The opening of this tale, Bardelys has confided in me, was a source of great trouble to him. He thinks he rewrote it at least a score of times. This is the version he will probably call his last.
I notice the reference to ‘you and I’ in the very first line. This is a way to bring the Narrator into the story at the very beginning, in a very strong way. Afterwards, you will see that Bardelys has allowed the Narrator (himself, one presumes) to lapse in importance. Nevertheless, from so strong a beginning, Bardelys probably feels he may later bring the Narrator back onstage without fear of unduly upsetting the reader.
The Narrator can take the stage in two ways:
- By direct reference to himself, the ‘I’ here
By direct reference to the readers/audience, here ‘you.’
Bardelys (who must be a belt-and-suspenders sort of soul) has here done both.
The first line is a literal translation of the French version of ‘Once upon a time’ as formulated by Ma Mère L’Oie or ‘Mother Goose.’ That is, Il était une fois… This seems to me a wise choice. ‘Once upon a time’ is probably too strong for most readers out of short pants; it strikes one too strongly as ‘childish fairytale’ to allow the reader to accept what follows in all seriousness.
There is also a superior efficiency in this version. Compare:
There was once a boy…
Once upon a time there was a boy…
All the same, the opening paragraph is too long, and too weighted with information. I wish Bardelys had managed to keep it shorter. The final line in particular, at 44 words long, is three times the length any self-respecting line ought to be in the first paragraph of a tale of this kind. Even so, the rather-pertinent information of when the tale takes place is missing! I suppose Bardelys reckoned that this would come out in due course. And it is true that the Grimms’ Brothers märchen all take place in a vague ‘past time’ that is here a thousand years back, and there almost contemporary with the Grimms themselves.
There follows the structural main element of this chapter: Hans bids his Father farewell at daybreak, and the two exchange a ritual bit of dialogue. The Father seems (as we look back upon this from later in the tale) to be wishing his son would come with him and help him in his labor, but the son, who remains stubbornly attached to his childhood, refuses.
The childishness of Hans is repeated with the incident with his Mother, who asks Hans to fetch her some water for cooking. Hans petulantly fills every bucket he can find with water, leaves them on the kitchen floor (where Mother will need to deal with them) and leaves her. Mother calls Hans a ‘good-for-nothing’ which reminds me of the coal-biter of Norse tales, the way so many heroes of tales begin as overgrown layabouts, who when finally stirred to action, overdo things, but later prove to go beyond all the expectations anyone could reasonably have for them.
Hans passes what seems a typical summer’s day for him: he plays with his little sisters, he grows bored, he mocks those who toil in the sun, and he sits for a time with his Granny, who seems to be the only member of the family spared his taunts and jibes – the only one he seems to respect (and maybe even fears?). She asks him what he would rather be, if he could change from being a boy. Hans ends up declaring he can imagine no better life than the lazy, indolent life he is leading now. This seems to be the point of this incident, but the notion of identity will emerge, Bardelys promises, as key to the tale.
And the incident closes with a bit of foreshadowing, which of course can come from nobody but the Narrator, Bardelys himself. The use of such a line as,
But how was he to know that this would be the last happy day of his life?
– is controversial nowadays. Indeed, it is frowned upon in most of the ‘how to write’ books I’ve seen. Bardelys informs me that he felt the opening struck him as too easy on his hero, and he wanted to let the audience know that the storm clouds were already gathering. And yet the line does strike an awkward note, and is probably heavy-handed.
That night for the first time Loomland is mentioned. Here Bardelys has slipped in a bit of exposition in an offhand manner, the way it is often recommended. He promises me that Loomland will indeed ‘loom’ large in the remainder of the tale. Also Hans here has the Dream which he has had for all his life, and this too seems calculated to return later. In the Dream a very dark and dire note is struck, so maybe Bardelys didn’t need the foreshadowing. This is only two paragraphs after the foreshadowing line after all, and promises an eruption of danger to come.
Finally, when first light relieves the night’s darkness, Hans once again sees his Father start off to work, and we are back at circle’s end where we started the chapter. But now the circle breaks: Hans sets off after his Father for the first time in his life.
The equilibrium of status quo in the life of Hans Forester has been disrupted. The Inciting Incident is sure to follow…
(Composed on keyboard Saturday 01 November 2008)
