Review of AWS - "Poisoned" (Part 6)
Jun. 21st, 2017 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aikateriniSo, remember when I said that one of the few good things about this book is that not all of the stories are actively offensive and terrible?
This is one of them. And unlike the others before, it’s very short, only a few pages long.
"Poisoned" is a retelling of "Snow White" that solely consists of a conversation between Snow White and her prince after her stepmother has been defeated. It’s solely dialogue, there are no tags or names or quotation marks or anything, and it’s not even made explicit who’s speaking. You have to pay attention to what is being said to determine who the speaker is. If I was in a better mood when I began reading this story, I probably wouldn’t have minded as much. Since I wasn’t, this only served to irritate me.
It’s basically just the prince and Snow White talking about their lives. The prince wants Snow White to do something that she’s not particularly keen on doing, but she says, "When you love somebody, it makes you happy to make him happy". No worries, it's not as bad as it sounds.
The prince mentions a visit to his shrink (because of course he’d need to go to one. Everyone has issues!), and he and Snow White reminisce about a visit from the dwarves where "you had to lift them up to get them into our chairs. Our spoons were the size of spades to them". Snow White corrects the prince when he calls them midgets and when he says that he knows that she loved them, she says, "I loved it when they loved me, I’ve never been completely sure". Because heaven forbid that their relationship be one of mutual and uncomplicated affection. That's not complex enough for our mature and adult book here.
Before she agrees to do what it is that the prince is requesting, Snow White asks him to tell her what he loves about her. He replies that he loves that thing she does with her mouth when she’s concentrating and the expression on her face when he wakes up before she does. It’s actually kind of sweet and not that bad.
Finally, we learn what it is that the prince wants her to do. He wants her to go back into the coffin and pretend that she’s dead like she was when he kissed her, just for a few minutes. It’s not really because of necrophilia, though. As she obliges him, he reminisces about the moment when he kissed her, when she seemed perfect to him and he to her. Basically, it’s just reliving the moment of their first kiss.
So, all in all, this isn’t that bad. It’s not really offensive, but it’s rather pointless. Really, I don’t even know if I would call this a short story. It’s more like a drabble. Snow White and the prince have a conversation that spans a couple of pages, and by the end, she and the prince re-enact her resurrection (which, confusingly, he said that she also did for the dwarves…why?). I really don’t get what the theme or point of this story was.
But it’s a lot less terrible than the previous stories. So, there’s that. Just think of it as a break before we move on to the rest of this vile mess.
This is one of them. And unlike the others before, it’s very short, only a few pages long.
"Poisoned" is a retelling of "Snow White" that solely consists of a conversation between Snow White and her prince after her stepmother has been defeated. It’s solely dialogue, there are no tags or names or quotation marks or anything, and it’s not even made explicit who’s speaking. You have to pay attention to what is being said to determine who the speaker is. If I was in a better mood when I began reading this story, I probably wouldn’t have minded as much. Since I wasn’t, this only served to irritate me.
It’s basically just the prince and Snow White talking about their lives. The prince wants Snow White to do something that she’s not particularly keen on doing, but she says, "When you love somebody, it makes you happy to make him happy". No worries, it's not as bad as it sounds.
The prince mentions a visit to his shrink (because of course he’d need to go to one. Everyone has issues!), and he and Snow White reminisce about a visit from the dwarves where "you had to lift them up to get them into our chairs. Our spoons were the size of spades to them". Snow White corrects the prince when he calls them midgets and when he says that he knows that she loved them, she says, "I loved it when they loved me, I’ve never been completely sure". Because heaven forbid that their relationship be one of mutual and uncomplicated affection. That's not complex enough for our mature and adult book here.
Before she agrees to do what it is that the prince is requesting, Snow White asks him to tell her what he loves about her. He replies that he loves that thing she does with her mouth when she’s concentrating and the expression on her face when he wakes up before she does. It’s actually kind of sweet and not that bad.
Finally, we learn what it is that the prince wants her to do. He wants her to go back into the coffin and pretend that she’s dead like she was when he kissed her, just for a few minutes. It’s not really because of necrophilia, though. As she obliges him, he reminisces about the moment when he kissed her, when she seemed perfect to him and he to her. Basically, it’s just reliving the moment of their first kiss.
So, all in all, this isn’t that bad. It’s not really offensive, but it’s rather pointless. Really, I don’t even know if I would call this a short story. It’s more like a drabble. Snow White and the prince have a conversation that spans a couple of pages, and by the end, she and the prince re-enact her resurrection (which, confusingly, he said that she also did for the dwarves…why?). I really don’t get what the theme or point of this story was.
But it’s a lot less terrible than the previous stories. So, there’s that. Just think of it as a break before we move on to the rest of this vile mess.
