The charmed wife review
A BOOK REVIEW
THE CHARMED WIFE
BY OLGA GRUSHIN
Yassine maaras
Introduction
A fairy-tale are normally stories, we used to hair them from our parents and most of time they were about horror, but sometime these stories were funny and there is a value in some. The charmed wife is a 21st century fairy tale. It is a romantic fictional novel, by OLGA GRUSHIN, talks about the story of a woman named CINDRELLA a woman who wants her prince charming dead, in this sophisticated fairy-tale. This monograph is going to be divided into two parts. The first part is going to be descriptive, it include information about the book( basic information); this basic information are; THE TITLE, THE DATE OF PUBLICATION, A BIOGRAPHY ABOUT THE AUTHOR, NUMBER OF PAGES, CHAPTERS and CHARACTERS. Moreover, I am going to study the personality of CINDERELLA. In other words, in these pages I will give piece of information about her when she was just a child, a young lady and a wife or as a princess. We are going to know about her feelings in each part in the novel, to make the picture closer and clearer to the reader. The second part is going to be a critical review analysis. In this part we are going to discuss the hand writing of the author, it is about the use of grammar, the kind of language and the morphological device. In addition, we are going to present the plot, when and where the story took place. Besides, the subject, the content, the theme and the style that OLGA use in writing the novel.
Part One: Descriptive Review of the book.
• About the book.
• A Biography about the author.
• The cover of the book (the charmed wife).
• The contents of the book
ABOUT THE BOOK
Cinderella wants her prince charming dead in this sophisticated fairy-tale for the 21st Century.
Cinderella married the man of her dreams. The perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules yet now, 13 and half years later, things gone badly wrong and her life is far from perfect. One night, fed up and exhausted, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the witch who was for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hang flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn’t ask for love spell to win back her prince charming. Instead, she wants him charming dead.
Endlessly surprising, wildly inventive and decidedly modern, the charmed wife weaves together time and place, fantasy and reality, to conjure a world unlike any other. Nothing in it is quite what it seems… the twists and turns of its magical, dark and swiftly shifting paths take us deep into the heart of what makes us unique, of romance and marriage and the very nature of storytelling
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Olga was born in Moscow to the family of Boris Grushin, a prominent Soviet sociologist,[1] Olga Grushin spent most of her childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia.[2] She was educated at Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and Moscow State University before receiving a scholarship to Emory University in 1989. She graduated summa cum laude from Emory in 1993. She became a naturalized US citizen in 2002, but retains Russian citizenship.[2] Grushin has worked as an interpreter for Jimmy Carter, as a cocktail waitress in a jazz bar, a translator at the World Bank, a research analyst at a Washington, DC law firm, and, most recently, an editor at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.
Her first novel, The Dream Life of Sukhanov written in English, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2006, won the 2007 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, as well as a Top Ten Books of 2006 choice by the Washington Post. The novel is about an artist–turned–party official working for the communist media as an art critic named Sukhanov whose "past catches up with him during the last days of the Soviet Union", and reviewing it in the Chicago Tribune, poet Karl Kirchwey wrote:
Seldom has a first novel so perfectly captured a historical moment that seems most real because it resonates with the disaster of an individual life. There is no escape for Sukhanov, and no going back: There is none for any of us. Time sees to that.[3]
Novels
The Dream Life of Sukhanov, New York: Putnam's Sons, 2006. ISBN 0-399-15298-9
The Line (published in the United Kingdom as The Concert Ticket), New York: Putnam's Sons, 2010. ISBN 978-0-399-15616-8
Forty Rooms, New York: Marian Wood Books/Putnam's Sons, 2016. ISBN 978-1101982334
The Charmed Wife, New York: Putnam's Sons, 2021.
THE COVER
The author draws a picture at the cover. From the first sight the reader suppose that the novel will be about CINDERELLE. The author use different colors to throw the picture, it is sample. She use a little colors; the black, yellow, blue and white. she write the title of the book big in the top of the book using yellow color, the name of the author is written big by using yellow color, to attract the attention of the reader. Moreover, there is four high stairs, at the middle of one of them there is a woman wearing the wadding cloths, she lost her shoe when she was climbing the stairs, she is a beautiful white woman with brown hair. She must be the hero of the story. In addition, the author also writes the title of one of his famous books, it is written under her name. At one of the stairs walls the author write “a novel” which is the of book, she use the walls to write on them.
•
The contents of the book
Book for every reader.
Library of congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
Name
Gryshin, Olga, author.
