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Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Salem Main Library | TEEN FICTION Napoli, D. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Napoli, D. 2000 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Elaborates on the tale of Beauty and the Beast, told from the point of view of the beast and set in Persia.
Summary
Meet the Beast -- before there was Beauty
Orasmyn is the prince of Persia and heir to the throne. His religion fills his heart and his mind, and he strives for the knowledge and leadership his father demonstrates. But on the day of the Feast of Sacrifices, Orasmyn makes a foolish choice that results in a fairy's wretched punishment: He is turned into a beast, a curse to be undone only by the love of a woman.
Thus begins Orasmyn's journey through the exotic Middle East and sensuous France as he struggles to learn the way of the beast, while also preserving the mind of the man. This is the story of his search, not only for a woman courageous enough to love him, but also for his own redemption.
Author Notes
Donna Jo Napoli was born on February 28, 1948. She received a B.A. in mathematics, an M.A. in Italian literature, and a Ph.D. in general and romance linguistics from Harvard University. She has taught on the university level since 1970, is widely published in scholarly journals, and has received numerous grants and fellowships in the area of linguistics.
In the area of linguistics, she has authored five books, co-authored six books, edited one book, and co-edited five books. She is also a published poet and co-editor of four volumes of poetry. Her first middle grade novel, Soccer Shock, was published in 1991. Her other novels include the Zel, Beast, The Wager, Lights on the Nile, Skin, Storm, Hidden, and Dark Shimmer. She is also the author of several picture books including Flamingo Dream, The Wishing Club: A Story About Fractions, Corkscrew Counts: A Story About Multiplication, The Crossing, A Single Pearl, and Hands and Hearts. She has received several awards including the New Jersey Reading Association's M. Jerry Weiss Book Award for The Prince of the Pond and the Golden Kite Award for Stones in Water.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Donna Jo Napoli was born on February 28, 1948. She received a B.A. in mathematics, an M.A. in Italian literature, and a Ph.D. in general and romance linguistics from Harvard University. She has taught on the university level since 1970, is widely published in scholarly journals, and has received numerous grants and fellowships in the area of linguistics.
In the area of linguistics, she has authored five books, co-authored six books, edited one book, and co-edited five books. She is also a published poet and co-editor of four volumes of poetry. Her first middle grade novel, Soccer Shock, was published in 1991. Her other novels include the Zel, Beast, The Wager, Lights on the Nile, Skin, Storm, Hidden, and Dark Shimmer. She is also the author of several picture books including Flamingo Dream, The Wishing Club: A Story About Fractions, Corkscrew Counts: A Story About Multiplication, The Crossing, A Single Pearl, and Hands and Hearts. She has received several awards including the New Jersey Reading Association's M. Jerry Weiss Book Award for The Prince of the Pond and the Golden Kite Award for Stones in Water.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (10)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Orasmyn, a sensitive Persian prince, becomes the Beast in Donna Jo Napoli's inventive retelling of the fairy tale that explore the relationship between a beast and a beauty (Atheneum, 2000). In this case, Orasmyn tells about the enchantress who turned him into a lion, leaving home, and his struggles in the wilds of Iran and India. Eventually, he travels cross-country to France with the hope of finding a true love who will break the spell. Images, both sensual and violent, convey the realities of his predator's life. There are also parallels to real-life love stories as the lion tries to relate to Belle, the brave young woman who restores his humanity. Those unfamiliar with Islamic and Persian terms and practices may find some passages challenging, but the new vocabulary offers opportunities to learn about other cultures. Robert Ramirez's measured, low-key delivery is a good match for the concisely modulated text. The unique focus of this recording makes it useful for libraries seeking to expand culturally diverse audiobook collections, but listeners may need supporting materials to get the most from this intriguing tale.