From Dog Bridegroom to Wolf Girl, published as part of the Wayne State University Press Series in Fairy-Tale Studies, examines adaptations of fairy tales in literature and art by four Japanese women from the 1990s to the 2010s. Taking issue with the ways in which male Japanese scholars (namely the Jungian psychologist Kawai Hayao and French literature scholar Shibusawa Tatsuhiko) have examined fairy tales since the 1970s, Murai’s approach draws on “Euro-American feminist fairy-tale scholarship” (3) to analyze specific works by women that recreate fairy tales and focus on female characters.
Chapter 1, “The Depth of Fairy Tales: Reclaiming Wonder for Adults,” provides a brief history of the Japanese reception of Western fairy tales from the late-nineteenth century onward and also discusses fairy-tale adaptations and criticism in Japan from the 1970s. Chapter 2, “Tawada Yoko’s Stories of (Un)Metamorphosis,” discusses works by Tawada (b. 1960), an acclaimed author who writes in both Japanese and German. The main focus of the chapter is Tawada’s best known work, Inu muko iri (1993), translated into English as The Bridegroom was a Dog(1998), set in a contemporary Japanese suburb. This novella rewrites a Japanese folktale that uses an animal-human marriage motif. Chapter 3, “Ogawa Yoko’s Invitation to the Bloody Chamber,” examines Ogawa’s (b. 1962) use of the Bluebeard story in a number of works, with particular emphasis on the novel Hoteru airisu (1996), translated into English as The Hotel Iris (2010). Chapter 4, “Yanagi Miwa’s Dismantling of Grandmother’s House,” discusses Yanagi’s (b. 1967) “synthetic photographs and video installations” (81). Examples of her art include photographs that use female images from Western fairy tales such as “Snow White,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and the Grimms’ “Frau Trude,” as well as characters from Japanese folklore, such as Yamauba or Yamamba, the mountain crone. Chapter 5, “Konoike Tomoko’s Wolf Girls in the Woods,” explores illustrations and installations by Konoike (b. 1960), whose work often features images of characters evocative of Little Red Riding Hood, such as girls with bodies merged with those of wolves.
This book will be of interest to fairy-tale scholars, as well as Japan studies scholars of literature, art, and gender. It is also quite accessible in content and style for a general readership interested in adaptations of fairy tales in a global context, and in contemporary Japanese literature and art. The publication history of Western fairy tales and the development of adaptions and criticism in Japan in chapter 1 is particularly informative; details include both academic discourses and popular works, such as the bestselling books associated with the late-1990s trend for “fairy-tale rewritings and anthologies for adult readers, a phenomenon often referred to as the Gurimu bumu(Grimm boom)” (30).
Chapters 2 and 3 bring new perspectives to Tawada’s and Ogawa’s works by focusing specifically on their use of fairy tales and folktales. Because of this tight focus, however, the literary analyses can feel incomplete. Murai emphasizes the plot and its relation to fairy-tale motifs and does not delve into other important aspects of the texts, such as narrative style, language, particular historical contexts, and so on. Such analyses would have provided an even fuller picture of these literary works and shed further light on their creative engagement with fairy-tale motifs and allusions. The main texts under discussion are available in English translation and thus these chapters can be effectively used along with the original works for teaching. Chapters 4 and 5 also include a great number of images and would be a useful resource for the classroom.
Murai suggests that an understanding of Western feminist fairy-tale scholarship allows full engagement with the works of these writers and visual artists, which retell fairy tales from a female-oriented perspective. At the same time, she acknowledges the importance of other, non-Western influences and discourses. This book is a valuable endeavor that challenges the insufficient ways in which male critics have often approached fairy tales in Japan. Murai’s view is that these four women’s works “are engaged in complex and feminist ways with the fairy-tale traditions of both the East and the West” (5). At times, however, the definition of “feminist,” in terms of these diverse artists and their different artistic expressions, can be somewhat unclear; more exploration of the diversity and complexity of the feminist perspectives and textual strategies we see in these works would have further enriched Murai’s analyses.
In addition, because Murai gives an earlier example of a fairy-tale adaptation by a female writer that is not feminist in its approach or worldview (Kurahashi Yumiko’s 1984 Otona no tame no zankoku dowa, Cruel Fairy Tales for Adults), one wonders if there are works produced by women from the 1990s to the present that are similarly non-feminist. Is it the case that feminist fairy-tale adaptations and the perspectives therein have become more accepted in contemporary Japan? If so, how did fairy-tale adaptations in popular media from the 1990s (for example, Japanese and non-Japanese mainstream film, comics, animation, and video games) contribute to or participate in this change, and in what ways are they in conversation with Western feminist fairy-tale scholarship and rewritings? These are questions that extend beyond the scope of this book, but the vivid material Murai presents to the reader inspires us to think about the increasingly globalized and cross-genre aspects of intertextuality.
From Dog Bridegroom to Wolf Girl is an important contribution to fairy-tale studies. It is an informative and enjoyable work that utilizes fairy-tale and folklore scholarship as well as Japan studies scholarship, and expands the scope of investigation into fairy-tale adaptations.
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[Review length: 926 words • Review posted on April 6, 2016]