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March 4, 2005
OGIC: Afterthoughts
Last night I was all raving about Kelly Braffet's novel Josie and Jack. Now I have a couple of addenda. First, in the earlier post I pronounced myself unimpressed by comparisons of the book to "Hansel and Gretel." My (unstated) grounds were that the sister and brother in the fairy tale are victimized innocents whereas Josie and Jack are...not. Well, I'm a blockhead: I just rediscovered that the book's epigraph comes straight from the Grimm Brothers' story:When the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked them all up. Hänsel said to Grethel, "We shall soon find the way," but they did not find it.
This is a lovely, haunting, and indeed a fitting epigraph, and I must take back my short-sighted dismissal of the likeness. Although the tale does stand in more of an oblique than a parallel relation to Josie and Jack, and so works better as epigraph than as analogue. Mostly, though, I say "never mind"!
The second thing is that as soon as you get wrapped up in this book, you're going to start casting it in your head. Can't be helped. And chances are it will end up on the screen before we all get much older; when it does, these are going to be two highly juicy roles for some intrepid young up-and-comers to sink their teeth into. If and when you read the book, send me your picks--remembering, please, that Josie and Jack are sixteen and eighteen.
Class dismissed.
Posted March 4, 2005 12:12 PM