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Despite its wonderfully imaginative premise, this refashioned Beauty and the Beast falls curiously flatÄit is more cerebral than romantic in tone, more laborious than lush in its execution. Unlike Robin McKinley, whose Beauty and Rose Daughter focus closely on the heroine, Napoli (Crazy Jack; Zel) concentrates on the Beast. He is first met as Orasmyn, son of the shah of Persia. As the royal family prepares for a sacred feast, Orasmyn makes a grave error in permitting a scarred camel ("a beast who knew suffering") to be sacrificed in a holy ritual. Although the sacrifice has been offered to God, it is a djinn (a spirit that can take on disguises) who takes offense and curses Orasmyn, who awakens the next day to find he has been turned into a lion. The bulk of the novel is devoted to Orasmyn's life as a lion, everything from his probing of the complexities of his fate and his Islamic prayers to his constant efforts to obtain food and his inability to resist other animals' kills. More attention seems paid to the mechanics of Orasmyn's strange existence than to the narrative logic; the storytelling strains when Orasmyn walks, by night, to the South of France and finds a beautiful castle that has been abandoned and left unplundered, presumably because it is rumored to be haunted. When Orasmyn finally meets Belle, they fall in love over the Aeneid, which Belle reads aloud to him in Latin (quoted here, without translation). At her father's, Belle misses "reading and praying together" with Orasmyn; love is mentioned but not emphasized. The weight of the historical and cultural settings overpowers the mysteries and enchantment of the original plot. Ages 12-up. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Forget Disney. Here there is no enchanted castle, no elegant dining-room scenes, no dancing between Belle and her lionized Beast, no talking beast at all; in fact, here Beast communicates by scratching letters on the ground. After a laborious beginning in which young Persian Prince Orasmyn assumes the shape and personality of a lion because he disobeys an ancient edict, Napoli moves into more familiar territory, and the story comes alive. Orasmyn travels to France from Persia, believing his only salvation lies with a French woman whose love of roses will undo his curse. On this grueling trip the reader feels the prince's loss of humanity (he was previously peace-loving, taking no pleasure in the hunt) and witnesses his transformation to carnivore (virtually no animal, large or small, escapes his hunger, as he tears and devours his victims). He establishes himself in an abandoned castle and steals from neighboring villages the roses with which we associate the tale-these he lovingly plants to create a sensual garden. When the woman appears, Napoli's tale takes on its best invention. Getting past her initial fear, the courageous Belle cleans the Beast's muzzle of blood, and even builds an outdoor pit to surprise him with cooked meat so she can join him in a meal. Napoli takes full advantage of her delight in language and her knowledge of linguistics: Persian and Arabic words liberally flavor the first half of the text; some French and the Latin of the Aeneid (from which Belle and the Beast read) continue the language play. Rendered in the same first-person, present-tense narrative with which she has revisioned other tales (The Magic Circle, Zel, Crazy Jack), Napoli brings immediacy and vitality to the Beast, and the staccato rhythm that marked her previous tales particularly suits her silenced Beast. An endnote indicates the author's debt to Charles Lamb's 1811 poetic version of the tale whose hero is from Persia, where gardens, and roses especially, have rich lore; further back matter provide a glossary of Persian and Arabic words as well as an explanation of and invitation to rejoice in the book's linguistic treasure. s.p.b. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The writer who so intensely re-imagined Rapunzel in Zel (1996) and the Sirens in Sirena (1998) provides a sensual and brilliant imagining of the backstory of the Beast in this exotic tale. Orasmyn is a 17-year-old Persian prince, beloved of his parents, secure, even self-satisfied, with his studies and his rose gardens. But he makes a fatal error in judgment and angers a pari, a fairy, who curses him to take the form of a lion, to be freed only if a woman loves him. Orasmyns awakening to his new form is both terrible and funny, but the danger is realhis father has called a lion hunt and the prince must flee the world he knows. First he travels to India, learning his new life while trying to retain his humanity in prayer and in language. When he realizes (I am Lion, he repeats) that no pride will accept him, he travels to France, hides himself in an abandoned castle, and sketches his demands in the dirt when Belles father steals the rose. How he prepares the castle for her, how they reach first a truce, then understanding, and then devotion, is built up with a rich accretion of concrete detail, sound and scents described precisely. There are few metaphors for adolescence, and for the mastery of desire by the self, as deep as that of the Beast, and Napoli rings dark changes on those with the sure hand of a sorceress. Compelling, relentless, erotic. (authors note, glossary of Persian and Arabic) (Fiction. YA)
