Collect Smack-Bam, Or The Art Of Governing Men: Political Fairy Tales Of Édouard Laboulaye Curated By Jack Zipes E-Text

was fine read it for school not super in love with it Super cute fairy tales with a mostly feminist and antihierarchical tendency.
Recommend if you want something fun to read with some allegorical satire sprinkled in, I love the blend of the classic fairy tale elements with Laboulayes snark, Welp, I like fairy tales, so when I realized the Princeton University Press had a whole section on fairy tales, I had to grab one.


Laboulaye was a French legal and political thinker and practitioner who lived through the Revolution, Napoleon, and subsequent republics/empires.
He saw a lot, to put it bluntly, and had much reason to muse on what might be the best form of government, the natural inclinations of man, and the arc of civilization.
Within his fairy tales some of which he wrote fresh, many of which he retold from their original Baltic, Russian, Italian, etc sources he often explored and satirized the politics of the world he saw around him or hoped for.
The best innovations here come when the narrator pokes in on the fairy tales, giving them a modern feel "and we cannot know what happened next because there is a blot of ink on those lines", especially when sharing his less, erm, positive feelings on monarchs, ministers, and courtiers.


Nothing amazing here, but a neat little lesson in how modern fairy tales were still being written in the second half of thes, who might do such a thing and why.
Brilliant satirical fairy tales that suit a modern audience so well! The first two tales, SmackBam“ and Zerbino,“ are the best, They capture the wir and biting political satire that make Laboulaye interesting, The later tales are much

more conventional, You know, I may read more tales from this book but I find it horribly unfair to women, Every story I've read so far characterizes women not as individuals, but as a species with predicable traits and behaviors, If it didn't make me so mad, it would be boring, Wry political fairy tales from a nineteenthcentury politician that speak to our current times

Édouard Laboulaye, one of nineteenthcentury France's most prominent politicians and an instrumental figure in establishing the Statue of Liberty, was also a prolific writer of fairy tales.
SmackBam, or The Art of Governing Men brings together sixteen of Laboulaye's most artful stories in new translations, Filled with biting social commentary and strong notions of social justice, these rediscovered tales continue to impart lessons today,

Inspired by folktales from such places as Estonia, Germany, Iceland, and Italy, Laboulaye's deceptively entertaining stories explore the relationships between society and the ruling class.
In "Briam the Fool," the hero refuses the queen's hand after he kills the king, In "Zerbino the Bumpkin," the king and prime minister are idiots, while the king's daughter runs away with a woodcutter to an enchanted island.
And in the title story, "SmackBam, or The Art of Governing Men," a superficial prince is schooled by a middleclass woman who smacks him when he won't engage in his lessons and follows him across Europe until he falls in love with her.
In these worlds, shallow aristocrats come to value liberty, women are as assertive and intelligent as men, and protagonists experience compassion as they learn of human suffering.


With an introduction by leading fairytale scholar Jack Zipes that places Laboulaye's writing in historical context, SmackBam, or The Art of Governing Men presents spirited tales from the past that speak to contemporary life.
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