The Farm House: Beauty and The Beast

It's drippy and foggy outside, the perfect weather for curling up with a book. As my dad explained to the dog (who still hasn't figured out that he is supposed to be amused, not frightened, by his knock knock jokes) the clouds have dropped down until they are touching the ground. Honestly, I think my father wants grandchildren worse than my mother does. I've been reading Beauty, one of my new additions for the bookshelf, courtesy of my brother and the holidays. I'd forgotten how much I loved this book, and this story. I have Rose Daughter, which I've always considered to be better than Beauty, yet I'm rediscovering just how good Beauty is.

Violet and I were out walking the dogs in the dark and the fog and discussing stories, as has become habit, and I was realizing how much this book is bringing to mind all of my own versions of the Beauty and the Beast story, which have been floating around in my head for a good while. Sadly, I belong to the generation whose first introduction to fairy tales was through Disney cartoons. I can't really picture The Beast in any other way, or his castle (although I despise how Disney decided to turn him into a scrawny, blond, pretty-boy. If they had to turn him into a prince at all, couldn't he at least look more like Mr. Rochester? Make him rough, and square, and dark, and just a little bit ugly. Make him look like he could be the Beast.) Most of my versions are essentially the exact same story, except that sometimes Beauty comes because she got lost in the woods, and stays because she picked his roses, and there happens to be a curse on the ground of the castle that when its heart get stolen (aka its roses) the stealer must become a prisoner like the Beast, until the heart is returned(...I think you get the idea), and sometimes the Beast is a woman, and looks more like a hog or a boar, and "beauty" (who is not a prettyboy) is a nature-loving young man with a gift for talking to (and hearing from) animals, and sometimes the beast is an ill-tempered dragon with a love of all things shiny, bad taste in jewelry and ornamentation, and flair for the dramatic. But the one that seems to be sticking in my mind the most is the one that takes place in a 1940's farm house.

The house itself is a bit older than the '40s, but that's the time period everything on the inside seems to be stuck in. Well, somewhere between the '30s and WWII. The story itself takes place in modern times. I'm not sure exactly how the Beast acquired the house, there is some story about a terrible tragedy that killed the entire family that lived in it, and the house stood empty for many years with whispers of it being cursed or haunted. Everything is just as it was when the family left, except of course the areas the Beast uses and the fact that time has continued to pass and not everything has aged well -especially the washing machine.

The farm house is located somewhere in the southeast (not in Britain or Wales or France), with a yard full of wild and overgrown magnolias and hydrangeas and honeysuckle and weeds. Lots of weeds. And a screen door that creaks and slams, and cicadas that sing at night, and Beauty (who will have an altogether different name which will be neither Belle, Bella, Bonita or some diminutive of Skjønnhet) will not be there because of her father-the-impoverished-trader, or even of her own volition (well, not in the beginning). But that's where the story gets complicated and really fuzzy. You see, the Beast, back when he was actually a man (and I haven't decided just how long ago that was) was a doctor, and he has a man living with him (not too Mercedes Lackey I hope, I really can't stand the woman's books. If you have to go around telling people that you're a 'liberated woman'... well, you get the picture) who found Beauty unconscious and wounded and nearly dead (plane crash) and brought her back to the house for some doctoring. He's going to turn out to be a not-so-nice guy, but he's not Paul DuMonde, he's got a personality besides 'bad.' Of course something happens to cause Beauty to stay, and have to stay, and that's where it all gets really fuzzy. I have the setting, not exactly the story.

But the night is just right, maybe I'll be visited by my phantom muses, or maybe I'll just bury myself in my book and forget that I even write at all.