Sep 15, 2007

So for the fairytale panel I am on today I was trying to remember what my favorite fairytales are, since that's one of the questions, and all I could think of was a mash of feelings and images but nothing specific enough, and then I remembered a book that made a huge, gorgeous impression on me when I was young but that I had forgotten about entirely. The fairy tales of Oscar Wilde, which are so unbelievably beautiful and so enormously sad. It's one of those books that's so strange to look back on because you know it's had such an impact on how you see the world, and who you are, and I can't believe I had forgotten it! I think one of the questions on the panel is how the stories we hear as children shape us. I don't have any idea how to answer a question like that! I feel like the stories I heard as a child are who I am, and the stories I've heard ever since. I don't know how to think of these things better than that.

Anyway, this is my favorite fairytale: "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde.