(00:00:00) Many of you who are longtime members of Minnesota Public Radio will remember the column that Carol Bly wrote in Minnesota monthly for several years. It was called letter from the country and was a thought-provoking series of essays on a wide range of subjects. Carol has since written a book by the same name letters from the country. She is also a short story author and is in the Minneapolis st. Paul area to give a talk tonight on the subject of fairy tales. The talk will be given at the Hennepin County Library, which is out on York and 70th in Minneapolis begins at 7:30. Carol Bly fairy tales does not as a garden-variety newsman strike me as something that would be of fascinating interest to very many people. What about that? One thing that's wrong with it is that fairy tales aren't don't really have fairies in them. The word is wrong in English. They're really folktales folktales with tremendous variety. Some of them are just practical jokes. Lots of the Scandinavian ones for example are simply tricks and jokes. What is it? Do you suppose that distinguishes a fairy tale from some other types of fictional children's writing thinking about things like The Tall Tales of Paul Bunyan things of that nature. Yes, mostly the timeline the when they were done fairy tales The best-known Collection that we all know of among others is the Grimm Brothers Collections and they were collecting things that there were hundreds of years old and told as far as we know because there are enough variety and in the version so that we Tell it wasn't written down with a definitive version. The other thing is that the author it's totally unclear what the authors had in mind with these stories. Sometimes you see a story in which there's gross Injustice in the story horrible things happen. Someone is eaten by his own animals, for example or something like that and a nineteenth-century author like Lewis Carroll or like someone like Hans Christian Andersen would have some point to it and you'd feel a guiding prevailing intelligence behind it trying to tell us and therefore this means or on therefore Little Children You should and therefore parents have mercy and so on but not so in the in folk tales they simply go on in their hair brain sort of way describing a landscape. That's very strange. What kind of need you suppose they fulfilled at the time they were written down and more to the point. What kind of a need to they fulfilled today? My guess is it is that they feel exactly the same set of needs different. Four different people at different times in their in their lives. I mean the needs basically our once of your of your own inner psychology. In other words when someone when I'm nice ladies, you know says it seems too bad to let children read that terrible stuff about how the bride the bride groom turned out to be a robber bridegroom and he cut off the finger of some woman in order to get the ring off and the ring rolled and rolled and behind a beer Cask was hiding that what was going to be his new fiancee and the ring rolled right into her hands. How terrible that is. Why should you let Jordan Reed such Dreadful stuff and the fact is that children have hundreds of Terrors and fears inside them and they're glad to read it because then it says, oh I have always been thinking all these terrible possibilities in my wildest dreams and fancies and it turns out other people think them to it must be. All right, or they must be Or take a child, for example, that's brought up in a very sheltered house say that all through Sunday school and all through Thanksgiving dinner and all through Advent and Christmas. This child is told things are very nice. If you just act nice, they'll come out. All right and most people are very nice. If you give them enough space and hear them out and up until 1950. You didn't even have to hear them out. You could just be nice now since 1950. We have psychology pop psychology. So now you people are nice if you hear them out. Okay, so they're told all those things and everything's going to be all right, but a child inside himself wonders why he's always imagining a stepmother that cut his head off if he turns his back or something like that and fairytale say yeah other people think that to yes and also fairy tales explained of political things in a certain way say that you've been told that everything is very nice and yet you find And that you're being run off your land if you're farming and you so you find your part of an economy that's running you off the land. And so if everyone has said everything's all right, then you feel it must be II must be the one that's losing money. It's my fault and so on and most men go through that at some point when they're farming thinking it must be me. Okay, but if you know about the possibility of gross Injustice all over the place, then you can always say well it might be I that's at fault and it might be someone else I'll have a look and see Carol Bly is with us this no more talking about fairy tales and what they mean and what their importance is perhaps you have a question would like to ask her about it two two seven six thousand is the phone number in Minneapolis st. Paul to to 76 thousand. If you are listening elsewhere in the state of Minnesota use that same number and feel free to call us collect. If you like our usual toll-free number is tied up with membership week activities this So we'll accept collect calls at area code 612 2276 thousand and the same if you are living in one of the surrounding states or in Ontario, and I believe if I'm not mistaken that someone is already on the line Carol. You'll have to slip your headphones on so you can hear the people on the telephone as they ask you a question. So there you're all set our listeners all set. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:06:05) I'm calling from st. Louis Park. Can I make her ask her particularly with the old folk tales are fairy tales whatever you want to use as a term how she would compare them with the myth of the ancient peoples which was a way of bringing knowledge and law forward in time through verbal means (00:06:28) Oh, that's a good question. The difference between fairy tales and myths basically is that myths have very serious content and don't always have a happy ending things don't always come out right there closer to our grown-up sorrows in our grown-up predicaments myths really describe the plight of adults in some way and fairy tales usually come out with some sort of an ending something happens. And what's happening. Is that although there are adults in them like a grown man the parents of or grown woman that parents have Hansel and Gretel for example, although there are grownups in them. That's children's material and you'll see that it comes out right with hope for a child for a child myths often. Haven't got hope you're often extremely sad. All right, thank you for calling. We'll move on to our next listener now. Go ahead, please you're on the (00:07:18) air. I'm calling from Minneapolis and I just want to say that I missed letters from the country in Minnesota monthly. I loved it and I do Of the book which I love that's all I want to say. I wish we accept I wish we had more letters from the country in Minnesota monthly. Thank you. (00:07:37) Thank you. That's a wonderful thing to say I miss doing them too. I like that sense of community used to take me about three days to write each one. And I know that I have three days out of each month when I'd be thinking over things to say for that. Thank you very much. We have another listener with a question. Go ahead please you're on the air, (00:07:53) right? My name is Louis Bell. I'm calling from Anoka I had two ideas were book that was inspired by re to my door one was Halloween in which I was dealing with the concept of monsters demons. And what have you that are manifest as result of many of our own personal traits as adults and people as they covetousness fears and anxieties lack of things. What have you and I have visited many countries and garden fairy tales are folk tales that deal with these themes. I want to know what sort of to what extent can I take the the ideas from these people's books original writings and bring them into another bring me to my so-called book then that will be legitimate or we respected by the writers or by the literary (00:08:51) world. Well that's been done and you can do it to all the material that's in folk tales are fairy tales is long since before copywriter out of copyright and people are constantly using it one thing that will happen. If you incorporate entire stories like say see, if you have a dog in your story who has lost all his teeth and therefore his master's going to kill him the next day. Although he's been a good Watchdog and a wolf contrives with the dog to save his life. If you have that in yours, no one will object legally, but people will notice that you're using old Sultan which was one of the Grimm Brothers collection and they'll say oh he's got that in there. There's no harm done legally. All right. We have more listeners with questions for Carol Bligh. And hi you're on the air. (00:09:39) Hi. I think I have an appreciation of what your attitude is toward fairy tales my I've had the experience of trying to explain to a well-meaning person why there is violence and things in them. I had a child who's almost too and he just beginning to talk. I'm wondering if you could give me some idea of when would be a good time to start fairy tales to start reading them. How old is the child have to be to get some benefit out of it. (00:10:05) There are two or three different schools of thought on that. I like the idea of telling them first before reading them. Then you can see how it goes. The usual psychologists feeling is that children like to have them read to them and told starting somewhere around fourth fifth and sixth year some children like to be read them earlier. There also is wonderful modern children's literature for two-year-olds that you might like better than the fairy tales might like to start with those for example Little Bear. Is a great book to begin with and and there and there are dozens of others. (00:10:40) Okay. Thank you very much. (00:10:41) All right, thank you for calling two two seven six thousand is the phone number if you have a question for Carol Bly and I see that we do have a line or two open right now. And we also have another listener with a question. Hi, you're on the air. (00:10:53) Am I on the air? And you sure am I on the air or the other person it is you who is on I'm on are well now tell the speaker that this is going to be a personal question. So she need not answer it if she so prefers but back in 1966 for a business will take a bit of briefing in June need to be exact. I heard Robert Bly and other poets in a poetry seminar in La Crosse Wisconsin and I being in charge of the program at the time in Minneapolis took it upon myself to invite. To be our speaker quickly accepted but come January why he called and said that the child was arriving and which I believe was turned out to be Noah and that he just was not able to come whereupon. I told him his family came first and for him to stay home and Ogden house. It was in Monroe and I would get someone else now. Is this the same (00:12:08) family? That was my child. Yes. All right, I think we'll just move on to another listener here who has a question specifically on our topic today, which is fairy tales. Carol Bly has with this she's going to be giving a talk on this topic tonight out at the Hennepin County library in Edina. And if you are interested in the subject why we invite your call at 2:00 to 7:00 6,000 in the Minneapolis st. Paul area. If you're listening in another part of Minnesota, you're welcome to call us collect at that number the same if you're listening in one of the surrounding states or in Ontario. All right, our next listener standing by go ahead please (00:12:49) um back to letters in the country. I would like to thank you for writing it. I think it's a wonderful book, I grew up in New England and first came to Minnesota 14 years ago met a lot of people from the country and they had a lot of ways that I didn't really clearly understand and after reading that book I find it really sharpens my focus and perspective on what life is like around here the life I did not Grow up. And so I just wanted to say (00:13:17) that thank you very much. I remember learning a wonderful remark. When I first looked at New England Farms that are so different as you know from ours. Someone said we were looking at a bunch of sheep in a field and I said what kind of sheep are they and they explained that they were Hampshire's our South Downs or something, and then they said that pastors a little snug and I said, what's that and apparently that means it's overgrazed a wonderful New England expression that we haven't gotten I've been using snug past you ever since it's nice to hear from a New Englander. Thank you. All right. We have another listener on the line. Go ahead, please you're (00:13:49) next. Thank you for calling from Minneapolis. I'd like to know how your guests feels about the current crop of horror films. Are they going to be looked on in the future by Future Generations as our folk tales in the same light as we look on old old folk tales now. Thank you. (00:14:08) I'm sure they won't I have two thoughts about the current bunch of horror films that have neither humor. No or really any imagination in them. And most of the plots are swiped from the old Bela Lugosi movies. Anyway, one is that they are simply a part of our junk culture something like what late Roman late other countries had non-art that gets going where it depends all on sensation and has no psychic meaning at all. Not at all. And in the second part of your question of whether they'll be looked on as part of our folk culture. I don't think they will be we have some strong and lovely things going on, but they aren't one of it. Okay, we have another listener with a question for Carol fly high. You're (00:14:47) next. Hi. I'm from Minneapolis. I was just wondering what you thought of adults who like fairy tales were nonviolent like the Cinderella the Snow White that