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    A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
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    A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
    Unavailable
    A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
    Audiobook2 hours

    A Wild Swan: And Other Tales

    Written by Michael Cunningham

    Narrated by Lili Taylor and Billy Hough

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed, reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours. Rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

    The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.

    In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away – the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder – are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateNov 19, 2015
    ISBN9780008140427
    Unavailable
    A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
    Author

    Michael Cunningham

    Michael Cunningham is the author of six novels including A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours, Specimen Days, and non-fiction book, Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown. The Hours was awarded both the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award and made into an internationally acclaimed, Oscar-winning film. His new novel, The Snow Queen, will be published in May of 2014. He lives in New York.

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    Reviews for A Wild Swan

    4/5

    94 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Michael Cunningham's clever twists on traditional fairy tales provides not-for-the-kids entertainment in macabre and dark fashion. Although we all know that even the traditional fairy tales were sanitized for children (they are all really rather dark and violent by nature), Cunningham's take on such familiar tales as "Snow White" and "Rapunzel" adds a layer of psychological and emotional complexity that really elevates the stories to an entirely different plane.Having never read anything by Cunningham, I was impressed with his writing. (I have since discovered that he is a Pultizer Prize-winner, which doesn't surprise me, based on the quality and depth of his writing in "A Wild Swan.") Descriptions in each story are beautifully conveyed with just the right bit of humor, irony, sadness, and anger. The stunning illustrations by Yuko Shimizu are a perfect match for Cunningham, easily evoking the exact emotions that Cunningham elicits from his writing.This book was a very fast read, and I enjoyed every story (although my favorite was his take on "Beauty and the Beast"). Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Cunningham, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, has re-imagined 10 fairy tales either by Hans Christian Andersen or the brothers Grimm. By listening to the book you miss the interesting black and white illustrations by Yuko Shimizu, but the stories have a contemporary edge and are very entertaining.
    • 5/5
      Dis. enchant - A lyrical introduction that examines the fact that only the most excellent among us are the targets of a witch's curse or a god's punishment. Most of us are safe. And it doesn't even take a supernatural being to bring down evil upon the most beautiful, blessed, and gifted. Anyone can do it with a will and a little bit of know how.A Wild Swan - Everyone knows the story of the 11 royal princes who were turned into swans by an evil queen. They know about their devoted sister who learned the cure and made them coats of feathers that would make them human again. She didn't quite finish the last coat so one unlucky brother still had a swan wing instead of a human arm. Whatever happened to that brother? This story tells his sorry tale.Crazy Old Lady - An aging spinster makes herself into the knowledgeable matron who teaches young and experienced boys how to please women. But as she continues to age and rents rise and times change, she moves out to the forest and builds herself a cottage out of candy. But when the children come to her, she finds that the modern youth are neither ignorant nor innocent. They are already debauched by porn and covered in tattoos. They eat her house, even though the candy is fortified with chemicals to withstand weather, and eventually pitch her headlong into the oven.Jacked - A jaded retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk in which Jack is a wastrel and the giants are a feuding couple with a rocky marriage. Jack and his mother steal from the giant but keep coming back for more as they are too irresponsible and greedy to maintain their lifestyle unaided. The giant's wife keeps helping Jack because she resents her husband and hopes to get some petty revenge. In the end, the giant is glad to perish by falling to his death, as all his life is one bitter disappointment. Poisoned - The prince and Sleeping Beauty argue about the small offenses of their lives before the prince convinces her to climb back in her glass coffin and pretend to still be asleep for awhile. The prince has some sort of semi-sexual obsession with that moment of potential before he kissed her.A Monkey's Paw - A stranger passing in the night gives an impoverished couple an odd gift: a monkey's paw. He tells them to only use it to make very reasonable wishes and leaves in a hurry. The couple try their best to use in carefully but end up with their dead son returning to live with them as a rotten corpse. Little Man - A retelling of Rumpelstiltskin from the perspective of the titular character. He has long given up hope of falling in love and having a child of his own. He's given up hope of adoption as well. At this point, there is only the hope that someday he will come upon an unwanted child and make it his own. Everything changes, when he takes pity upon a poor girl who has been condemned by her lying father and the greedy king. Although the plan is barely forming in his mind, he decides to help her.Steadfast; Tin - Modern retelling of the old fairy tale about love and destiny. This time, the tin soldier is an amputee who thinks he'll never find love until he meets a girl who he has a unique bond with. Their relationship is scrutinized by their teenage daughter, who has many criticisms.Beasts - A dark, fatalistic retelling of Beauty and the Beast in which the protagonist is a bored village girl who distains her prospects in her backwater home and sets out to make the most of this adventure. She eventually returns home after the beast despairs of her ever loving him, but those who used to know her are now suspicious. In the end she returns to the beast and promises to marry him out of spite to all those gossips back home. But after the enchantment ends, she begins to wonder if this handsome prince was bespelled for obvious reasons. What exactly has she unleashed?Her Hair - The story of Rapunzel after the prince fell from the tower and was blinded. He searches everywhere and with difficulty for her - as the witch has banished her to a distant land. They are eventually reunited. She still keeps her hair and cares for it in rich, lustrous cords. Ever/after. - The focus of this story is what happens after the "happily ever after". What does the life of a royal couple brought together by magic and destiny look like? Do they remain faithful? Do they go to their deathbeds in peace? And what about their children and grandchildren? A bittersweet story about the playing out of a married life.This collection of stories is beautiful, affecting, thoughtful, poetic, and ultimately familiar. The author's goal is to examine the parts of the fairy tales that remain unspoken or covered over by predictable narrative turns of phrase. Sometimes they are set in the fairy tale context, sometimes in a more modern or cynical time. Each is uniquely interesting and lovingly told.
    • 3/5
      I enjoy reading retellings of familiar stories. This book was a nice, quick read, with some different takes on stories we know well. Side note: This pick was my "blind date with a book" from a nearby library. I love this idea.
    • 4/5
      This a quick short story collection of dark fairy tale retelling for adults by Michael Cunningham the author of the Hours. This, however, is much different from the Hours. These make great stories to read before bedtime.