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-10. In this take on "Beauty and the Beast," Napoli focuses on Beast before French beauty Belle enters his life. The first-person story begins in Persia, where proud prince Orasmyn, who loves roses, makes an unfortunate decision that sets in motion a curse: he becomes a lion who can only be restored by the love of a woman. Realizing he must leave Persia to prevent his father from killing him, he uses his instincts, both human and bestial, to embark on a torturous trek that leads to India, back to Persia, and eventually to France, where he's heard the roses are the best in the world. In France, he settles in a deserted, purportedly haunted castle and revives the gardens, not an easy task in his beast form. Eventually, a man who was lost in a storm arrives and picks a rose. Here, the traditional tale kicks in, with the only difference being the Beast's laborious efforts to make his castle habitable for the expected young woman. Napoli skillfully shows Orasmyn as both human and beast; he learns to survive and to kill and eat prey, yet he always maintains his humanity. She also infuses her tale with a keen flavor of ancient Islamic culture and religion. It's a winning version for genre fans. --Sally Estes
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Orasmyn, a sensitive Persian prince, becomes the Beast in Donna Jo Napoli's inventive retelling of the fairy tale that explore the relationship between a beast and a beauty (Atheneum, 2000). In this case, Orasmyn tells about the enchantress who turned him into a lion, leaving home, and his struggles in the wilds of Iran and India. Eventually, he travels cross-country to France with the hope of finding a true love who will break the spell. Images, both sensual and violent, convey the realities of his predator's life. There are also parallels to real-life love stories as the lion tries to relate to Belle, the brave young woman who restores his humanity. Those unfamiliar with Islamic and Persian terms and practices may find some passages challenging, but the new vocabulary offers opportunities to learn about other cultures. Robert Ramirez's measured, low-key delivery is a good match for the concisely modulated text. The unique focus of this recording makes it useful for libraries seeking to expand culturally diverse audiobook collections, but listeners may need supporting materials to get the most from this intriguing tale.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library, Rocky Hill, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Despite its wonderfully imaginative premise, this refashioned Beauty and the Beast falls curiously flatÄit is more cerebral than romantic in tone, more laborious than lush in its execution. Unlike Robin McKinley, whose Beauty and Rose Daughter focus closely on the heroine, Napoli (Crazy Jack; Zel) concentrates on the Beast. He is first met as Orasmyn, son of the shah of Persia. As the royal family prepares for a sacred feast, Orasmyn makes a grave error in permitting a scarred camel ("a beast who knew suffering") to be sacrificed in a holy ritual. Although the sacrifice has been offered to God, it is a djinn (a spirit that can take on disguises) who takes offense and curses Orasmyn, who awakens the next day to find he has been turned into a lion. The bulk of the novel is devoted to Orasmyn's life as a lion, everything from his probing of the complexities of his fate and his Islamic prayers to his constant efforts to obtain food and his inability to resist other animals' kills. More attention seems paid to the mechanics of Orasmyn's strange existence than to the narrative logic; the storytelling strains when Orasmyn walks, by night, to the South of France and finds a beautiful castle that has been abandoned and left unplundered, presumably because it is rumored to be haunted. When Orasmyn finally meets Belle, they fall in love over the Aeneid, which Belle reads aloud to him in Latin (quoted here, without translation). At her father's, Belle misses "reading and praying together" with Orasmyn; love is mentioned but not emphasized. The weight of the historical and cultural settings overpowers the mysteries and enchantment of the original plot. Ages 12-up. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Forget Disney. Here there is no enchanted castle, no elegant dining-room scenes, no dancing between Belle and her lionized Beast, no talking beast at all; in fact, here Beast communicates by scratching letters on the ground. After a laborious beginning in which young Persian Prince Orasmyn assumes the shape and personality of a lion because he disobeys an ancient edict, Napoli moves into more familiar territory, and the story comes alive. Orasmyn travels to France from Persia, believing his only salvation lies with a French woman whose love of roses will undo his curse. On this grueling trip the reader feels the prince's loss of humanity (he was previously peace-loving, taking no pleasure in the hunt) and witnesses his transformation to carnivore (virtually no animal, large or small, escapes his hunger, as he tears and devours his victims). He establishes himself in an abandoned castle and steals from neighboring villages the roses with which we associate the tale-these he lovingly plants to create a sensual garden. When the woman appears, Napoli's tale takes on its best invention. Getting past her initial fear, the courageous Belle cleans the Beast's muzzle of blood, and even builds an outdoor pit to surprise him with cooked meat so she can join him in a meal. Napoli takes full advantage of her delight in language and her knowledge of linguistics: Persian and Arabic words liberally flavor the first half of the text; some French and the Latin of the Aeneid (from which Belle and the Beast read) continue the language play. Rendered in the same first-person, present-tense narrative with which she has revisioned other tales (The Magic Circle, Zel, Crazy Jack), Napoli brings immediacy and vitality to the Beast, and the staccato rhythm that marked her previous tales particularly suits her silenced Beast. An endnote indicates the author's debt to Charles Lamb's 1811 poetic version of the tale whose hero is from Persia, where gardens, and roses especially, have rich lore; further back matter provide a glossary of Persian and Arabic words as well as an explanation of and invitation to rejoice in the book's linguistic treasure. s.p.b. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The writer who so intensely re-imagined Rapunzel in Zel (1996) and the Sirens in Sirena (1998) provides a sensual and brilliant imagining of the backstory of the Beast in this exotic tale. Orasmyn is a 17-year-old Persian prince, beloved of his parents, secure, even self-satisfied, with his studies and his rose gardens. But he makes a fatal error in judgment and angers a pari, a fairy, who curses him to take the form of a lion, to be freed only if a woman loves him. Orasmyns awakening to his new form is both terrible and funny, but the danger is realhis father has called a lion hunt and the prince must flee the world he knows. First he travels to India, learning his new life while trying to retain his humanity in prayer and in language. When he realizes (I am Lion, he repeats) that no pride will accept him, he travels to France, hides himself in an abandoned castle, and sketches his demands in the dirt when Belles father steals the rose. How he prepares the castle for her, how they reach first a truce, then understanding, and then devotion, is built up with a rich accretion of concrete detail, sound and scents described precisely. There are few metaphors for adolescence, and for the mastery of desire by the self, as deep as that of the Beast, and Napoli rings dark changes on those with the sure hand of a sorceress. Compelling, relentless, erotic. (authors note, glossary of Persian and Arabic) (Fiction. YA)
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-10. In this take on "Beauty and the Beast," Napoli focuses on Beast before French beauty Belle enters his life. The first-person story begins in Persia, where proud prince Orasmyn, who loves roses, makes an unfortunate decision that sets in motion a curse: he becomes a lion who can only be restored by the love of a woman. Realizing he must leave Persia to prevent his father from killing him, he uses his instincts, both human and bestial, to embark on a torturous trek that leads to India, back to Persia, and eventually to France, where he's heard the roses are the best in the world. In France, he settles in a deserted, purportedly haunted castle and revives the gardens, not an easy task in his beast form. Eventually, a man who was lost in a storm arrives and picks a rose. Here, the traditional tale kicks in, with the only difference being the Beast's laborious efforts to make his castle habitable for the expected young woman. Napoli skillfully shows Orasmyn as both human and beast; he learns to survive and to kill and eat prey, yet he always maintains his humanity. She also infuses her tale with a keen flavor of ancient Islamic culture and religion. It's a winning version for genre fans. --Sally Estes
Table of Contents
Map | p. viii |
Part I The Curse | p. 1 |
The Camel | p. 3 |
The Pari | p. 14 |
Kooma | p. 31 |
The Plan | p. 42 |
Part II Strange Life | p. 53 |
Blood | p. 55 |
Birds | p. 73 |
Death | p. 79 |
Part III Lion | p. 87 |
Alone | p. 89 |
India | p. 100 |
My Pride | p. 114 |
Traveling Again | p. 126 |
Two Years | p. 134 |
Part IV New World | p. 137 |
A Man | p. 139 |
Gule Sourkh | p. 157 |
Larder | p. 165 |
Candles | p. 174 |
My Child | p. 187 |
Belle | p. 192 |
Deer | p. 201 |
Dido | p. 221 |
Letters | p. 232 |
At Last | p. 248 |
Author's Note | p. 256 |
Glossary | p. 257 |
Author's Note on Language | p. 259 |