a beauty and a beast
I just finished reading Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter for, oh I don’t know, at least the fifth or sixth time. (I really ought to come up with a system for keeping track of how many times I read a book.) I come back to this book almost once a year because it’s just so…luscious and lovely. There are parts I get a little impatient with because it is so lush and extravagant in it’s telling, but every time I turn the last page, I sigh a sigh of deepest and most utter satisfaction. Because it is truly a wholly beautiful story. And it is my most favorite version of the Beauty and the Beast story.
I was a teenager when I first discovered Beauty and the Beast, and it was Disney who introduced it to me. Belle is my favorite of Disney princesses—I always felt she was the one most like me—and Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of Disney movies. I loved, and still love the story. (In fact, I just saw the live musical version of it on Friday, which is why I decided to reread Rose Daughter.) I have always loved the story, but as I got older and learned more about love, there was something about it that began to sit not quite straight with me. There was something not quite True about it. And I began to wish for a different ending.
Then, about ten years ago, I discovered Robin McKinley’s books, and that discovery led me to Rose Daughter. And McKinley’s telling is True. Even though it’s kind of messy and leaves the more practical side of me puzzling over the logistics, it’s True. It is the love story that Disney’s version, and all the other versions I’ve read, fall short of being. And it has become the definitive version of the story for me. I can only hope that I write something as lovely and as true some day.
