Chuck Lipsig wrote this review.
I hesitate to choose any nation to be the nation of fairy tales. However, if I had to make a list, Germany, with its early 19th-century outpouring of tales, most notably by The Brothers Grimm, would merit consideration. With Utopian Tales From Weimar and The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, both edited and translated by Jack Zipes, more recent incarnations of Germany’s fairy tale heritage, from just before World War I to the rise of the Nazis, are presented.
According to Zipes’s introduction to Utopian Tales from Weimar, Germany has not just had a long history of fairy tales, but these stories have had a strong influence on politics. So it is no wonder that many such stories were written in Germany, from all political perspectives, from the end of the first world war, through the Weimar Republic, and to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. This collection is of tales from the political left of that period, in which the authors attempted to raise both children’s and adults’ awareness of the political situation and to prepare them to strive towards a more egalitarian, utopian society.
As a personal note, my political beliefs are pretty much laissez faire libertarianism. So for me to appreciate this material, it has to appeal beyond the level of political polemic. Some of it does. Berta Lask’s “The Boy Who Wanted to Fight with a Dragon”is an amusing tale of a young man going out into the world to find a dragon. But in a world of factories and industry the dragons of myth are no more and the ones that exist are harder to find. Robert Grotzch’s “The Enchanted King,”about a tyrannical, warmongering monarch, who is cursed to be a cripple wandering from battlefield to battlefield, is one of the most moving antiwar tales I’ve read. His “Burufu the Magician”and “Felix the Fish,”are lighter, but quite charming stories. The first is about an evil wizard, whose curses serve only to strengthen mankind. The latter concerns a heroic fish who clears a river of monsters. Oskar Maria Graf’s “Baberlababb,”about a tyrannical teacher, should appeal to anti-authoritarians of all political stripes.
Other tales just don’t reverberate with me. Hermynia Zur Muhlen’s “The Fence and “The Servant”are among the polemical in the collection, in which a utopian island society and a utopian village society, respectively, are destroyed by the concept of private property. On the other hand, I’m fairly sure Zur Muhlen’s fairy tales were intended, first, for children. In that light, the stark characters may work well. Joachim Ringelnatz’s “Kuttel Daddeldu Tells His Children the Fairy Tale about Little Red Cap” is a takeoff of the “Little Red Riding Hood”story that just falls flat.
One thing that is noticeable about the stories is that few have a central hero — “Felix the Fish” being a notable exception. When there is an individual acting on his own, he is more often the villain of the piece. The heroes tend to be collections of people — townspeople, children, workers, etc., — who are victimized by or overcome the powerful. While this fits in with much of the politics expressed, there is often no one in these tales that readers may hang their interest on.
Not having the stories in their original German on hand — and not knowing enough German, even if I did — I cannot judge the accuracy of Zipes’s translation. However, the translations do not seem stilted, and a fair amount of colloquialisms are used. That the stories read well in English is to Zipes’s credit.
As a scholarly document of a turbulent time in history or a source of political inspiration, Utopian Tales from Weimar is a fascinating resource. As a collection of fairy tales for light reading, it is an uneven experience. As 
I tend to believe this book is intended more as the former than the latter, I would say it is a success.
Also translated by Jack Zipes, The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse is a far more even affair — as might be expected with a collection by one author, as opposed to many. Written between 1904 and 1918, these stories draw on both western and eastern symbolism and folklore. Many express Hesse’s alienation with the western world — especially in light of the horrors of World War I — both in terms of an everyday individual, as well as an artist. Some of these stories clearly fit into the tradition of fairy tales, while others are more abstract and further from their roots, stretching the definition of fairy tale beyond the normal expectations.
One of the finest tales in this collection combines the traditional fairy tale with one of Hesse’s literary expeditions from that genre. “Faldum”starts out as a rather traditional tale with a stranger coming to the fair at the city of Faldum, granting one wish to every person there. The result is a humorous mishmash of wishes, wise and foolish — actually one of the merrier tales in the collection. Finally, the last two wishers are left. The next-to-last, a violinist, wishes for a violin that he can play so beautifully that nothing distracts him from his music. He receives his wish and proceeds to drift off into the air, buoyed by his music. The last wisher, who lived only to listen to the violinist, asks to be turned into a mountain, standing over the village of Faldum.
The last third of the story is the history of the mountain and the village below it, as the village grows and eventually dies out. Epochs pass, as the mountain outlives humanity and is, eventually, granted one last wish. Another wonderful story, similar to this history of the mountain, is “The City,”which manages to tell the entire centuries-long history of a city, from founding to desertion, in the space of seven pages.
While the violinist in “Faldum”gains artistic perfection with a wish, many of the stories in this collection, generally those furthest from traditional fairy tales, tell of artists’ more difficult pursuits of creative perfection. Two of these are “The Poet”and “The Painter.” The first tells of a young Chinese poet, whose quest takes him away from family and normal life. The latter is of a young painter, who becomes more isolated as he becomes a more noted artist. While these stories are interesting and the writing is beautiful, the implication that to truly be an artist is to be isolated from society or family is one that I personally find distasteful. “A Dream Sequence” is remarkable, not so much for the dream itself, but for the perfect depiction of a dream, fading out from one set of images and into another.
While almost every story in the collection is quite good, several stand out. “The Dwarf” is more gothic horror than fairy tale, telling the story of the hatred between the eponymous servant and the fiance of his mistress. “The Three Linden Trees” tells of a brother, who is falsely accused of murder and his brothers, who attempt to take the blame for him. This would be a trifle, except for Hesse’s writing, well-captured in Zipes’s translation. “The Forest Dweller” tells of a pre-human creature who defies his priest and traditions to emerge from the forest and see the sun. Again, it’s a simple story that succeeds through the writer’s skill.
The crown jewel of this collection is “Strange News From Another Planet.” After an earthquake destroys several villages in a peaceful, almost paradisiacal world, a young man is sent to beg for the extra flowers need for the correct burial rites. On the way he comes upon a strange dark temple, where he falls asleep and is taken to or dreams of a world where war still exists. What is remarkable is the portrayal of the king, who commands one of the armies. He is a noble, suffering man, who recognizes desire in all to live in the peaceful utopia the young man describes to him. And yet, this king must continue to fight. Writing this story in the middle of World War I (1915), Hesse succeeds in portraying the spark of nobility he saw in all, even in the worst of horrors. I suspect that this would have been a much more difficult story to write amidst the events of World War II.
Herman Hesse was one of the most intensely spiritual authors of the past century and Zipes again deserves credit for translating the stories so that the spirituality comes through clearly. Sometimes Hesse crosses the line from being spiritual to being too downright airy for my taste, and the separation of artist from other concerns is not a prescription that I think much of. But Hesse at his best is a remarkable writer and in many of these stories — notably “Faldum”and “Strange News From Another Planet”– are the author at his best.
Reading Jack Zipes’s essays on fairy tales has repeatedly inspired me to write my own. These collections, instead of inspiring stories in me, have taught me a lesson: when an author starts with political polemic as the point of his or her tale, it usually makes for a poor story. If one starts as a storyteller, the messages one has will come of their own accord. I fancy that I can tell which authors, among those Zipes has chosen for Utopian Tales From Weimar, had learned that lesson and it is clear that Herman Hesse most certainly had. I hope that I can apply that same lesson to my own writing.
(Polygon, 1990)
(Bantam Books, 1995)
