![]() ![]() ![]() From this kernel, Ivey cultivates an extended saga of loss, longing and – more interesting – the countervailing desires we may all harbour for both wildness and domesticity. The Snow Child, owes much to the conventions of fairy tales, beginning with its premise, borrowed from a traditional Russian folk tale: A childless man and woman build a child out of snow the next day a mysterious girl appears, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the figure they moulded the night before. Every fairy tale comes with an implicit covenant: It promises to charm, and we pledge our willingness to be bemused, perhaps unsettled. We don't expect its characters to behave quite like real people, nor do we not expect the story to explain itself rationally or resolve its mysteries completely. They prick like thorns at the flesh, ring out like an ax striking wood. Within a circumscribed field of prose, concrete details glisten like beads of blood on white muslin. The greater part of a fairy tale's power resides in its brevity. ![]()
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