I always thought it hadn't influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Fairytales work on two levels. On a conscious level, they are stories of true love and triumph and overcoming difficult odds and so are pleasurable to read. But they work on a deeper and symbolic level in that they play out our universal psychological dramas and hidden desires and fears.
I love fairy tales because I think that behind fairy tales, there is always a meaning.
People tend to think of fairy tales as 'archetypal.' They are also extremely sensual, something which translates well over the ages.
Fairy tales are stories of triumph and transformation and true love, all things I fervently believe in.
As I read more and more fairy tales as an adult, I found massive collusion between their 'subjects' and those in my fiction: childhood, nature, sexuality, transformation. I realized that it wasn't by accident that I was drawn to their narrative structure and motifs.
Look at Jane Austen. Her characters derive in a reasonably straight line from fairy tales.
As a reader, coming to my reading as a writer immersed in fairytales, I can't help but notice in so many stories, plays, poems that I read, the sort of breadcrumbs of fairytale techniques, so I'm very excited when I notice that.
There are recurring elements in popularized fairy tales, such as absent parents, some sort of struggle, a transformation, and a marriage. If you look at a range of stories, you find many stories about marriage, sexual initiation, abandonment. The plots often revolve around what to me seem to be elemental fears and desires.
Fairytales are stories that span every generation and they've been around for a long time.
I grew up with a lot of fairy tales. And they had an essence of darkness to them.
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