Beauty, by Brian D’Amato; Beauty, in general; Beauty and the Beast

[rachelmanija]

In Beauty by Brian D'Amato, a creepy, pretentious, narcissistic artist/unlicensed plastic surgeon tries to create the perfectly beautiful woman. I don't think it's spoilery to say that he gets what's coming to him. A satire of American beauty culture, the 80s art scene in New York, misogyny, and the lifestyles of the idle rich, recounted by a seriously unreliable narrator.

What would Marilyn or Madonna or Cindy Crawford be without their moles? Nothing, I thought. Or a lot less. It’s interesting that moles are called “beauty marks.” What was it about them that made them so alluring? Are they like a sign that you can approach the goddess?

I spent a long time composing its position, but I finally decided the black spot would go nearly a centimeter above the left corner of her lip. A hair off to the left. The abstract element would round out her effect. It would make her unique and human and sexy and somehow pathetic. Because a mole is an intimation of death.

I am not big on social satire and much of it is now dated, but the prose style is to die for. The author is a professional artist and the technical detail is fascinating in the way of Dick Francis, though both narrator and tone are basically anti-Francis.

I do like this book but it is not my favorite book called Beauty, nor my favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast." My favorite book actually called Beauty is Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast, by Robin McKinley, and yes, I like it better than her Rose Daughter, which also retells "Beauty and the Beast." (One might argue that many and possibly all of McKinley's books are versions of "Beauty and the Beast."

My least favorite book called Beauty is Beauty: A Novel by Sheri S. Tepper, a horror novel which makes an apparently sincere case that horror fiction is evil. Tepper's books argue a lot of strange positions but that one takes the cake for the strangest.

What is your favorite/least favorite work called Beauty? What is your favorite/least favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast?"

Beauty

Comments

[snickfic]

I read about half of Tepper's Beauty when I was too young for it, and I HAAAAATED it. I recall rape? And some kind of parody of a dystopian future? And just relentless horribleness. I think it might be at the top of my very short list of books I have genuinely loathed.

[rachelmanija]

Yep! Your impressions match with my memories, which is basically "rape rape rape, every fairytale ever is real, rape rape rape, meta meta meta, surprise!dystopian future (with rape, OFC), surprise!literal Christian hell where a male horror writer is graphically tortured for writing horror books by being turned into a woman whose feet are high heels, rape rape rape, and then I think the fairy Godmothers commit genocide but that's OK because everyone but Beauty deserves to die."

[sartorias]

I think nearly all Robin McKinley's books are various versions of B&B. I like Beauty and Sunshine the best as outright versions, though my fave of her books is still The Blue Sword.

[rachelmanija]

I love those too, and also The Hero and the Crown. And Deerskin, which was a very healing book for me. And some of her short stories are lovely.

I think you can see elements of "Beauty" even in books which aren't full retellings. In The Blue Sword, the heroine is taken away from her familiar home by a strange, initially frightening man whom she grows to love. There's even the sequence near the end where she returns briefly to her old home, then runs back to her new one. In The Hero and the Crown, there's no frightening but non-villainous man, but she does take a trip to the magical home of a strange man, where she is changed.

Sunshine is interesting because it's the only one where the Beast figure really is alien and eerie, as opposed to just being a man whose strangeness only requires getting used to.

[sholio]

You know, in spite of the fact that the basic Beauty and the Beast trope is one I really love, I can't think off the top of my head of a direct retelling that I really loved, as opposed to stories that have elements of that but aren't really about that. (e.g. Trollhunters has a relationship that's very B&B at heart, and it was probably my favorite storyline in the show, but there's a lot of other stuff going on and it's just one of many plot threads.)

The Tepper book sounds ... special. (And bizarrely extreme even for her.)

[naomikritzer]

I loved McKinley's Beauty -- I read it when I was still pretty young, and it was a revelation to discover that you could find whole novels based on fairy tales (I really loved fairy tales) that brought all sorts of new ideas to them. (I am still annoyed that Disney did not pay royalties to McKinley for the pieces of her book that they OBVIOUSLY RIPPED OFF.)

I don't think I read Tepper's Beauty. I read a bunch of her books at some point and decided they were Not My Thing, although I still recommend Gate to Women's Country on occasion. (All her books annoyed me, but GTWC annoyed me in a more interesting way.)

Not quite the same title, but I LOVE Scott Westerfield's book "Pretties." (The whole series is great. I haven't read the new one yet, but it's on my list.)

[rachelmanija]

LOL: Pretties. Those are fun books, and thank you - I hadn't realized a new one was out!

I disagree with literally everything in The Gate to Women's Country, but I've reread it multiple times and still like it a lot as a book. The way it's told and the emotions of the characters are very compelling to me. A lot of Tepper's storytelling appeals to me even though her biological determinist politics are not only appalling, they bother me more because we do agree on things like "rape is bad." It's just that her solution to "rape is bad" tends to be "so we should develop a test for rapists and then euthanize them as babies."

