Friends,

Did your parents read fairy tales to you at bedtime? Father did not. Both he and Mother read to me stories from the Bible or from the Church Fathers and Mothers. They saw little use for fairy tales. While my parents rarely dictated what I read as a child, they were adamant that I did not read the works of Hans Christian Andersen (HCA).

Indeed, on a trip to New York in 2008, Mother and I were walking through Central Park. Halfway between the Loeb Boathouse and Pilgrim Hill, where I learned to sled, we came across the statue of Hans with his ugly duckling.

“Mother, let us take a picture together with Mr. Andersen and his duck.”

“No, son. We do not take pictures with frivolous people.”

Father later explained this prohibition a product of his reading of Kierkegaard’s “From the Papers of One Still Living.” This work, of course, was Kierkegaard’s first published work and it was a damning critique of HCA personally and his fairy tale Only a Fiddler. Kierkegaard’s primary critique is that HCA lacked a world or life view. Compounding his literary woes, HCA inserted himself as the narrator, and at the time, Kierkegaard did not hold HCA as a moral or religious man. For Kierkegaard, the narrator must belong to the religious realm and have a clear and potent life view. I doubt Kierkegaard would enjoy reading most of what is written today.

Lacking that life view, Kierkegaard, wrote that HCA’s stories showed no coherence and were sloppy and contradictory. Fairy tales, Kierkegaard believed, were competent vehicles to express life views. He did, afterall, begin his most influential work, Fear and Trembling with the words “once upon a time.” Father clearly did not understand this about Kierkegaard, nor that the two Danes reconciled later in life, so I was left to live my early life deprived of the works of Andersen and other fairy tale tellers.

It was not until I was a freshman in high school that my rebellious streak appeared. It was a crisp November Saturday, several weeks after we celebrated Front Day. A brisk north wind rustled the magnolia leaves along Prytania St. I swung right at Soniat Street and quietly entered Latter Library. I had what I thought were untoward intentions, so I tried to remain as discreet as possible. After looking through the card catalog, I found the book in the stacks.

The librarian knew me by name and said, “You are going to enjoy this story, TulaneLSU!” She lifted up the hardcover book and my neck flexed as I felt the shame. The neck is the one joint in the body that when you flex, you are in a humble or contrite position. My shame came from the cover, which showed a topless mermaid sunbathing on a mostly submerged rock, her blonde hair flowing in the light wind. Sensing someone would see it, I quickly grabbed the book and threw it in the bag, zipping the bag even faster.

Later that night, after Mother had told me my bedtime story, I pretended to fall asleep. Under my bed, an antique burl walnut twin that my Great, Great, Great Grandfather used as a boy, I retrieved a flashlight and the library copy of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. Asking the Lord to lead me not into temptation, I decided it would also be a good idea to tape a sheet of paper over the book’s cover. While many here may actively lust after the pictures of loosely clothed or unclothed women, I take Jesus’ words about lust to heart.

Covered and protected by my Pendleton Glacier blanket, no glow of my lantern’s light allowed to emanate through its virgin wool, I devoured the tale in short time. I instantly fell in love not with the mermaid but with the Sea King’s mother. It is the mermaid’s grandmother, the dowager and rock of the family, who raised the King and all of his daughters. When the six mermaid granddaughters need advice, they do not go to the Sea King; they go straight to grandmother.

The Sea King is absent throughout. He plays no real role in the lives of the mermaids or in the story itself. As I read, I wondered if the real reason father did not want me to read that story was fear that I might see him in the Sea King.

The original story from Andersen is one of tragedy and self sacrifice. While romance is present, the theme is not romantic. Instead, the reader learns that the mermaid has one opportunity to save her life, but according to the deal with the sea witch, she must murder the young prince.

When the opportunity to murder him presents itself, with dagger in hand, the mermaid realizes she cannot commit this sin, this act of anti-love. In a self-sacrificial act, she tosses the dagger into the sea. Her fate is sealed. As she is supposed to breathe her last, “daughters of the air,” these ethereal beings, quite similar to angels, rescue her. The mermaid learns that these figures live in a Purgatory-like state. They must perform good deeds for 300 years before they are given an immortal soul, which is that for which the mermaid yearns. We are left to assume that the mermaid, after three centuries, gains an immortal soul. But it is never implied that she ever is able to unite with her dream prince.

As I finished the tragedy, I wept in my bed because it reminded me of the type of love with which Jesus loves us. Mother did not catch me reading the book, nor did she find out that I rented the1989 Disney movie from the Blockbuster on Louisiana Ave. and Magazine.

Longtime Movie Board posters know that I have written a review of almost every movie I have ever watched. Today, I tried to find the review I had of the 1989 Little Mermaid movie. After considerable effort, moving many boxes, I was able to find that review. You will find it rudimentary, as it was written by a high school freshman, but I hope you do not mind me sharing it with you now.

quote:
“The Little Mermaid is a cartoon movie that is supposed to be based on Hans Andersen’s short story. The two are nothing alike. The movie is an America sob story about a rebellious teenage brat who fights with her abusive and controlling father. She collects junk from shipwrecks and the materialistic urchin swims away from daddy, who blows up all her belongings, including her dear Eric statue, over which she lusts.

“Both Ariel and Triton, two names never mentioned in the written word, are spoiled examples of the worst of Americans. Triton cannot control his burning anger and Ariel is self-obsessed and turns to a Satan figure to make a deal, just as did Dorian Gray, when she does not get what she wants. And we all know what happens when someone makes a deal with the Devil.

“Disney, with all its pretty colors and fanciful music, twists the purpose of Andersen’s work. There should be no happy ending. In a just world, Triton does not get to sacrifice his life for Ariel. In a just world, Ariel does not get to marry her beau and sail under a rainbow. Justice demands that they are punished for their iniquity.

“Disney sure did take a whole lot of liberties in this kid’s cartoon. Where is the grandmother? She plays a huge role in the book. Triton? Who? He is a supportive, even peripheral, character in the story, but in the movie he is the hero. The mermaid in the real story is a noble girl – she is not a hoarder. Her only two possessions are flowers and the marble statue. And the endings? They are nothing alike. In the old story, the prince marries another girl. The mermaid becomes an ethereal sky being. Disney butchered Andersen’s work! The Little Mermaid is a 4/10.”