Subject: DEERSKIN by Robin McKinley

From: [email-masked] (Alayne McGregor)
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 15:16:47 GMT

DEERSKIN by Robin McKinley
                reviewed by Alayne McGregor

     Think back 40 years: who were the acknowledged writers
of fantasy? Tolkien, Lewis, Lovecraft, MacDonald, Machen,
Pratt, de Camp, Leiber: men all, with the valiant exception
of C.L. Moore.

     Then came Andre Norton and Ursula LeGuin, Susan Cooper
and Diana Wynne Jones, Katherine Kurtz and Marion Zimmer
Bradley, and the balance shifted. But, if you read earlier
books by these authors, you could understand how Alice Mary
Norton could call herself Andre, without almost anyone
realizing.  It wasn't until books like Norton's _The Year of
the Unicorn_, Bradley's _The Shattered Chain_, or LeGuin's
_Tehanu_ that fantasy could be said to have an explicitly
female viewpoint.

     With _Deerskin_, Robin McKinley has carried this
process one step further. She has written a book that, while
accessible to both sexes, would not be written by a man. The
themes of violation, survival, redemption, and love are as
true for men as for women, but the story itself has a
specifically female resonance.

     Which means that men should read it. You might learn
something about the other solitude.

     _Deerskin_ is actually based on a fairytale by French
writer Charles Perrault.  Perrault's story, _Donkeyskin_, is
usually presented in a bowdlerized form, if at all, because
of its subject matter. It begins with a queen, the loveliest
woman in seven kingdoms, and the king who wooed and won her,
and their enduring love. They have only one child, a
daughter.

     But, after many years, the queen sickens and dies. On
her deathbed, she makes the king promise to not to marry
again unless he can find a woman as lovely as she was. After
her death, the king is mad with grief for many months. Then,
at a court event, he realizes that his daughter is growing
up to be as lovely as her mother.

     McKinley has shown extraordinary skill in handling the
difficult subject matter of this book.  She never exploits
the emotions inherent in her scenes or crosses into bathos.
And she balances it very well: this is not a grim book
despite its grim plot. The scenes with the puppies and on
the road shine with hope and joy, contrasting well with the
fearsome court scenes in the first few chapters.

     _Deerskin_ takes an old story and an old story form and
makes it new and compelling. This is one of the best
fantasies of the last few years: an tale of bravery and
endurance that deserves to be read.

%T      Deerskin
%A      Robin McKinley
%C      New York
%D      June 1993
%I      Ace
%O      hardback, US$17.95, CDN$22.50
%G      ISBN 0-441-14226-5
%P      309pp