[yhlee]

...I may be the only person on the planet who sincerely liked Tepper's Beauty and read it multiple times, although I admit that trying to read it just after Ara's birth was not one of my better life choices. :p

[rachelmanija]

Ha! I mean, it is definitely vivid and memorable.

[sophia_sol]

Years ago when I used to occasionally read Robin McKinley's blog, I recall seeing her say once that many authors have one story at the bottom, and hers is Beauty and the Beast, so she'd be with you in arguing that most (or all) of her books are in fact Beauty and the Beast retelling!

I've read a lot of retellings of Beauty and the Beast in my life, as an inveterate fan of fairy tales, and my favourite is absolutely Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray, with Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher in second place. But I have a great deal of fondness remaining for McKinley's Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

[kore]

I LOVED Briarley. It was so 'cozy,' but also heartrending at various points.

[pameladean]

I imprinted on McKinley's Beauty and feel it is best, but I can no longer reread it without a year or two of intervening time to decrease how much of it I've memorized. In that light, I've also become very fond of Rose Daughter.

And now I am thinking about in what ways Dragonhaven and Pegasus ring changes on that same story.

P.

[sovay]

I imprinted on McKinley's Beauty and feel it is best, but I can no longer reread it without a year or two of intervening time to decrease how much of it I've memorized.

"I did not get very far; but I thought I knew what Persephone must have felt after she ate those pomegranate seeds; and was then surprised by a sudden rush of sympathy for the dour King of Hell."

[cofax7]

I would agree that McKinley's original version, Beauty, is her best; but it's now competing for my favorite with Ursula Vernon's Bryony and Roses, in which Beauty is a dirt-under-the-fingernails utterly-pragmatic gardener. It's entirely charming, as so much of Ursula's work is.

[rachelmanija]

I haven't read anything by her yet.

[sovay]

What is your favorite/least favorite work called Beauty? What is your favorite/least favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast?"

McKinley's Beauty is definitely my favorite work called Beauty: I'm not sure I've read another. It also makes a fair bid to be my favorite retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," even though or because I encountered it so early. I do like Angela Carter's "The Tiger's Bride." McKinley's Chalice was actually one of the more disappointing variants I've run into.

My least favorite book called Beauty is Beauty: A Novel by Sheri S. Tepper, a horror novel which makes an apparently sincere case that horror fiction is evil. Tepper's books argue a lot of strange positions but that one takes the cake for the strangest.

Okay, unpack this a little, because what?

[rachelmanija]

At one point the heroine visits Hell, where she finds a horror novelist being graphically, horrifically tortured for writing horror where women are raped and killed. This is presented as his just deserts. Beauty itself is pretty horrific, and heavily features women being raped and killed.

I don't understand this either.

[el_staplador]

I read the Tepper book, but came away with the impression that it was based on Sleeping Beauty. Agree that it was weird and horrible, though.

[rachelmanija]

Ohh, I think you're right! She falls asleep and wakes up in the future.

[minoanmiss]

This is a fascinating discussion.

A million years ago I read a story where the "Beast" was a girl with hirsutism and the "Beauty" was a bishonen (not that the author used that term) and the point was that ugly girls are lovable too. Pretty trite, but good for a fat fifteen year old girl's soul.

[rachelmanija]

Aww, that sounds sweet.

[nestra]

I also like Beauty better than Rose Daughter, even though Rose Daughter has elements I like, like the other two sisters.

At least Spindle's End is definitely not a Beauty and the Beast story, since it's explicitly a Sleeping Beauty story. I love that one too.

Beauty is the only Tepper book I've ever read, so. Yeah.

[genarti]

True, about Spindle's End! (Which I also love, and have been meaning to reread.) I have a hard time seeing how Outlaws of Sherwood could be a Beauty and the Beast take, either; one could do a Robin Hood mashup, in theory, but I don't think that's what McKinley did.

[cgbookcat1]

I love both McKinleys, but my absolute favorite is C.E. Murphy's Roses in Amber, followed by T. Kingfisher's Bryony and Roses.

[rachelmanija]

I never heard of Roses in Amber. What's it like?

[alias_sqbr]

I read Beauty like 20 years ago so don't remember all of WHY I hated it but boy, did I ever. It was just so mean and hateful towards everyone except the protagonist, with very unpleasant GROSS TEEMING MASSES imagery that meant I was not at all surprised to later hear she has a repeated theme of eugenics in her works.

I think I spent some of my very limited cash on a copy, based partly on the pretty cover, and thus felt very hard done by.

Tanith Lee has a Beauty and the Beast retelling I also didn't like: in the end the beast is beautiful and all humans are objectively disgusting by comparison, which was an interesting twist but I prefer the original "don't judge people for being ugly" message.

