Number three is up at Amazon.com. (Scroll down the page.) We’re looking positively Grimm — and my friends from Who Killed Albus Dumbledore are speculating we’re seeing a “a booklet on virtues as illustrated by quaint little wizarding vignettes standing in for the usually fairy tale approach” (Professor Mum).
What do you think?
I think it’s a Gothic echo of Bluebeard. Check out the sanitized version of this story: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/bluebeard/index.html Anyone see a little Phantom of the Opera in this, too? Dorian Gray?
Maybe I’ll come across now as the little boy who cried the Emperor had no clothes, but if this is Rowling’s take on what happens if you forswear love, I vastly prefer Richard Wagner’s Nibelungen cycle. Though possibly I’m doing the author an injustice now, as all we’ve got is a summary, not the text itself. In general, based on what I’ve read so far, the Tale of the Three Brothers is the best, with the Fountain of Fair Fortune in second place.
filit,
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Without the text, we really don’t know if we are reading terrible reviews of brilliant tales, or brilliant reviews of terrible tales.
All I really got from the review was that the reviewer seemed to think the tale shockingly dark to the point of being out of character for the author. But without seeing Rowling’s text, I cannot say whether I agree, disagree or am of two minds about the reviewer’s opinion.
I don’t really see Phantom of the Opera in “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,” as the unattractive Phantom character is quite the opposite of the attractive warlock of this tale and the Phantom (despite his dark obsessions and the murders he commits) is desperately seeking love (not running away from it), and does fall in love with Christine in the end (allowing her to leave with Raoul after she kisses him) but similarities to “The Picture of Dorian Gray” are quite obvious. The legend of Bluebeard though … hmm. The place where the warlock hid his heart wasn’t exactly forbidden to anyone, and he himself took his wife to it, so …
Mostly, this is story a moral about the terrible costs of Dark Magic, and about why we shouldn’t deny our hearts ability to love.