Source of
book: Borrowed from the library
Just a note:
this book is by Daniel Mallory Ortberg, but is under the name of Mallory
Ortberg. (See below for more about the author.)
The Merry
Spinster is a collection of modern takes on classic fairy tales and other
stories. That is probably the easiest way to describe it. The stories aren’t
straight up retellings, though, as they are often mashups of different tales.
For example, “The Thankless Child” combines elements of Cinderella, King
Lear, three Medieval prayers, and Psalm 139. Also, there are riffs on
modern stories like The Velveteen Rabbit - and that one is particularly
dark. In general, these are not “nice” stories, although the same could be said
about the originals in their pre-Disney forms.
Ortberg does
some interesting things with the stories. While some are pretty dark, all of
them have an underlying wit and sense of humor. They are also more feminist
than the originals - the women and girls are hardly passive sorts, waiting for
a prince. Ortberg also bends genders in many of the stories. Kings will be
female, queens male. A youngest daughter will be referred to as “he.” In the
context of the stories, this will flip stereotypes, so that a male daughter
will be renowned for beauty, a female son for her bravery, and so on. It makes
for a disconcerting experience in some ways, because our language itself is
based on a gender binary and assumes particular gendered traits.
In some of
the stories, there is pointed social commentary. In others, the point seems to
be to imagine different points of view, as in “Fear Not: An Incident Log,”
which retells portions of the book of Genesis from the viewpoint of the Angel
of the Lord, filling out an incident report for every interaction with humans.
Divine miracles as bureaucratic incidents, so to speak.
Ortberg
writes well. The twists and turns are carefully plotted, and spring on the
reader unexpectedly. The language is matched to the stories, so they are to a
degree “in the style of” the originals. For obvious reasons (see below),
Ortberg is thoroughly fluent in the Bible, as well as “christianese” of the
Evangelical variety. He brings out sly references to verses that are fairly
obscure, and nods in the direction of tropes within the Evangelical subculture.
Some of these might be unnoticed by those who didn’t grow up in that
subculture, but they hit home for those of us who did.
Here are a
few lines which stood out.
In “The
Daughter Cells,” an underwater mermaid kingdom is described. The daughters get
to do whatever they want with their little patch of, well, not land exactly,
but area, I guess.
At any rate, these girls didn’t own
their patches of land, but they had the use of them, which made for good
practice. They might ornament their allotted land with flowers, they might grow
crops, or they might stuff it with old sea glass and bits of shipwrecked
kettles, as they saw fit. The only way to teach the value of something is to
give someone the chance to waste it - or at least that was how the thinking
went under that particular administration.
That last
line in particular struck me as interesting. I think it is more broadly true
about humanity.
How about
this one, from the Genesis story?
They live all alone in their own heads,
and shudder reflexively at the prospect of God’s imminence. I’ve seen it. I’ve
seen a man spend all his life praying for union with the divine, only to shrink
back and scrabble to return to his own skin once he realizes that the presence
of the divine is coming for him...
Finally,
there is an exchange in “The Frog’s Princess” that is true and disconcerting
for that reason.
“Beauty does not belong exclusively to
you,” the man told his daughters. “Beauty is a public good, and you are
responsible for it.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” the
youngest daughter asked. The sun burned hot on his forehead.
“It means - in a sense - that according
to a certain understanding you belong to everyone,” the man said.
“By that reasoning,” his daughter said,
“I belong at least partly to myself. Certainly at least as much as I belong to
anybody else.”
“Don’t be clever,” his father said. “Go
and play outside, where people can see you.”
This leads
into some pointed, though oblique, comments on sexual harassment of young women.
The whole story, actually, is a satire on male sexual entitlement and the
expectation that women, by virtue of existing, exist to please men.
The book is
a pretty quick read, but it packs a lot of interesting ideas into its small
size. If you like remixes of classic stories, you will definitely enjoy it. If
you find gender bending and swapping intriguing, you will also like it. It’s
worth a read.
***
Note on
Daniel Mallory Ortberg:
I first
discovered Ortberg when he took over the Dear Prudence column at Slate Magazine from Emily Yoffe. Back then, he
was Mallory Ortberg, fresh off co-founding the much-lamented late website, The
Toast. (At least the old stuff is still online.
So there’s that.) For a while thereafter, I didn’t think much about it.
Later,
though, I made the connection: he is the child of Evangelical pastor and
author, John Ortberg. In fact, back when I was part of organized religion and
identified as Evangelical, our former pastor used to quote John Ortberg a lot.
And actually, as far as Evangelical author sorts go, his stuff was...pretty
good. I don’t agree with all of the theology, but it was kindhearted and humble
stuff, not the macho posturing and dogmatic assertion of so many others.
However,
Ortberg’s church is officially non-affirming of LGBTQ people.
When Mallory
announced that she was transitioning to Daniel, I was rather curious as to what
his family made of it. Apparently, they are accepting of
Daniel. I really wonder now how John Ortberg squares all of
this. Does he just accept the cognitive dissonance? Or is he, like I suspect many
Evangelicals, trapped between affirming personal beliefs, and the reality that
he would lose his ministry if he came out as affirming? It’s an interesting
question.
It is easy
to see some autobiographical stuff in The Merry Spinster; not details,
but emotions. It is particularly fascinating since Daniel didn’t come out as
transgender until the book was finished. This background explains why
Daniel is so fluent in the language and subculture of Evangelicalism, and why
he knows his Bible rather well. I am curious to read his next book, which is a
collection of essays on, among other things, religion and gender identity.
***
Just for
fun, I have read and reviewed one other book written by a transgender person:
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