Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen is a novel that has made me rethink Sleeping Beauty and my own idea of a fairy tale. My preconceived notion, like many other Americans, is a Fairy tale starts with “Once upon a time” and ends with, “they all lived happily ever after”. It is an idea that she herself brings up in the many time throughout the novel. In Briar Rose Yolen plays with and pushes this idea to the limits. What does it mean to end, “happily ever after”? The novel has many happy endings, but it also had many unhappy endings.
Overall, I think that this is a story that youth will fall in love with. First, they will be intrigued with the idea that they get to read about Sleeping Beauty. However, soon they will learn that it is not like any story of Sleeping Beauty that they have ever read or seen. The book is really two stories in one. The first one, the story of Briar Rose is a very small story in the greater scheme or the book. However, it works as a catalyst to propel the story forward. Upon reading it you want to continue reading it because you know that it is different, and you want desperately to know how this one ends. The larger story though is Becca’s quest. In the end she looking for her Grail, she is looking for her history, her grandmother’s history. She needs to know the truth. There is a scene in the novel when Becca is trying to explain why she needs to go to Poland and she says, “’is that I alone can break the spell. It wasn’t so much as finding her as looking for her. And only she could do it.’”(Yolen 109). The quest is the important part. She needs to look for her, she needs to look for her own past. In so doing she can break the spell, she can wake up from journey, and her grandmother can fully wake up from her history as well.
I think that when most people hear the word fairy tale, they think of a made up story with a happy ending. In essence a fantasy that he/she wants to believe because it is uplifting. Throughout the novel Yolen is explaining how fairy tales can be more than just a fantasy. There is the old adage that every story/lie is based in the truth. This can also be true for fairy tales. One line that really stuck out to me was when Stan, the love interest of Becca states, “’We are made up of stories. And even the ones that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truth.’”(Yolen 64). I think that this line explains fairy tales. Yes, fairy tales are stories, sometimes they are made up, but in the root of these stories lies the truth. Whether it is lore about the creation of the world, or a simple children’s tale, these stories are telling a hidden truth. They are in response to the larger world, explaining and telling how the world works in the language that is understandable. The writer, and telling in the early versions, is telling the emotional truth, the symbolic truth. Does it matter that we believe that the world was created in 7 days, no, but it matters that some powerful being created the earth. Does it matter that Sleeping Beauty was not a person, no, but can it be used to explain a larger meaning, yes.
For Yolen, she wanted to tell a history through the eyes of Briar Rose. For this she uses a context that many students will understand, as well as be intrigued with. Considering the stigma that Sleeping Beauty is a girls story, I think that Yolen does a good job making it assessable to boys as well. The idea that she was sleeping not from the prick on the finger, but a gas shower during the holocaust creates this new version that all genders can relate to. She was not awakened by a kiss, but instead brought back to life through a breath. The way Yolen plays with this story makes the reader want to keep reading, and also lets you forget for a minute it is a fairy tale. It is really easy for me to talk about what I loved about the book because it was excellent on so many levels. However, I think what will resonate with me the most is the story at the end of the book. The story of how Josef survived in the wilderness after the concentration camp. This is the story that I feel the students especially the male students will enjoy. It is full of action as well as meaning. Because, as Yolen says “We say to fibbing children: ‘Don’t tell fairy tales!’ Yet children’s fibs, like old wive’s tales, tend to be overgenerous with the truth rather than economical with it” (Yolen 223). Like this quote, the story itself is not the truth, but it full of the truth of the emotions and the feelings of those who survived the holocaust. It is a happy ending in the fact that the grandmother lived and Becca found her truth and they were both able to wake from their spell. However, the happy ending also is laced with the sorrow of what happened to so many young Jewish men and women.