The Complete Tales of Merry Gold

 The Complete Tales of Merry Gold

by Kate Bernheimer

Published by The University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL)

2006

A while back, I read a quirky little book called Horse Flower Bird by Kate Bernheimer (which I have previously blogged about). I liked it well enough that I decided to check out Bernheimer's other work. I'd already started reading a collection she edited and contributed to (My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me) and saw that she had a series of books about sisters named Ketzia, Merry, and Lucy Gold. In looking at the descriptions on Amazon, I noticed that on the cover of The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold was my favorite artwork of all time--Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Dorothea Tanning. For those of you who don't know me, Dorothea Tanning has been a long-standing obsession (I first encountered her work--this painting, in fact--in black and white on the cover of a live Babes in Toyland album at around age 15). I was interested in reading the stories because I'd liked what I'd read by Bernheimer so far but it was the cover that decided me . Yes, I do judge books by their covers--don't you sometimes?

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Dorothea Tanning

The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold is a difficult book to describe. The "tales" are usually short, sometimes not more than a page or page and a half. A plot is there but it's vague and it's all filtered through Ketzia, who, while likable and sympathetic (and frustrating, at times), isn't the most reliable of narrators.Some tales in the book are just transcriptions of the original tales the stories are loosely based on or inspired by.

I just received the two other books in the series this week and am picking up with The Complete Tales of Merry Gold. So far, it is following the same pattern that the first book in the series followed. Merry, like her sister, lives in a seedy hotel where she sleeps during the day; she wanders the lonely, frozen streets at night. She pays her rent with random nickels she finds and, when it isn't enough, she (like her sister Ketzia) gives her landlord a peepshow to make up for the missing rent money. One night, Merry is on one of her nightly journeys through the town when she rids herself, first, of her meager daily meal of coffee and a roll, which she gives to a homeless man (it's so cold out the coffee freezes in the homeless man's hands), then her jacket, then her pajamas, which she gives to a shivering, almost transparent little boy who runs away into the night. There is a dreamlike, surreal quality to this scene, underscored by the fact that, as we will learn later, Merry is not usually so kind and considerate to others. The next day, Merry is dressed in a seal coat and waits for the taxi that will take her back home to her parents. This is one of several recurring fairy tale patterns in this series. This particular one is based on the fairy tale "The Star Talers."

“The Star Talers” by Paul Hey

 Despite the similar trajectory of their lives, Ketzia and Merry are quite different. There's something innocent and pathetic about Ketzia. She seems incapable of acting in her own best interest at times but her weakness elicits pity. Merry, on the other hand, is, at best, impish. Often, she is pathologically cruel. She amputates her dolls and cuts her sister Ketzia's hair while she sleeps.There's a certain knowing to Merry that we do not see in Ketzia--Merry is, in her own words, "sharp as a needle." Ketzia is all blurs and smudges but Merry's edges are razor sharp, at least at the beginning of the novel. Later on, Merry becomes enveloped in the same blurry vagueness as Ketzia.

Legless, Armless and Clueless

In both books, the stories are sometimes told in the first person, sometimes in third person. One of the most disturbing first person tales in Merry's Tales is called "The Beggarwoman". The beggar in question is a woman who knocks on the door of the Gold household, begs, is given popcorn by Mrs. Gold, and then has the door shut in her face. Merry, in an attempt to anger her mother, lets the woman in to stand by the fire in the den. The beggarwoman's tattered clothing catches on fire and Merry, instead of putting out the fire, watches her burn until she is nothing but a "tiny black smudge". Merry's family asks what has become of the woman and this is what she tells us:

"She was never here," I said very loud. "You weirdos." It was an illusion, you see. But I had seen her, and she had seen me. What does that mean? Do you know, my pretties? Do you, my sweets?

My pretties...

At this point, it is obvious that Merry cannot be trusted to put out fires or accurately recount the events of her childhood. When she isn't gluing dead flies to paper doll dresses, these are the kinds of stories she tells and you can't be sure whether you are encountering a fantastically horrific event or the fabrications of a mentally ill mind.

these dresses need more dead flies...

 
A few tales in, it becomes clear that Merry is dealing with a very deep, unidentified pain. She starts drinking before middle school, using her allowance to buy peppermint Schnapps. When she's older and drops out of Design School, she makes ends meet by tracing and pinning patterns. She eats her lunch from an automat machine. She meticulously tracks her earnings and expenditures and reads herself to sleep with fairy tales every night. Merry's obsessive compulsive tendency to keep detailed records of things is developed in her childhood, when she keeps records of her expenditures, how many pieces of bacon her brother eats, and, most tellingly, how many times her mother tries to hug her.

tomato and cheese

Merry's treatment of her sister Ketzia is sadistic and, often times, dangerous. Ketzia's weak personality and innocence seem to incite Merry and bring out her inner beast. Merry sees Lucy as more of an equal because she isn't as easily conquered and controlled as Ketzia. It is Lucy's interactions with her sister that provide the clue to the true state of Merry's mind. In one chapter, we are told by Merry that she and her sister Lucy were once roommates. This living situation comes to an end when Lucy comes upon Merry conversing with imaginary mice while darning her socks. All along, it has been unclear if Merry has been pulling the reader's leg with these nonchalant claims of fantastical occurrences or if they are events that she truly believes have occurred. Lucy's reaction tells us that Merry is obviously, visibly disturbed and that she is most likely hallucinating, although one guesses there may be a story behind Lucy's reaction to this scene that we won't know until we read her tales.