sort of thing why they continually go back to Walt Disney movies or read those versions and all of their various story time and what you thought of (00:15:07) that Will's Snow White is awfully violent. If I remember correctly, even the Walt Disney version has the stepmother polishing up that horrible apple and dumping various things into the brew that she dips it in two and three attempts at murder I think in it, I respect the love of fairy tales in adults a lot. One of the things that the psychologists who have thought about these things a lot probably the smartest to that I've ever read on the subject and that doesn't mean they are the smartest. They're just the to that of all I've read I thought were the brightest were Bruno bettelheim. Marie Louise from France say that people use fairy tales quite differently at different ages. Sometimes a child will use a fairy tale to support some nervous psychic lack of confidence and sometimes adults will do the same. For example Believe It or Not There is a case of a little boy who loved Rapunzel and wanted to have it read to him at a point when he felt unsure of his parents being around and the reason is that he felt that the prince being able to climb up Rapunzel's hair meant that there was a way to solve any sort of problem that seem to be isolated. So of all the things that you'd expect someone to find in that story and there's lots that I that never would have crossed my mind and yet a child asked to have that read to him over and over and over again and so on if it don't is reading Snow White it serving some purpose and I would be very slow to make any remarks about it and just sort of sit back and let it serve its purpose. It's about 18 minutes past 12:00 o'clock. Carol Bly is with us talking about fairy tales and we were taking your calls on the subject in Minneapolis. St. Paul the phone number two two seven six thousand. We do have a line open. Now, if you'd like to join the conversation two two seven six thousand and you're welcome to call collect in another part of Minnesota because we're using the toll-free line for our membership week activities. One thing we really have to talk about Carol is the role of television in children's lives. We talk about fairy tales, but we certainly cannot ignore the role of Television, which has got to be thousands of times more pervasive. I would think now what are your thoughts about that? I think the best thing to do if you take raising children seriously is simply not to have the machine in the house at all until at least the youngest child is about 12. It's such a serious problem. And now the as it gets studied more the side effects are front effects. Turn out to be worse and worse and it used to be thought that it beginning that television only ruined the minds of children of uneducated parents who had no other input. So to speak now it turns out it has its horrible effects on everybody and their art they're very few protections against that constant sending of material which disappears before your eyes you see a picture with a plot of a story on it and then it's gone and you could don't hold it in your hands and think it over and it doesn't come through the ears of people that you love. I mean from through your ears from people you love telling you a reading to you either and most of it is non-content boy. Just think though if a kid did not have TV in the house and until he or she got to be 12, what would they have to talk about with their friends? I mean there is a whole common base of culture. That is that that relies on television. Yes, that's right. I wanted how to Of that with my children and we got it solved by letting them sneak over to their friends houses. And if you look at the Run of Television, actually, there's very little change and one six weeks check-up just have for example, I used to keep up with every one of the soap operas simply by having my hair cut at the same time every six weeks. That way I got checked with all of those the plot usually hasn't changed much you can keep your children cognizant of what's going on in all the stations with very with very few hours. And if it's in somebody's else's house then your house is free of it. We have more listeners with questions now for Carol, I go ahead you're (00:19:12) next. Yes. Hi. I'm interested in Miss bligh's opinion or thought sign and with the new with the or not the new but the women's movement how how women are portrayed. I'm sure you've heard of the book The Cinderella complex or Snow White being saved or Rapunzel having to be saved also, and I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. (00:19:35) I have to confess that. Ignorant of that theory I've heard the theory and I've discussed it with people but I haven't read books that or the book rather that comes with with that theory that that women are being presented entirely passive Italy. Is that (00:19:48) right? Yeah, pretty much and how their dependents their lives are dependent on on the men surrounding them. (00:19:56) Yes, I have I have two or three thoughts on that but one of them is that we need to modify the view in some sense. In other words. The fact is that is that left alone women tend not to be as physically strong as men. So if there's a situation where physical strength is needed then it's useful for men to help women and that's a fact it's going to have to be faced. It also is a sad fact in a way because as everyone knows it means that that women are sometimes at the mercy but still I think that needs modifying. I'm not as frightened in other words of reading about man saving women's lives. I'm constantly aware of with Savings men's life and I like the Cooperative attitude there. We have another listener with a question. Go ahead (00:20:42) please. Yes. I'm calling from Minneapolis. I agree with Carol bligh's statement that the current slashed and stabbed horror films are part of junk culture not related to folk and fairy tales, but I would like to speak up for the classic horror films of the past. Particularly Boris Karloff sensitive portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the 30s and films produced in the 40s by Val lewton such as body snatcher in the original cap it when I believe that the long history of the tradition is very much in keeping with folk and fairy tales in that it's been perverted recently and I hope that older return to the classic tradition. (00:21:15) I agree with you. Absolutely 100% My favorite movie actually is one that it was supposed to take place on top of a I believe a Russian Battlefield someplace and both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff were in it. And for some reason they decided to play chess to get hold of the Bride of a perfectly innocent fellow traveler upstairs is though they had any right to in the sense of humor the grotesqueness of it was simply marvelous. And it was had all the horror stuff except it was absolutely pervaded with humor. And with some sort of wonderful comrade re one of them. I believe wanted to freeze her in a cube in an ice cube to save her forever. And the other one wanted to Flay her