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Loading... Mirror Mirror: A Novelby Gregory Maguire
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. http://unabridgedopinions.com/2009/07... (  ) jnyrose | Jul 19, 2009 |  This is an adult re-telling of Snow White. Set in Montefiore, Bianca de Nevada is 7 at the beginning of the tale living as an only child with her father after her mother died. Keeping her company are a potty mouthed cook Primavera Vecchia and not so holy Priest Far Ludovico. One day a noble couple come to visit, brother and sister Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia. There has been much speculation that Lucrezia had an inapprioriate relationship with their father, the Pope, and she has definitely had/is having one with her brother despite them both being married. Cesare sends Bianca's father off to retrieve a sacred branch from the original Tree of Knowledge said to have 3 apples still growing upon it. They will make sure Bianca is ok while he is gone. He has no choice but to leave her behind and is followed unbeknownst to him by a dwarf. Lucrezia finds a beautiful mirror that Bianca's father found and uses it to see other people and places. She is upset with Cesar makes a pass at Bianca and feels her looks are fading, so sends Primavera's son out to the woods to kill Bianca and bring back her heart. He lets her go and she wakes up years later in a cave surrounded by dwarves. This was a great tale. The dwarves were my favourites, they were so inhuman and well described. Definitely not the Disney versions with the more appealing names, these have names like Bitter, Nextday and Heartless. Like I said, it's definitely not intended for children. There was a really interesting section at the very end where Maguire talks about some of the history of the real Cesar and Lucrezia and where he got his ideas from which was fascinatinb. Definitely recommended. ( ) Rhinoa | May 30, 2009 | This was a GREAT twist on the Snow White tale! I enjoyed it much more than the original fairy tale. ( ) DistortedSmile | Apr 20, 2009 | Interesting look at the Snow White Fable and includes The Broga Family, who were Machiavelli's inspiration for "The Prince." ( ) AuntJha | Apr 8, 2009 | This book was sort of like a double retelling -- one of Snow White, and one of the Italian Borgias family. I really liked the use of historical events and people as the backdrop of this fairy tale, particularly the use of Lucrezia Borgia as the "evil stepmother." It made me wish I knew more about the family's actual history because I think I would have enjoyed it more. But as much as I liked that aspect, the rootedness of the story in history and politics made some of the more fantastical elements (dwarves that "evolved" out of rocks, the magic mirror, Snow White's multiple-year sleeping episodes on more than one occasion) feel a little out of place. Essentially, I wanted the fantastical elements to be as clearly defined as the historical and political elements, but they sort of weirdly just floated in and out. I also felt like Gregory Maguire laid a lot of groundwork in the first half of the book with the intricacy I've come to appreciate about his writing, but the second half felt rushed, as though he suddenly remembered he was writing a Snow White retelling and had to get all the elements in there. And I couldn't find a way to justify the way the narrative went beyond head-hopping to switch between third and first person with no apparent rhyme or reason (I'm sure he had one because he must have explained it to his editor SOMEHOW, but I didn't invest myself in discovering it). Still, he breathed a lot of newness into an old story without totally mangling it, and that's the measure of a truly good retelling in my book. (  ) sedeara | Mar 18, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0060988657, Paperback)The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm -- and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia -- decadent children of a wicked pope -- no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest, he leaves Bianca under the care -- so to speak -- of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest salvation can be found as well ... A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror gives fresh life to the classic story of Snow White -- and has a truth and beauty all its own. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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