Beauty : A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

Beauty is a remarkable achievement. It is exactly what it professes to be, a retelling of the traditional story of Beauty and the Beast, playing fair and straight, with no labouring to update or displace or play clever narrative tricks with the familiar version, and not the slightest effort to politicize or moralize it, except that particular stress is laid on the power of love to transform not only the Beast but Beauty herself. Yet the result is a full-scale novel, told in sophisticated, graceful and accomplished prose, which can sometimes make considerable demands on young or inexperienced readers. The tale is given a fuller than usual context of family life, and here there are some effective embellishments of the original. ‘Beauty’ is Beauty’s nickname, because at the age of five she chose it in preference to her given name of ‘Honour’. Beauty is not actually beautiful, until love makes her so, but the family nickname is never unkind. And in the event she proves she has both beauty and honour in plenty. This is a simple and happy story, delightfully told at a level that will give much pleasure to older readers (adults included) who might think themselves long past such things.