in order to save her forever and both ideas are so absurd that it was there's something wonderful about that stuff. It's magical. I don't understand it. We have another listener with a question for Carol Bly higher on the (00:22:07) air. Hello. I just have like as a comment and a question one thing in reference to the whole television state of mind. We live in I grew up in a household where television was on a very minimal basis and we weren't allowed to watch and of course I hated that growing up and we had great battles about it, but the value generated will gradually kind of seep in that there is always something more important to do and now that I'm older I can perceive that although when I was younger I couldn't so I think that if you just make it clear in your household that television is sort of an escape. Maybe a way to relax and not necessarily where you're going to get your best ideas and thought provoking types of things from that will gradually, you know, take its toll and the other thing I wanted to ask sort of MPR why they don't maybe Institute a story hour on the radio because I remember also the child that was one of my very favorite things to do is tune in at I think it was four o'clock and here fairy tales and other kinds of stories. So I'll hang up. Thank you. (00:23:05) Thank you, that's one for you. But well, I will have to tell you that I don't know but I think what you ought to do is put your question on a card and address it to just address it to Minnesota Public Radio 45 East 8th Street Saint Paul 55101 and it will get to the right person and I suspect that you will probably get an answer or at least it will be it will be red and it will be considered. I'm not going to suggest the name of someone because I might not even pick the right one the people who open the mail are well. First in in who to send those things to 25 minutes past 12:00 o'clock. Carol Bly is with us. We have a line or two opened in the Minneapolis st. Paul area. If you'd like to join our conversation, we are talking about fairy tales and related matters 2276 thousand is the number in Minneapolis st. Paul and we invite collect calls from people outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area and in the surrounding states 2276 thousand and we have another listener standing by go ahead, please. (00:24:11) Yes, I want to ask her if she's read any of the work that Anne Sexton has done saying her book Transformations where she took a series of the Grimm's tales and transform them into poems and whether or not she's read that what she thinks that concept. (00:24:30) I haven't read Anne Sextons work on fairy tales. I thought I'd read all of Anne Sexton, but apparently I haven't so I can't comment on that. I know that people do use fairytale material and poetry in it's interesting. It's a different thing. Of course as soon as it's in poetry then we have the presence of the artist. So then you're in the presence of of a very particular intelligence that's telling you what he or she got out of the story which is different thing from taking the raw material. All right, shall we move on to our next listener? Hi, you're on the (00:25:02) air. Hi. I recently read a series of stories called had a hood to my seven-year-old and the heroin the person who is strong and in charge is always the woman and I was wondering if you knew of any other collection of fairy tales where the women are the heroes of the story. (00:25:26) I don't straight off the top of my head. I know of two presses though that try to promote work like that. One of them was called the feminist press published in New York and there are places you can write to I would write to I would write to Creative Education in Mankato, I think and ask them if they've if they can help you to a list like that because there are people very interested in in what sort of effect the story has. You know, who's the boss and who carries on it's possible, isn't it that she might find such an answer from her local librarian? Yes. That's a good idea. That's the simplest to all right, another listener with a question. Go ahead please. (00:26:11) I'm calling from Sheldon Minnesota and I'm just beginning to have an interest in fairy stories. I'm a 30 year old adult male and I'm curious as to what stories there are that deal quite specifically with men's issues and what if any collections have been made dealing specifically with men's issues in dealing with fairy stories that Deal with men's issues specifically I'll hang up and listen. (00:26:47) The fairy tales themselves usually don't divide up into any kind of issues because what they're really about is the place where all your unconscious material meets the conscious material, for example, when Hansel and Gretel go into the woods, then there there your that image of going into the woods and meeting a witch and having your your wits be adequate or not be adequate depending on how it works out for you. All that kind of thing is is for men and women both it's unconscious material and therefore it's not divided up into one sex is needs or another sex is needs. I would if you're very interested in fairy tales, I would read them all. I'd read not once gathered recently that where the author are rather the editor has tried to gather them around an issue because those will be steered. I take the straight stuff as it came from hundreds of years ago read the aspirin sin and mo translations from Scandinavia done by Pat Shaw and published by Viking. Ink and then read any one of the Grimm's Fairy Tales and then read the others and then later read the more modern ones like Hans Christian Andersen's but the idea is to take them straight because there's something mystical in them. They don't they can't be used just for one cause or another cause and you'll find men's answers that are very mysterious in them and women's answers have any idea how many fairy tales there are in the in the body of literature that we call fairy tales. Would it be hundreds thousands tens of thousands? No, but you're breaking my heart because I love statistics and I'd love to be able to answer of course Bob are exactly three million six hundred fifty five and they're in 46 languages. I haven't the vaguest ideas and many many repeat themselves. The great ones the very great ones show up amazingly alike in all sorts of cultures. Okay, we have another listener with a question for Carol Bly. Hi, you're on the (00:28:36) air. Thank you very much. I just like to say I really appreciate the The effort for Unity among mankind man and woman kind I I appreciate unity and Harmony and I appreciate you doing it thousands of listeners and we'll get more as we go along and I remember my question is or maybe it might be a statement in regards to the discussion relating to television and the studies that have been done in regards to all of the horrors or what-have-you regarding television. What do you think can be done? Other than what you spoke to the last caller reading all the fairy tales. What do you think that fairy tales can do to be able to get people back into the old style? (00:29:29) I think it's a