Title: The charmed wife
Description and publisher: New York, G. P. Punam's Sons.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020017241(print) | LCCN 2020017242 (eBook) | ISBN 9780593085509 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593085516 (eBook)
Subject and type
The charmed wife, Cinderella, Magic realism, Novel, Adult. Charms; fiction, fairy tale. Paranormal romance story. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Love stories.
The general idea of the book
It is a fairy tale about Cinderella who get married after following all the fairy-tale rules, with the man of her dream, a man that she lover, Prince Roland. It was like the happily ending she deserved the ending that every young girl wishes. The novel tells what happens thirteen years and a half, after Cinderella losses her crystal shoe and find herself ensconced in a gilded palace.
Language
English
Publication date: January, 12, 2021
Number of pages: 287 Page
The novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incident either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Tal Goretsky.
Cover images, wall pattern: Stephanie Cabrera.
Copyright 2021 by Olga Grushin
Pnguin supports copyrights. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a virbant culture.
Part Two: Critical Review.
• Characters
• Themes
• The summary of the first four chapters
• Plot
CHARACTERS
Cinderella
she is the protagonist of the story, the main character and a princess, the wife of prince Roland and a mother, she had two stepsisters and she was born in a small family, she is a surfing girl, she suffer when she was just a child, when she lost her mother and when she lost her father. Even she follows all fairy-tale rules she was suffering. When we are talking about Cinderella we must mention her childhood, she was born in small happy family consist of a father who was a merchant and had ships, and a mother who loved her child, these two tragic events are just the start of the big change of Cinderella’s life. We can say also that Cinderella also plays the role of the servant after the dead f her parents, when her step sisters and her stepmother forced her to do the housework. She is also unlucky woman, she lived happily for a year after get married with Prince Roland. She is the only one that her foot fit the crystal shoe in the kingdom.
The witch
She is also a main character. Her name is GWENDLYN, a woman with a cuted hair like a man; she is a middle age woman who has a strong personality. In addition, she told Cinderella her story when she was in the age of twenty, woman live with a dragon, she has a cave. Her eyes gleaming from within the sinister cave of her cowl, her fingers dark and agile like spiders, lurches around the cauldron in a jig, flinging pellets and powders into the bubbling brew, muttering under her nose:” One born of a poisonous toad. A pair of wings from an unhitched deed’s –head moth….” .
Normally the witch refers to a woman with magical powers works with evils, and uses her power for bad purpose. In the novel the witch plays two different roles. She works as a helper, she helps women in the kingdom with potions, that works to fix the problem and the lousy that the husbands do, but in the story she works too as a hit man when helps Cinderella trying to kill prince ROLAND. The witch considers magic is not strictly a science; it is more of an art that have its laws and must be followed.
Prince Roland
Prince Roland is a businessman, a rich man, loved his Princess and his daughter. The Prince Roland is a main character a man who decided to get married with the woman who her foot fit with the glass shoe. In addition, in the beginning of the novel as a romantic man, loves his wife and he live happy with her until he become busy, and he was ignoring his wife. But at the end everything change, Cinderella becomes no longer a lover then she decided to go to the witch for a dead potion.
Gloria
Gloria is the elder stepsister of CINDERELLA, she is a cruel who didn't like her sister, she forced her sister to do the house work, and she never married at all and became a bitter spinster. She is one of those who tried the glass slippers but her ugly foot didn't fit.
MELISSA
She is the stepsister of the protagonist; she also forced Cinderella to do the hard house work. Melissa end married someone so poor, she is now spends all her time scrubbing floors and washing dishes, she is also one of those who tied the glass slippers but her foot didn't fit.
THE MERCHANT
Cinderella's father he had ships, a man who love his daughter and his first wife. The merchant lived happily with his small family before his ships sank in a storm and his wife died, he lived in two different lands, he married twice and lived with each woman in her land.
THE NIGHT
The night is black and the fire unsteady, but even in the vacillating of shadows there is no denying how handsome, how incredibly handsome, he is. The strong lines of these cheekbones, the chiseled jaw, the easy set of his not-quite-serious lips, the flight of the proud eyebrows, dark and glossy like strips of luxurious fur, over these narrowed blue eyes-so radiant is he with beauty, in fact, that glinting circlet of gold in his chestnut curls seems merely an afterthought.
