Beauty and the Beast (review)

Eilenberg sets his version of Beauty and the Beast in the nineteenth century, introducing readers first to a doting father, aptly named Ernest Fortune, who loves his three daughters to the point of being naïve about their faults. His motto, "Fortune by name, fortune by nature," becomes a theme-unifying refrain for the principal characters, Beauty and Beast, whose names also seem to match and, in the case of Beast and Fortune, complicate their natures. Beauty is portrayed as a romantic with hopes of meeting her perfect prince, but she is not without a wry and gentle sense of humor. The story follows the familiar trajectory, with marvelously effective embellishments of the wonders the castle holds for Beauty—rooms and grounds that answer to multiple possibilities for solitary entertainment. Barrett takes advantage of the nineteenth-century setting to infuse her delicate, quietly colored watercolors with a gothic sensibility; her landscapes are alternately menacing or fanciful, as befits the mood of the characters and the tone of the story. Her Beast, though quite shudder-worthy, is supple and expressive, and he marries perfectly with Eilenberg's subtle prose evocations of his inner turmoil. In a move of expert storytelling, the well-crafted tale ends where it begins, with a father's beaming pride over his role in his daughter's fortunate match. Even collections with a glut of Beauty and the Beast variants need to make room for this one.