Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #801234 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .43" h x 4.99" w x 7.24" l, .27 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

From Amazon.com
Robert Coover has a power over the language matched by few authors and a curiosity about the nature of stories and narratives that keeps his work intellectually charged, if sometimes difficult to follow. Students of postmodernism and fans of metafiction will be interested to read Briar Rose, Coover's funny deconstruction and retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.

From Publishers Weekly
Long a favorite of modern poets from Paul Valery to Randall Jarrell, the tale of Sleeping Beauty has given rise to some of the century's deepest meditations on the act of writing and the workings of inspiration and desire. Coover (John's Wife, etc.) has always drawn inspiration from classical narratives (he brilliantly reworked Hansel and Gretel in his short-story collection Pricksongs and Descants), so it will hardly surprise his readers that he has devoted an entire, albeit slim, novel to the princess. Briar Rose returns him to what may be his most fruitful obsession, the absurd and inescapable demands that Romance makes on our lives. "Desire," the fairy godmother asks herself, "what is that?" That's the question at the heart of this remarkable thicket of a novel, where plot and point of view intertwine according to the logic of fable, dream and parody. Coover's allegorical retelling of Sleeping Beauty-hard to put down and impossible to paraphrase-is one of his best, bitterest jokes to date. It is also one of his most accessible works, confirming him as simply wittier, sadder, more precise and more inventive than most novelists writing today.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Touted as a postmodern fairy tale, this brief work is Coover's retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty. In this dark and unromantic world, a prince hacks his way through the briar hedge surrounding the castle, ever aware that the bodies of dead princes who went before him are swinging in the wind, and the princess dreams of the men who come and assault her as she lies helpless. Though the writing is beautiful, as one would expect, the mood is grim, even dreary, and the whole thing feels like a tedious exercise. A postmodern Pinocchio in Venice will also be released this spring. Not essential, though given Coover's standing, literary collections should consider.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.