question of hours. It's what you give your time to now the average American watches television now and this includes children six and one quarter hours a day the tests suggest that a person watching television is watching at the lowest brain level. There is a person watching television is watching with what I think is called an alpha level, which means it's your simply imprinting. Someone says two and two is four and your brain says, yep doing to his for next please then it says 2 & 3 is 5 right 2 & 3 is 5 it's not thinking it's not challenged or it's not active. The brain is absolutely as near passive as it can get without going to sleep. Now that happens even on Masterpiece Theater where that happens on the Neo. What's it report Neil macneil-lehrer macneil-lehrer report? Yes it whatever you're watching. No matter how intellectually interesting. It is. Apparently the brain goes into that rather flat imprinting response. So we need fewer hours at it. Now the great thing about fairy tales or any other literature, is that as soon as I say To you once upon a time. There were four animals all of whom were going to be slaughtered the next day because there are no longer of use one was a donkey one was a cat one was a rooster in one was a dog a picture comes into your head and you think how would I feel if I were the donkey? How would I feel if I were the cat? How would I feel if I were the rooster and the dog and you instantly you feel treachery the emotion of treachery comes in and you feel it because you're pretending you're someone else and it's that experience of pretending you're someone else that's the beginning of a hundred wonderful things in human beings such as how is that fellow making out it seems okay over here. How are they doing over there? Not so good. It looks like that never happens while you're watching television and it turns out it didn't even happen while people were watching the dying and the mutilated from the Vietnam War instead their mindset. Oh, yes, that's dead and mutilated people right? That's War for you every time in other words. There's a coolness about being imprinted which doesn't happen to you when you're reading or hearing. Caroline is with us and we have another listener with a question. Go ahead (00:31:33) please yes, Carol. I was listening just a little while ago when you were talking to someone about horror films and the junk culture. I was wondering if this same thing didn't apply to current science fiction films. And if it doesn't what would you categorize the current science fiction films such as Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back Etc. I'll hang up and listen to your answer. (00:31:57) I don't know what to do with that because it seems to me we need a new category for Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back and that Battlestar Galactica kind of thing. It's as though we have it's that's not exactly junk culture because it isn't debauched. We don't have human emotions taken and twist it into the rottenness thing. You can make of them. It isn't an experience where you come out absolutely in a cold sweat having been as low as you can get and therefore every direction is up. That's the real meaning of a junk culture on the other hand. Those ideas are so simple and so Pat and such Pat imitations of whatever the going Mystique is if the going Mystique is is Christianity. For example, then you get sort of a Christian imitation going in some of those things or if the going Mystique is grief for our planet. Then you get an imitation grief for our planet going on a low level. So it's as if something's being written deliberately on a Deliberately low level that shows a I think built-in disrespect between producers in a certain way and and the audience but on the other hand you see it's very hard to talk about that because then you come up with a movie like ET which is simply great now haunt ya, how do you retiring as before? We went on the air about about 80 little bit. How do you put that in at? What category do you put that in as opposed to these others and why well, I always saw all the way through ET two things that are very exciting in art and one is intellectual activity. There's a lot of excitement of ideas in there. You can feel the a producer thinking thinking thinking all the time and everything is carefully down the symbols are attended to for example, the very beginning the people that are going to be the enemy you notice are always man that we see only from the waist with a lot of Kit hanging on them. They've got knives and keys and they have a lot of outside kit. Whereas all those were going to love in this film have very little kit. In fact they make do if you notice with very rough stuff like, ete. Use is just to very roughly made fingers most of the time and he turns and he uses all the junk around in the garage does need to find to get through so intuition and ability inside having your kit inside you a mixture of an instinct for High-Tech plus love and simpleness. For example, are the are the winners right away and anyone who acts out of Terror and conventionality is the bad people and that's very interesting and the second thing is that there's confidence in the writer. And so there's wonderful humor the scene where they're all dressed up for Halloween and a boy is walking or somebody is walking down the street with an arrow apparently through his head and ET takes one. Look at that and says ouch that's brilliant absolutely brilliant and also it sets up for a nice spiritual turn at the end when ET points to Elliot's head and to his heart and says out now, of course the day will come when ET is shown on television, which you have been lambasting here this noon. Yes, that's right. Well, One was allowed to be 13% corrupt and I secretly watch Masterpiece Theater. And when TT comes on television, I will watch it again. Okay, Carol Bly is with us and we're taking your calls at 2276 thousand. We have more listener standing by go ahead, please (00:35:13) I have a question about fairy tales and I guess this sort of goes into what you're talking about about ET. I've noticed in most of the fairy tales. I've read that the heroine of the hero is usually the the child of the end of three or very simple person or uneducated or very innocent and they always seem to be the one that wins out over the other brothers or sisters. I was wondering if you had also noticed that and what that means to you you find that significant of anything. Thank you. (00:35:48) That's a very good question. It's true. It's the younger brother often of three the youngest brother 3, for example or the 12th princes. The one usually it's the one that's the least materialistic that route that it and also has a high sense of adventure. That will be the one that's the hero but that's the person that's the child himself probably reading it herself because that's the person that only has Soul if you notice the other usually the two older brothers if everybody's going to go try to marry the princess, you know, when you get your head cut off if you try but don't make it the two older brothers go