      Some of the stories I didn't really care for, like the first and last one, but others I liked enough. I think my favorite one was called "Beasts," a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast." I liked "Crazy Old Lady" and "Little Man" as well, which both are told in second person.

      Besides Cunningham's name, Yuko Shimizu's name is another reason I got this book. I love her covers for the comic book Unwritten. I kind of wish some of these illustrations were in color and bigger, but they fit for the setting.

      If you are a fan of dark twisted retelling or Michael Cunningham's style this book is for you. Keep in mind this isn't the Hours. I like that he wrote something completely different.
    • 4/5
      A collection of re-worked fairy tales with flawed though familiar characters and a contemporary spin, but retaining the fairy-tale magic. For instance ...

      "This was not a smart boy we're talking about .... Jack is the boy who says 'Wow, dude, magic beans, really!' "

      The tales are a little wicked, some a little bawdy, but also quite humorous. One's I liked are:

      Crazy Old Lady (Hansel and Gretel)
      Jacked (Jack and the Beanstalk)
      Little Man. (Rumplestiltskin)
      Her Hair (Rapunzul)

      And The Monkey's Paw

      4 stars overall (I'd give some of the tales 5 stars)
    • 5/5
      Magical and realistic and wonderful and hard to describe. Just go read it.
    • 5/5
      If you love fairy tales but want a modern twist this is the perfect book! A short quick read but witty, creative and entertaining! Loved it!
    • 3/5
      "A Wild Swan: And Other Tales" by Michael Cunningham; Lili Taylor and Billy Hough, narratorsThis brief, clever and creative re-imagining of childhood fairytales for adults is entertaining. I found some interesting, some humorous, some philosophical and some, truthfully, a bit pointless. Still, it was an interesting respite from the hassles of everyday life, and I enjoyed wondering how the tales would be reshaped. Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk and the Monkey’s Paw are just three of the many presented in a different version than we originally read them as children.
    • 5/5
      A well re imagined modern take on the fairy tales of my childhood although I don't think I shall be reading them to my future grandchildren!
      My favourite is Rumpelstiltskin, written from the goblin's point of view.
      The Yuko Shimizu artwork is stunning and really makes the stories come alive for me.
      Great fun!
      I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Harper Collins via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
    • 4/5
      I thought most of the stories were fantastic -- humorous, wry and wise. The illustrations and book design are outstanding and really make this a beautiful book. Bravo for putting together such a nice work of art.I did feel, however, that the last two stories weren't up to the mark, and wonder if someone was pressuring Cunningham to pad this slim volume. It's something you used to see with some records, too, once upon a time. I would advise readers to just skip those last two. Make your own mix-tape, as it were.
    • 3/5
      Not the usual type of book I read but am willing to try anything written by this author. To my surprise I enjoyed it very much. Taking many of our beloved fairytale and giving them a very inventive modern twist was pure entertainment. Many were extremely amusing, so very clever. But..... while Cunningham's wit and originality were in fine display I missed his ingenious plots and his expansiveness that is more adequately displayed in his novels. Still very entertaining, a quick read that was more than worth my time.
    • 5/5
      This review is for the audio version of Michael Cunningham's A Wild Swan. I am a fan of retelling a familiar story from either a different perspective (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead) or with a different emphasis, which this collection does with several fairy tales. This collection succeeds primarily because it keeps the basic structure of each tale but delves a bit deeper into the psychology motivating the characters. The originals were primarily written to influence the actions of the reader, to establish or enforce the norms of the time. While that is not lost in these stories, the emphasis is on an almost tongue-in-cheek psychological analysis (and the periodic sociological analysis as well) of the characters.The audio version was tremendous! I have to disclose that I am a big fan of Lili Taylor so I started out a bit biased, I'm sure. She delivered as I expected and Billy Hough was also phenomenal. They did a masterful job of highlighting key passages through subtle intonations and pauses.I would definitely recommend the audio version to anyone interested in short tales and in nuanced modernizations of classic tales.Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.
    • 2/5
      After being so deeply touched by The Hours this collection was a huge letdown. Read more like a junior high writing assignment. Didn't bother reading the last 25 pages, already took up too much time.