A review by briandice
Briar Rose by Robert Coover

5.0

Once upon a time...

If you were like me growing up there came a time when the fairy tales your parents read to you no longer rang true. The story's simplicity and thin veneer of reality didn't jive with the way that the real world was just starting to reveal itself to your blooming mind. If you were like me growing up you began to ask questions about the story that the adult reading it to you couldn't answer. And like me, it was around that time that you were encouraged to embark on some independent reading of books that were age appropriate.

He has undertaken a great adventure ... to provoke a confrontation with the awful powers of enchantment itself.

Coover's ability to take the shopworn tale of Sleeping Beauty, smash it into infinite pieces - soak those with the blood and piss of reality, and then examine them one-by-one in a re-telling is nothing short of brilliance. We have the story told through the eyes of the sleeping princess, the crone fairy, the gallant knight. Told, retold, retold, retold and even though this novella clocks in at less than 100 pages it has the capacity of being endless.

In a sense, omnipotence is a form of impotence.

Beyond the familiar narrative, Coover explores the inner lives of the characters, the action of what came before and what happens after the awakening kiss. Countless alter realities. Which is the real story? Can't it be all of them?

...and they all lived happily ever after.