The Cloak of Dreams: Chinese Fairy Tales

Contents:

Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balazs's work: His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies. Unusual, wondrous fairy tales that examine the world's cruelties and twists of fate, The Cloak of Dreams will entertain, startle, and intrigue. Hardcover , pages. Oddly Modern Fairy Tales. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

To ask other readers questions about The Cloak of Dreams , please sign up. Lists with This Book. A curious, artfully contrived book of "oddly modern fairy tales" by a character whose life was itself catastrophically confabulated. All this I base on the introduction by Jack Zipes, the neo-Marxist professor of fairy tales. As usual, it's an introduction best read afterward, because the professor does go on, peppering his text with turgid quotes — "a deeply seated insecurity about the relations between human beings felt as the social reification of domination " — and unpardonable paradoxes.

As for the tales themselves — the most interesting thing about them is how they came to be written: On the other hand, from the perspective of jaded readers like me, the tales suffer the deficit of most "constrained writing" exercises: As does that sentence.

Compared to the beautiful re-creations of Angela Carter, for example, these tales are a bit stilted and sour. A few were so grim I laughed out loud. In "The Ancestors" a minor customs officer is cornered and cannibalized by the skulls of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather. In the final tale, "The Victor," a jousting general's victories lead directly to defeat, and concludes "After cursing his strength, he hanged himself on the first tree he saw.

So much for happily ever after. Sep 01, Shivaji Das rated it really liked it.

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The Cloak of Dreams : Chinese Fairy Tales.
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Innovative, crafted out his own fairy tales based on images drawn by another wacky mind. View all 3 comments.

May 09, Hariz S. H rated it liked it Shelves: Half of this book canonizing Balazs, a Hungarian literary talent as a hedonistic man, octracized from his Jew community, with sad love affairs, as he turned to metaphysic, eastern theosophy from western style of writing. While his affairs are colorful parts of his life, his life is lonely. Probably why he put his literary talent into writing fairy tales.

While his other works are splendor and grandeur, this works is more of 'experiment' instead of masterpiece. I, myself personally a reader of we Half of this book canonizing Balazs, a Hungarian literary talent as a hedonistic man, octracized from his Jew community, with sad love affairs, as he turned to metaphysic, eastern theosophy from western style of writing.

I, myself personally a reader of western fiction who turned to sino literary, on this fact I do share the author backstory, I only can say this work can only be commonplace in sinosphere. It says "Chinese Fairy Tales" but I find that the author is actually Hungarian and the stories were written specifically to go with a series of Chinese-style paintings by a contemporary artist.

Desspite a long introduction by Jack Zipes, whom I greatly admire in the Fairy Tale world, I never really understood why either the artist or author chose to write Chinese-style tales. I didn't like some of them and I must be missing s I didn't like some of them and I must be missing something in the reproduction of the pictures as well.

Nothing about them seemed to be truly understanding of Chinese culture and their own stories of magic and fairies. Zipes's introduction, in fact, was the best part of the book. He did a solid biography of Balazs and how he came to write, how he lived in his own world. But he didn't explain why Belazs thought he could write about China. This is part of a series called "Oddly Modern Fairy Tales", which is intriguing. Older literary fairy tales have a lot of say about their contemporary world. These are odd in that I am not sure what they have to say about Belazs's world and life, which are certainly not modern.

I am going to look for other books in the series. I thought that this would be a book like Some Chinese Ghosts: But this is actually original stories with a somewhat Chinese flavor. The story about parasols with pictures of different skies painted on the underside was excellent. And there was one gory and creepy ghost-type story. The story of the flea who has to reunite his past-life mortal parents made me think of Back to the Future.

Though the ending was rather vulgar. There is some good imagery here, and it I thought that this would be a book like Some Chinese Ghosts: There is some good imagery here, and it seems like a good translation. But some of the others were boring, or blurred into sameness with the other stories. I'll summarize it for you: Balazs was a socialist Hungarian Hemingway.

There, I just saved you over 40 pages of tedious reading. The stories themselves are quick, light reads. The illustrator, Mariette Lydis, did some nice work in other contexts, but the illustrations here are mostly creepy. Start date is approximate.

Did not realize these weren't really fairy tales from China before reading, but interesting stories nonetheless! Melissa rated it liked it Feb 13, L S Popovich rated it liked it Mar 25, Sonia rated it it was amazing Aug 08, Aimee rated it really liked it Oct 29, Marcel Du Plessis rated it it was amazing May 22, Antalm rated it liked it Dec 04, Brittany rated it really liked it Aug 13, J R R Tolkien.

Home Contact Us Help Free delivery worldwide. The Cloak of Dreams: Description A man is changed into a flea and must bring his future parents together in order to become human again. A woman convinces a river god to cure her sick son, but the remedy has mixed consequences. A young man must choose whether to be close to his wife's soul or body. And two deaf mutes transcend their physical existence in the garden of dreams. Strange and fantastical, these fairy tales of Bela Balazs , Hungarian writer, film critic, and famous librettist of Bluebeard's Castle, reflect his profound interest in friendship, alienation, and Taoist philosophy.

Translated and introduced by Jack Zipes, one of the world's leading authorities on fairy tales, The Cloak of Dreams brings together sixteen of Balazs's unique and haunting stories. Written in , these fairy tales were originally published with twenty images drawn in the Chinese style by painter Mariette Lydis, and this new edition includes a selection of Lydis's brilliant illustrations. Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balazs's work: His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies.

Unusual, wondrous fairy tales that examine the world's cruelties and twists of fate, The Cloak of Dreams will entertain, startle, and intrigue. Product details Format Paperback pages Dimensions People who viewed this also viewed. Told Again Walter de La Mare. The Fourth Pig Naomi Mitchison. Norse Mythology Neil Gaiman.

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