Themes
LOVE: Themes are of the principles in any novel, every novel must contain themes. In OLGA's novel" The Charmed Wife", Love is a main theme, which is presented in the relationship between the princess Cinderella, and the prince Roland, they were lovers before get married, they were lovers when they get married and they where lovers when Cinderella was with a child. Even the difference of stages between Cinderella and her husband the prince Roland OLGA show to the reader that it is possible to have and make a relationship of love and marriage even between the high stage and the middle stage, or between the high and the poor stage.
HATE: after Cinderella and the prince get married love become no longer excite, instead of that Cinderella becomes a woman with another feeling which is different for lover, she feel herself ignored by everyone, especially her husband, all this things change the personality of Cinderella, she become a woman who need someone who take care of her, and she become a woman who needs power, she become who hates instead of child or young girl who used to love no matter whatever happened
Magic: the novel the charmed wife as a fairy-tale and a fiction is full of magic, the thing that makes magic a main theme in the story. Magic is not a strictly a science, it is more than an art, there is lows must be followed, and every case is unique, and with a potion, this power can take you to any number of direction you wants, but everything with a a specific price. When we talk about witches in general we must talk about magic, because magic is the power of witches, they cannot work without magic. In the novel we know magic as a power and as a talent, a talent or as a gift, when the witch uses it for good things or as a help art. The witch used to get clients especially women, who need help and need the power of the witch to fix some problem, for example; financial problems, or for some lousy things that their husband does, but no potion can change the nature of men, it's just a matter of time and the man will do the same thing again in the future, the potion is not a long-term solution, after a period of time the clients find themselves in the cave of the witch, begging her to curse their husbands, for a potion all over again. Magic is also used for bad forting in the novel, the witch used her power and become a killer as Cinderella asks, and she give her Thirteen and a half hairs, and asks her to spits and throw them, one after another and poof! Cinderella will be a widow.
The summary of the first five chapters
1) A Story with no Ending:
It is a chapter comes before the first part of the novel, the author use as an introduction of his novel in which she present the childhood of the main character. It is about a little girl was born in small perfect family, made of a father who is a merchant and a mother who loves her little girl as her father does. The family lived happily and everything was going as they planed, until the ships san in a storm, the mother after that accident took ill and died. The father had nothing left just his little girl, he lived a period of sorrow then he decided to move to another land where he get married again with a cruel woman, he though she will be a god mother to take care for his child. The father died to and the girl lived with her stepmother and two stepsisters who forced her to do the housework and she never complained.
2) THE SCISSORS:
It is the first chapter of the novel in the first part of it. It is about the event happened in the palace when Cinderella woke up at night in her bedroom while Prince Roland was slipping on the bed, the was dark that night, Cinderella wear her cloths in the dark without lighting the candle, this means that Cinderella know everything about the palace she know every step. That night Cinderella was trying to be quiet, she was afraid to be captured, and she didn't want anybody to see her or to know where she was going in that late time. When she was besides her husband, she had a scissor in her hands. She get out of the bedroom, go down in the stairs and she was thinking about her way out, she was thinking about the guards, she was thinking about the gats, and she was thinking about people and servants. She was like presenter who wants to get free or warning from something. At the end Cinderella go after the gates and take her way to the witch in a late time.
3) THE CAULDRON:
It is the chapter number two; it comes after the event of the scissors when the protagonist ran away to the witch caves. In this chapter Cinderella arrived to the cave by taking the crossroads, it is her first presence in the cauldron where she give the read some detail about the witch and her cauldron. At first the witch though that Cinderella is just an ordinary woman come to fix her hurt and she didn't know that she is a princes. Cinderella too was confused it seems that she is not sure about what she is doing, she don't know why she comes to the cave, after that she describe the night. The night is black and the fire unsteady, but even in the vacillating of shadows there is no denying how handsome, how incredibly handsome, he is. The strong lines of these cheekbones, the chiseled jaw, the easy set of his not-quite-serious lips, the flight of the proud eyebrows, dark and glossy like strips of luxurious fur, over these narrowed blue eyes-so radiant is he with beauty, in fact, that glinting circlet of gold in his chestnut curls seems merely an afterthought. With this description the protagonist give to the reader a picture of a handsome guard she may fall love with, and it seems that she was standing so close to this night.
4) THE SPELL:
This chapter comes after the event of the CAULDRON; Cinderella and the witch in the cauldron. The witch asked Cinderella about her problem, if it is like the other girls in the land, it can be flexible but after a period of time she will come again to give her another solution for the lousy things that her husband do. No potion can change the nature of men. Magic is more than an art; it is a strong power has roles to follow and which is with a price. At the end Cinderella accepted the price of the potion and took the thirteen and the half hairs, after she told the witch that she didn't want her husband come back as a lover, instead of that she want him charming dead.
