is telling us the modern, kid-friendly version that Tabart made, and he’s making it seem like it’s the darker, hidden, truer version.

One of the main complaints people have about the book is that Charlie feels like a strange mix of a Boomer and a modern teenager. He swears and uses slang at moments that feel too serious. He’s also the sort of kid who reads classic literature and likes movies from 50 years ago. I didn’t particularly mind that, but I can see why some people did.

Anyway, once we learn what’s in the shed, the story goes downhill. The fairy tale part of the story isn’t nearly as compelling as the character-driven stuff at the beginning. Right when I thought the story should be picking up, I found myself losing interest. This seems to be a common complaint. Quite a few people abandon the book at around the 60% mark. But let’s delve deeper.

Spoiler Discussion

I think King also misinterpreted a different fairy tale when setting up his climax, but now we’re deep into spoilers. The evil in Fairy Tale comes from a giant that lives in a well. Charlie guesses that this giant’s name is Gogmagog, like in the sanitized version of Jack and the Beanstalk. He also remembers how the imp Rumplestiltskin was defeated by the mention of his own name. So Charlie says “Gogmagog” over and over again, defeating the giant.

Here’s the problem. Rumplestiltskin wasn’t allergic to his own name. In fact, in the fairy tale of Rumplestiltskin, the girl learned his name when she snuck up on him and found him chanting his own name around a fire. He clearly had no issue with his name.

Rather, the girl defeated Rumplestiltskin by winning a bet. The imp bet the girl that she wouldn’t be able to guess his name. She followed him home, heard him singing his name, repeated it back to him, and won the bet. That’s how most of these fairy tales work. There are bargains and deals and riddles.

It’s also confusing why the giant would be the one from Jack and the Beanstalk. In the original fairy tale, he’s a huntsman who catches animals and children and then brings them back home for his wife to cook. He isn’t exactly evil; he just views people the same way people view smaller animals. In a sense, he’s our moral equivalent. Why would he be this great magical evil being beneath a well?

And again, the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk is only named Gogmagog in one particular modern sanitized version of the fairy tale. So, even the giant’s name feels like a mistake.

Recommendations

If you want to read more about fairy tales, I have a few here:

• Jack and the Beanstalk is an ancient English fairy tale about a boy who climbs up to a celestial kingdom to steal treasure from a child-eating ogre.
• Sleeping Beauty is a classic French fairy tale originally written by Charles Perrault in 1697. You might know the Disney version. This one isn’t quite the same.
• Puss in Boots is a classic Italian fairy tale written by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in 1550. Again, it isn’t quite the same as the Disney adaptation.
• The Little Mermaid is a Danish fairy tale originally written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. Unlike the Disney version, it’s dark, sad, and hauntingly beautiful.
• The Emperor’s New Clothes is a Danish fairy tale originally written by Hans Christian Andersen. It’s as famous as it deserves to be.

Or, if you want to know my favourite dark fantasy books for adults, see this review.