first, and they require a very good kit to go with them always watch out for Kit. Whoever needs fancy kit from their parents usually is not the hero of the story and that's because when we ourselves start out in life, we don't usually feel our kid as adequate much of our psychic problem is we haven't got the right kit. So that one gets the fancy lunch and the fancy bottle of wine and that one usually those two rather. Usually they're two of them they go Out in the world first and they feel like the others and then finally when they failed finally the younger one is going to go out and that's us whether it's a boy or a girl and that is the one that usually makes friends with animals or with lesser beings on the way. So the story is always the same the it's always against the will provide it for that have all the best things of this Earth and who step on nature. Usually there's a marriage between simpler things like if the apple tree cries at you as you go by shake me down shake me down. I weigh my way down. I'm weighed down the good girl will shake the apple tree and relieve it. Although apple trees are not so sophisticated as human beings still she'll stop and do it and the bad one will always ignore nature. So there's the affair details are in favor of Innocence. We're listeners with questions for Carol Bly. Hi, you're (00:37:42) next. Hi. I have a question about the medium that you prefer for fairy tales. I gather from what you've been saying and I would agree that seeing a story on film or on television is a very passive experience. But do you have any feelings about the difference between being read to by an adult or looking at the pictures in a picture picture book and being read to our just being told a story that the adult is remembering out of their own head? (00:38:10) I like all three psychologists and psychiatrists sometimes support the idea of telling a story first two children, and I think that makes sense but I think children have a need for all three things. I honor the Publishers that deliberately don't put pictures in their books so that the child makes his own pictures. I think that's great on the other hand. I've never seen a child's imagination really be dashed much by being able to look over your shoulder as you're reading aloud if you sit together on Sofa, I never noticed any child saying oh, I don't want to see those pictures or that isn't how I thought it was so I don't think it's really a problem. If you read to a child or tell stories as much as an hour a day an hour and a half a day if that's a high priority with you. There's time to do it all the different ways in cars telling for example, and at bedtime telling that's a holy thing and then earlier reading with or without pictures. I try them all. All right, we'll move on to our next listener. Hi, you're on the air. (00:39:11) Hi. I want to thank Carol by for noting that the fairy tales can't be limited to a sexist interpretation. I think that's very important that sort of everybody feels in and plays in the drama of the fairy tales. I would like to note though for the for the listener who was on earlier that there is a Minnesota poet who's doing some work with the reading for Males of fairy tales. That's how Robert Bly. I don't know if the book has been published but the listener might want to contact him. There is a book expected. I don't know what his angle is on the fairy tale is but it might help some men to kind of loosen up and get out reading these things and seeing their kind of common participation in the fairy tale. (00:40:01) That's a particularly good addition to have in the discussion. Since women have worked very hard in the last 10 years to get as they say a woman's things discussed and have them for most and so men's things are going to be discussed and to have them for most that useful also men generally have made less use of fairy tales than women have four little boys have had less use of it than little girls. So maybe there's a correction coming up that we all need to make. I gather from some of the things you said during this hour that you think fairy tales are important for adults obviously as well as her children. Yes, but I don't think they're important for all adults. All right, if I weren't adults and didn't have good I felt things inside me about life that I couldn't get a handle on and I thought I felt I knew that I had unconscious feelings that met with my conscious feelings and it was all confusing and I wanted to try through literature to understand things. I'm not sure I'd go to fairy tales. I think I might try to read a hundred pieces of serious literature and fiction and fifty poems or something instead. Hmm. But some adults like folk folk things. Yeah, so it's kind of up to up to them individually as to what they might get out of it. I guess. Yes, it's a lot of taste, you know, some people feel absolutely freed up as soon as it says once upon a time not in our time and not in your grandfather's time or your great-grandfather's time. There was a pig who's who sent her three little ones out and said, you've got to build some sort of a house. It'll keep you free of the wolf and right away, they feel delighted and inside themselves. Something comes to life and says, right it's always been like that. Another listener with the question for Carol. Go ahead, please you're on the (00:41:42) air. I don't know nervous because I didn't have my question well formulated before I dialed number but what I'd like to know I guess is I've been I'm a would-be writer and I have attempted about a hundred and fifty thousand words of a novel and my problem seems to be that I'm real hard on myself as far as making what I'm writing aesthetic and I seem to be wasting a lot of words in that and I'm just wondering about fairy tales and about how much authenticity or how much reality is necessary to write a good fairy tale and whether that might be a direction that where I would that I could strike out in and their strike out into and maybe have more success and I have been having with the my attempts to write contemporary fiction. (00:42:36) I have to think about that for a minute. So you're considering laying the hundred and 50,000 word novel is side and perhaps writing either shorter contemporary fiction or trying to write a fairy (00:42:49) tale trying to read a fairytale him. (00:42:51) Yes. Why don't you try it? Why don't you try it, but don't try it for more than five hours. Why don't you try it and say I'm going to give five hours of intense work to writing a fairy tale and then make sure you write it from deep down inside your sumps yourself some please Fairy Tales are no good except where they meet unconscious nervous shaky rather shimmery material meets with conscious will and idealism. If you can remember that your unconscious plus your regular old idealism plus some dreamy quality and live with that for about five hours and then see what happens. Good luck. Good luck and take another listener with a question. Go ahead please (00:43:33) hello, first of all and also like to vote for More toys and NPR wherever listeners and I have four