CINDERELLA

There is no shortage of picture book Cinderellas, but we keep coming back to Marcia Brown. In comparison, Beckett's heroine, a doe-eyed maiden of the sort girls might doodle in their note-books, is simply vacuous, and her prince a languishing fop. Even the stepsisters have a cute, gamin look, and the winged Fairy Godmother must be modeled after Tinker Bell. As for the text, Fowles (The Collector, The French Lieutenant's Woman) tells it straight and with less elaboration than you might expect. His tone and diction—the younger stepsister says her diamond brooch "really is rather super," the Fairy Godmother gives Cinderella "quite the most magical slippers since time began," and the prince finds the mysterious ball guest "adorable"—are, to be sure, in keeping with our view of the story, but whether that's a plus is another question. Fowles ends with a rhymed moral, which is characteristic of Perrault; this one begins, "A pretty face is very fine,/ But pretty heart's a better sign." To us, the message might just as easily be that a pretty face wins out over ugly ones. And it's hard to see how the story illustrates the rhyme's last line, "Fairies give most to those who try." A frippery.