Darning Socks, Charles Spencelayh

Ketzia was a difficult character to grasp. She was so vague at times, so much like a typical fairy tale heroine, that you couldn't get a handle on her personality. As she wandered aimlessly through life, you just hoped she'd overcome her troubles and end up with a happily-ever-after. Merry is more clearly defined than Ketzia and more flawed. She dwells more often in reality than Ketzia and even her dreams seem more tortured than Ketzia's. It's difficult to see things ending happily for Merry and, at the end of the book, the reader isn't given a clear indication that things have ended so; the lines between reality and fairy tale-dream remain blurred.

Musical Chairs, Dorothea Tanning

For further reading, see the German, Russian, and Yiddish fairy tales that inspired this novel:
German:
"The Star Talers"
"The Hazel Branch"
"The Old Beggar-woman"
"The Three Spinners"
"The Crumbs on the Table"
"The Stolen Pennies"
"The Bright Sun will Bring it to Light"
"The Water Nixie"
"Mary's Glass"
"A Riddling Tale"
"The Coal, the Straw, and the Bean"

Russian:
"The Lazy Maiden"
"Know Not"
"The Bladder, the Straw, and the Shoe"
"The Two Rivers"
"The Beggar's Plan"
"The Goat Comes Back"

Yiddish:
"The Shretele That Took a Little Nip"
"The Naughty Little Girl"
"The Princess and Vanke, the Shoemaker's Son"

Horse, Flower, Bird

In keeping with the fairy tale theme this winter, I recently read Horse, Flower, Bird by fairy tale maven Kate Bernheimer. Bernheimer is the creator of the Gold Sisters (Lucy, Ketzia, and Merry) and editor of Fairy Tale Review. She's also the editor of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me and Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

 
 Horse, Flower, Bird is one of those books you can read in about an hour; the text is sparse, with a few simple line illustrations here and there, and the characters are vague, wistful, and lead sad, sometimes secretive, lives. These stories bring to mind the off-kilter novels and fairy tale variations of Barbara Comyns, with similar elements of magical realism. Bernheimer depicts slightly surreal worlds in miniature, as if she were crafting haunted or derelict dollhouses inhabited by birds, people in cages, tiny horses, forlorn tulip bulbs waiting for spring, imaginary friends (that eventually run away), and little girls with webbed toes. In several stories, the shadow of the Holocaust lurks in the background, which lends a certain gravity to these bittersweet tales.

Illustration for Poe's The Oval Portrait 

 In "Whitework", which is based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Oval Portrait" and probably my favorite story in the collection, the reader is transported to a cottage tucked away deep in the woods where wine is served in tea cups by a faithful but silent companion: "I should have been very happy to be lame and blurred, to have my companion bring me teacups of wine at night, and in the morning my coffee and rolls. I never minded that the rolls were so tough to the bite that my teeth had become quite loose in their sockets, as loose as my brain or the bluebirds in the forest when their nests are looted by ravens." There's also a "code" hidden in this story, a sort of key to the mystery and allure of fairy tales and their influence on readers and writers. In her notes for "Whitework" in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, Bernheimer says, "Certainly, it could be said to be a story about the anxiety of influence, or, perhaps more aptly, the influence of anxiety—it contains the code to my work with fairy tales as a writer, I think. But the code is submerged, just as secrets should be."

Whitework

My only complaint about the content of the book is that it's far too short. I felt as though I'd barely immersed myself in this strange little world before I came to the end and was thrust out of it again. Also, I'd suggest buying a physical copy of the book rather than the eBook version because the latter doesn't handle the illustrations well. Overall, Bernheimer's body of work is impressive and I highly recommend this book, as well as Bernheimer's The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold.

Cover art by Dorothea Tanning

Read Bernheimer's work while listening to Colleen's Everyone Alive Wants Answers. It's a nice pairing.

Yearly reading challenge

 Every year I set a reading goal. Usually a 50 book challenge. This year, I set a 75 book challenge for myself, which I’m tracking on Goodreads. For the month of January, I read around 20 books. February wasn’t so productive but I still completed 7 books. My monthly goal for March is to finish all the books I’ve started but haven’t finished in the past 6 months.  Right now, I’m tackling the last few pages of The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.  Ordinarily, I devour books but this one has been slow-going. However, don’t let my uncharacteristic schlep through the latter half of the book deter you. If you haven’t read this book, DO IT. It’s taking me a while to complete it, not because it isn’t amazing and chock full of the most fantastic and fantastical imagery I’ve ever encountered; it is taking me a while to complete it for precisely these reasons. So. Much. Imagery. I can’t even take it all in. Schulz is an indefatigable purveyor of sentences that a)make you cry because they are so beautiful b)make you cringe because they are so spine-tinglingly creepy or c)make you cry because he’s dead and for the most horrible and unfathomable reasons and he’ll never write another word again. 

 I'm reading the English edition, obv.

What else? My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales (ed. Kate Bernheimer), a lovely Christmas present from my lovely significant other. 

For the most part, I’m enjoying this collection but with so many different writers contributing, the quality varies greatly from story to story. There are some that stand out (the tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and Kelly Link are standouts so far) and others that fall flat . Even the ones that aren’t so great are still, I think, worth the effort if you are a fan of fairy tale retellings. Even when I haven’t liked the author’s style I find I still appreciate the attempt and the different takes on the stories that “scare, lull, and make mock” (with all necessary nods to Marina Warner).