children and I used to love to listen to talk and Saturday mornings and they missed that and now for tell Bligh I should tell her that we threw out our television about four years ago. And I just regret that we didn't do it sooner and I was wondering our children are Avid readers readers, but they usually end up reading Mysteries which is you know, fine, but I was wondering if there are lists compiled of folk tales and fairy tales that I could use to help them pick out different kinds of books. (00:44:15) Yes, they're wonderful list and that the for this I would go to a good librarian. There are wonderful lists of prize-winning children's literature from the 1920s forward and Americans are good at that by the way, we're just as good as the English and we're better than most other people the English and the Americans in writing children's literature. There are wonderful lists of prize-winning books for children. There are wonderful lists of folk tales from all over the country. Compton's encyclopedia has one I used and I simply got some from every country for my children and we told them and read them aloud and it was wonderful and it doesn't cost much so there are such lists. And yes, you can and you can also let your children read the junk to another was junk comes in and junk goes out but if you have all that really great stuff about the house that be a great thing and there are there are lists you do make a distinction there between reading junk and watching junk or even good stuff on the tube. Yes, I do. I find that interesting because the tube is so common. It's just such a pervasive part of our lives. And yes, I know but and I've tried to work it out where the tube is a good thing and I've spent sometimes days watching that saying this is all right. This is how America lives now I'm going to try this and I find that my feeling of freedom to think and feel for myself drops very low during those times. Although some of the stuff is thrilling. How about the movie theater? Do you have the same feeling about that? No, not quite the same feeling. It must be that it might be the radiation from one thing. It might be almost a physical response. And the other thing is that when you go to the movies, you don't get the advertisements in the middle of the show. And so your concentration is better and also its celebratory. You have to get into the car and go to the movie and you do it with somebody and that's fun. That's a different thing 12 minutes before one o'clock are Ablaze with this. We're talking about fairy tales and wandering off into some other areas as well two two seven six thousand. If you have a question, we have a liner to open and we still have plenty of time for your call. Go ahead, please you're (00:46:16) next. Okay? Well, I have several things first of all. Someone called about fairy tales and where to start. I remember when I was kid. I went to the library and I just over a period of time read every single fairy tale that they had in the library and loved them all and something else that I wanted to comment on the someone called about fairy tales on the radio and Stories being read. Maybe it's not ksjn but somewhere near your call letters on Saturday mornings. There is half an hour or an hour of fairy tales being read for children, and I think they're missing the boat because You just don't get the same thing. Like you said from watching something on TV. And when you hear it on the radio you form your own image of what it is and I think kids are missing an awful lot by not being able to do that. Also. I was wanted to come in and reading two small children. Anybody that goes into the library and picks up some of the children's books. They're available. You gotta fall in love with some of them. They're so wonderful most of them and there isn't anything much nicer than having a little kid snuggle up to you while you read the story to them. They've you've got their complete attention and we just love the whole thing. The last thing I wanted to come in on was aggressiveness and some of the, you know violence with cartoons, for example, you know, where the Road Runner and The rabbit and all these characters one of them is always getting falling off a mountain or having something dropped on them. If you got anything to say about some of these aggressive things being shown as a good outlet for a child's aggressiveness seen it, you know done by somebody else. (00:48:22) Yes II don't think Outlet is the thing we need those things are rather low. I watch those comments and matter of fact, I don't let my children. I still have some young children. I don't let them watch Saturday morning cartoons because they pretend to be funny, but the fact is they're just low their low-minded usually just practical jokes trickster ISM and cheesy emotions, and the language is vulgar and banal and the implication is that everything gets debunked nothing serious and lovely and nothing is deeply funny and nothing's really challenging. So I find those appalling things. I hate them on aggressiveness that Read about in the stories. It seems more real because those things are inside us as someone has written a book called hold High the cardboard sword and saying that that's inside young males taking a sword and protecting country and so on it's all in there. So that's genuine in some way but it's not a cynical vulgar joke of a 20th century. That's not sure of its values the way those comedies are I agree with you and I agree with you about sitting next to a child reading it's a great thing and I particularly recommend it to people who are tired physically as it seems to me I always was when the children were little and that is it is one of the few things you can do with children, which you can sit down to do and so it's not exhausting and it's not chaotic. It's very peaceful. Another listener with a question. Go ahead, (00:49:47) please. Hey, I was wondering if your guest has seen the secret of memory of the summer and and if you would care to comment on it seems like there's pretty I can't quite catch on it goes pretty deep sometimes. (00:50:04) Yes. What was the plot of that again? The figure of them? Yes, what's the plot of that quickly? I can't remember where they finally saw that or or I'm still waiting to see (00:50:11) what the Run were. It's an animated movie. Yes, and it's the one where this mouse has to move her home because the flowers coming and she goes to To some birds and to finally do some rats and they have helped remove the (00:50:29) house. Yes. No, I haven't seen that yet. I'm looking forward to it. Okay, we'll move on to another listener than hi you're on the (00:50:35) air. I think the secret of him was pretty good, but it was nothing like as good as the original story called mrs. Frisby and the Rats of nim which is an award-winning novel by an author named O'Brien. I think the film is in my opinion A Star Wars iced version of the original story, which is a classic. I also think we need a children's hour or a story on the radio and I wanted to ask whether Carol Bly has read a recent review of research on the effects of television. And