Plot
The novel the charmed wife is a sophisticated fairy-tale for the 21st Century. The novelist OLGA GRASHIN writes her novel with a new style. The story of Cinderella is an old story as when know it, the majority of people know the story of a woman lost her shoe and get married with the prince. But with OLGA, we discover a new story of Cinderella, as the charmed wife, with a new style, with a new mood and with more characters and places, time is also different, the charmed wife seems like the second part of Cinderella because with this novel we become able to know what happened to this character after the marriage, and we know about the witch and her cave. OLGA starts her novel with producing the main character to the reader, and the society when she was born.
Cinderella wants her husband charming dead, by a potion was taken from the witch. The novel is a sophisticated fairy tale for the twenty-first century.
Cinderella gets married with the man that she loves, a business man Prince Roland and he is a busy man keep ignoring his wife. The marriage for a while was like the perfect ending that the protagonist deserved after diligently following all the fairy tale rules, but it is not. yet now, thirteen and half years later, after the marriage, things have gone badly wrong and her life is so far from perfect, is far from a princess that has children and a husband that loved her, her life take the opposite way. Cinderella become another person everything have changed for her, she fell herself a useless person in the palace. In addition she had dreams and she keeps talking to the mirror sometimes in her bedroom.
What comes after" Happily ever after? »
In this novel we are discussing what comes after" Happily ever after". Olga Grushin is not the first writer to explore one of many fairy-tales ingrained in our collective consciousness (see, for instance, Gregory Maguire's wicked or Neil Gaiman's the sleeper and the spindle, or Gail Carson Levin’s Ella Enchanted).
The characters and tropes of fairy tales resonate on a deep level; it's not wander that writers and reader keep coming back to them. The blurb for Grushin's latest, The charmed wife, tell us that , after 13 years, Cinderella is tired of being trapped in a bad marriage and pays a visit to the witch. And here we see abnormal event that we used to see in houses of witches, women in reality normally goes to witches asking for help, they are asking for a solution for their misery, far from the solution that Cinderella closed, they goes to witches and they tell them about the lousy things that their husband do and they gate a potion that fix the problem for a while and they return after a period of time, but Cinderella is different. Instead of asking for love potion to win back her lover Prince Roland, she wants her Prince charming, she wants him charming dead. In Grushin's modernist fairy tale, the witch is located as a hailer, and as a hit man; she was a helper to ordinary women of land, who was coming to her for a love potion or financial, and a hit man for the protagonist when she give her a dead potion her Prince. That contemporary sensibility seeps through everything, the characters, the jokes, the plot twists, and the simple language. it would easy for a lesser writer to make this solely a feminist retelling, it tells the story of woman that we can not compare it we others, as normal thing a woman that love her family will never ask for dead potion, she will take in tension about her kids, as Cinderella she is a mother but she may be selfish, as we know her husband may ignoring her because of her businesses, he is busy man who his wife wants him charming dead.
Conclusion:
At the end all what I can say is that the novel the charmed wife is a marvel, it is like a new fairy-tale even I know about it when I was just a child. This is a book that the majority of people who read it absolutely love it and the others will sit on the fence. I’m really surprised by the style and the kind of language that Olga used, it is a simple language just like the language that our parents used when they tell old fairy-tales The charmed wife is a 21st century fairy tale. It is a novel by Olga GRUSHIN, talks about the story of a woman named Cinderella a woman who wants her prince charming dead, After a long of marriage. This sophisticated fairy-tale, tells the story of a woman that get married with a Prince called Prince Roland after following all fairy tale roles, in the first time it looks like the happy ending she deserved, but it is not when everything change and take the other way. Cinderella there feel herself completely ignored by her lovely husband, then she decided to kill him and get rest, by a dead potion that she will take from the witch. I divided my monograph into two parts. The first part was descriptive, in which I talk about piece of information about the book( basic information); this basic information are; a simple presentation about the book, which include the title, the kind and the date of publication, the I move to talk and present the author, her prizes and her nationality in addition to the contents of the book. The second part was a critical part, which i used it to talk about the themes the characters, some intreseting chapter from the book, and the plot. In addition, i use this part especially to talk more about the main character Cinderella and her relation with the charmed wife. In other words i used it to let you know about this character,when she was just a child, a young lady and a wife or as a princess, to let you know about her feelings in each part in the novel, to make the picture closer and clearer to the reader, and finally conclusion.
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