My favorite stories were:
"The Remarkable Rocket" -- a firework thinks he's the coolest thing ever and ends up a total dud. It's so slyly funny!
"The Young King" -- a new king goes through a series of lessons to become wise and good.
"The Star-Child" -- a fallen star is rescued in the form of a human baby, grows up thinking he's awesome, and eventually learns a really important lesson about appearances and pride.
As I typed those out, I just noticed that all three of those have a very strong common theme. Huh!
Most of the stories were a bit sad or almost-sad, but most of them also had really funny things in them, as you might expect from Oscar Wilde.
Particularly Good Bits:
"But I have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as being quite different" ("The Remarkable Rocket," p. 47).
They did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no matter, for they put their heads on one side, and looked wise, which is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier ("The Birthday of the Infanta," p. 105).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some really sad bits.
This has been my 45th classic read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.
I've always been a fan of Wilde's "The Selfish Giant" so it's probably about time that I look into some of his other stories! I thiiiiiiink I've read "The Happy Prince" but I don't remember it enough to be sure. "The Remarkable Rocket" sounds like a blast (sorry, pun intended. xD)
ReplyDeleteChloe, how cool you've read some of his fairy tales before! I bet you could find these to read for free online somewhere like Project Gutenberg, as they are sure to be in the public domain.
DeleteAnd "The Remarkable Rocket" is a total blast :-D Metaphorically, anyway!
I love Oscar Wilde's fairy tales!! "The Selfish Giant" is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteMegan, so cool that you have read some before! I was completely unaware he'd written any. And they're so good! "The Selfish Giant" is an excellent one.
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