if so what it what it is. (00:51:13) I've read some research on television but not within the last year if you're talking about research that was written within the last year. I haven't caught up with it (00:51:21) yet. What were you referring to earlier when you're citing some of those effects? (00:51:25) Oh, yes. Well, I was referring to material that was gathered together by a priest in the Episcopal Church who was trying to figure out why it was that there's so much trouble with children's not developing a moral imagination the ability to feel how it feels to someone else if you clobber that person on the head and and so at that time he was doing great deal of research and I read all of the reports that he made on that but that's now two years old and if there's something you since then I don't know it the the sum total of that research was that the actual program on television didn't make much difference. It was that terrible passivity of while you're watching it and the fact that if you're watching it six hours a day that six hours of proper cognitive and moral development that you're not doing during those six hours and all the other children are it turns out according to Piaget and some of his intelligent followers that that children do an awful lot of their thinking growth growth growth of the mind that enables them to think and handle conceptions and figure out what's just and what is unjust. Most of that's wound up by the time you're 14 or 15 those structures are in place. And if you haven't got them then it's something like that poem of real cos who hasn't house now will not build one. If you haven't got the structures by 14 15 or so. You're sadly setback by that and that's the phenomenon that's happening. And that's the one I refer to and that's why I feel so passionately about it six hours of Masterpiece. Theater is not so great either. It's that horrible time spent just looking and being told what to think and see More listeners with questions we have about five minutes or so. Go ahead, please you're (00:53:03) next. Hello. I've been working on a fairy story book for adults for about a year now, and I'm just wondering what do I do with it? When I'm done, like where could I send it? I don't know. I don't even know anything about the process of getting something published. (00:53:21) Yes. It's hard to know about that. My suggestion is that you call up the Loft in Minneapolis, which is the community premises and organization for all of us writers. We use the Loft as a kindly place to read our work allowed and they have open readings where you can try it with an audience and they'll give you help they may say look sharpen up that chapter a little bit and I would join the Loft hit needs your support is just like Minnesota Public Radio if it's done something wonderful for you join it and and also in the Lofts newsletter our ads by local agents who will look at manuscripts and tell you whether they'll represent it to you. Wasn't it for you for a publisher? Good luck will take another listener. Go ahead please you're on the (00:54:04) air. Hello. Thank you very much. I guess I'm getting the impression that this blind. I mean, I may be reading more into this but I'm getting the impression that she's saying the television is bad and that reading is better and I guess I agree with a lot of that. I guess I should say an example. I know of a child who never spoke until he was 3 or 4 years old or 5 years old and I'm sure the other children would say even more worse part more bad problems than that. But when he was in a department store, there was a talking Christmas tree and the child hadn't spoken up until the time. He had seen this tree when the tree was tracking the child talked back and that made quite an impression on her little boy and they found that they could learn they could teach that child things by having animated objects and trees and that kind of thing talking to him rather than mother and father reading a book and write to get her comments on that. I'm talking about use and abuse. I think there may be some use for television that would be of course much better than it is now and I'd be interested in your comment. (00:55:07) I can't comment on that. I think it's an extremely original situation and I haven't enough knowledge in Psychology or in literature to make to say anything intelligent about it. It's most interesting. I'm glad you mention it will take another listener as we come near the end of the are go ahead please you're on the air. (00:55:23) Hi, Carol. I know exactly what you're saying about television and I just wanted your opinion of if our society does not face the reality of throwing those boxes out and does not read and does not write or listen to stories and continues to sit in front of that box because of its primitive way of presents itself. Now, what do you think our society might be like in 10 or 20 years (00:55:45) if we do not throughout the television? (00:55:47) Yes, if we just continue to let it feed in to run lines and not pay attention to the books of the stories. (00:55:53) Well, I expect the boxes of stay there, but we might use them in some different way. There are futurists. Now who say for example that already we have the equipment so that if the president wants to know what the American field people feel about a certain thing at any one time we could all press Our boxes and in two minutes the Congress and he would have the idea of exactly what our opinions were on issues. I think that television rather than moving backward and getting it out will probably become a very very sophisticated kind of technology. I don't think there's any chance of people's throwing it out in the near future. We have time for one more call. I believe and will take your comment next. Go ahead (00:56:31) please hello. Go ahead. Tell I have a question for you. I was wondering if you've read cushla and her books by Dorothy Butler which is a New Zealand writer writing about a handicapped child whose parents read to her from the age of four or five to allow her to make contact with the world. The only way she could to couldn't do it with her hands. All right, let's say that to her children's books to her from the age of four months. (00:57:07) We're nearly out of time. So let's get Carol's answer on that. I haven't read it. Yeah, it sounds gorgeous, but I haven't read it Carol before it before we have to leave. I do want to give you a chance to tell people about your about your appearance tonight. You're going to be speaking where I'm going to be speaking at the Hennepin County Library at D which is at 70th Street and York in Minneapolis and it will be an open discussion and the evening is free and I will talk for a while on some of the advantages of fairy tales and I'll try not to Simply say the same things that other people have been saying on that because I've been thinking other rather different thoughts and then they'll be chance for discussion and I'm sure there'll be coffee and that kind of thing. All right. Thank you so much for coming and visiting with us today. It's been most interesting Carol Bly.