I moderately enjoyed Briony and Roses by T Kingfisher.

I have heard Briarly is a cute m/m retelling but haven't read it yet.

[rachelmanija]

I had the paperback, which was also very pretty. In fact I think I also spent my limited cash on it, and was also annoyed.

[ironed_orchid]

I've had the weird situation more than once where I mentioned I like fiction that riffs off fairytales, and instead of recommending Angela Carter*, an older, usually male, fan recommends Sheri Tepper's Beauty and also describes her work as feminist. ::shudder::

I don't know if I have a favourite work called Beauty, Robin McKineley's Sunshine is a favourite retelling. My least favourite is the Anne Rice/A.N. Roquelaure's Sleeping Beauty series.


*Yes, I've read Angela Carter and I like her short stories and later novels, but it's amazing how people will so often rec something very well known and also old as if it's something no one else knows about.

[kore]

McKinley's Beauty was one of my fave books growing up, only back then I could never find anyone else who'd even heard of it!

[kore]

Also wow, this discussion makes me glad I never read much Tepper. I did enjoy the mystery series she wrote as A.J. Orde and B.J. Oliphant a lot, which didn't have any trace of this whackiness.

[oursin]

The really weird thing is that she did write horror under a pseudonym that I can't recall - Wikipedia says EE Horlak and gives one title, Still Life, but I thought there were at least 2 under that name featuring the same protag?

I did not realise she died in 2016 - how did I miss that?

[maplemood]

Oh, Beauty is lovely, and probably my favorite novel-length retelling--I have a huge soft spot for picture-book versions of the story, too, and my favorite of those has to be a tie between the version by Mercer Mayer and the version by Angela Barrett. Both of them are absolutely gorgeous but set up in very different ways; the Mercer Mayer version is a more straight retelling, and Angela Barrett's transplants everything into Victorian times. There's also an interesting middle-grade version called Beastkeeper, where it's the main character's father who transforms into a beast. I loved the premise of that one, but the book itself is very odd and (in my opinion, anyway) doesn't quite follow through on the awesomeness of that set-up.

[sholio]

I was about to say that Beastkeeper sounds like totally my thing and I needed to look for it, but then I read the rest of your comment! Awwww. It's too bad it doesn't live up to its potential.

[skygiants]

I think part of the reason Novik's Uprooted felt so much like a Robin McKinley book to me is that it's a very McKinley-ish Beauty and the Beast story!

[alchimie]

That is interesting! Uprooted felt very, very Patricia McKillip to me, so now I am trying to think if McKillip has done a version of B&tB -- Winter Rose? But I read it 20 years ago so I cannot remember it well at all, just that it was very, very cold.

[carbonel]

I love Robin McKinley's Beauty. It was a catsitting present from pameladean in 1983 or so, along with Diana Wynn Jones's Charmed Lives. Both authors were new to me, so it was a very successful present.

As it happens, it's my current kitchen book, and I'm almost to the end.

I always have a kitchen book; I read it in short intervals while I'm waiting for the microwave to finish heating up the soup or the chicken breast to finish sautéing on one side. Kitchen books tend to alternate between rereads of favorite books and "I've been meaning to read that" new-to-me books. But they have to grab my attention well enough that I pick up the kitchen book to read instead of pulling the iPhone out of my pocket and reading that book. (Yes, of course I always have an iPhone book in process. Also a bathroom book, an iPad book, and a bedside book. That last one usually has to compete with the iPad book, because ebooks are easier on my eyes, but I have a huge TBR pile of physical books.)

[rachelmanija]

Oh, man, best present set ever!

I have kitchen books too. In my case they're food books, as those are shelved in/by the kitchen. I can easily dip in and out of those.

[karalee]

My favorite is the same as yours! Time to read it again I think.

Ball of confusion

[ajollypyruvate]

"What is your favorite/least favorite work called Beauty? What is your favorite/least favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast?"
My current favourite is this graphic novel, which, for some reason, I initially thought you were writing about! Maybe I need more caffeine.

I hated the Tepper version and didn't finish it.

[alchimie]

I have read and liked a lot of Tepper (mostly in my teens, although I keep meaning to reread the True Game books because they were so formative), but her Beauty was so, so upsetting -- I read it when it was brand new in 1991 and I still remember the visceral horror I felt, which overcame any ability I might have had to understand what position she was taking about anything. Definitely my least favourite Beauty by orders of magnitude.

I am not certain what my most favourite is; I do like Rose Daughter very much but I felt like the seams showed more than I would hope for. I think I may be under-read in B&tB retellings, unlike versions of Tam Lin where I have read all the ones I can find. Are there any you would particularly recommend? (But do ignore that question if you have already mentioned a bunch in comments, I am reading those next.)