Book Review: ‘As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale’ by Liz Braswell
Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast is pretty well known in today’s pop culture. But the story doesn’t really give much information on the enchantress who cursed the beast and set the whole thing in motion. Liz Braswell gives us her thoughts on this unknown enchantress in As Old As Time, a Disney Twisted Tale that asks, “What if Bell’s mother cursed the Beast?”
[Warning: My review of As Old As Time contains some spoilers!]
A punishment or a protection?
In the movie Beauty and the Beast, the enchantress’ curse is presented as a punishment for the prince being selfish and vain. But in As Old As Time she has different motivations. The kingdom the prince will one day rule has become dangerous for people like the enchantress, known as les charmantes. These magical creatures are being persecuted and killed for simply being different, and the royals are doing nothing about it. When the enchantress turns to them for help, they refuse her and reveal just how prejudiced they are against les charmantes.
Then a plague sweeps through the kingdom, and the king and queen pass away. Their son is poised to become the new king, and the enchantress hopes that he shall be kinder than his parents. However, when she shows up and tests him, he fails. In a misguided attempt to save her people, she curses him. But then she herself is captured and taken away like so many charmantes before her. Her husband, Maurice, and her baby daughter, Belle, never know what happened to her, just that she is gone.
Time passes and les charmantes disappear into fairy tales that no one believes, everyone forgets the prince and his kingdom (part of the curse), and Belle grows into a beautiful but rather different young woman. Belle doesn’t remember her mother, only that she left her. But magic always comes back on itself, and her mother’s last spell is about to do just that. Her mother cast the spell and now Belle is caught in it, can she find a way out?
An enchantress with some depth in Liz Braswell’s As Old As Time
One thing I really like about Braswell’s interpretation of this classic story is that she gives the enchantress a reason. In so many old fairy tales, witches run around cursing people just because they can. But in As Old As Time, the enchantress isn’t just being mean, or even trying to teach a lesson. She’s trying to save her people. An entire race is being methodically exterminated, and Rosalind, the enchantress, is trying to save them. Her plan doesn’t exactly work the way she wants, and plenty of innocent people get hurt as well, but at least you can understand why she did what she did. It makes the story so much more compelling that way.
I also like that she isn’t exactly a wise enchantress. She is just a regular person who also happens to have magical powers. She makes mistakes, she’s impulsive, and she has a temper. She is not some higher being trying to mold the prince into a better person. She’s a mother and friend who is fed up with the way her people are being treated. And she strikes back the only way she knows how. If she had stopped to think about what she was doing, she might have done things differently. She may have tried to counsel him or guide him. But instead, she chose to punish him and dragged herself and her daughter into the mess. Even after she is saved, her daughter is safe, and most of the mess is resolved, Rosalind remains an enchantress with anger issues. The Beast changes, but she doesn’t, and that’s a little funny.
A Twisted Tale to make you think
In As Old As Time, the story of Belle and the Beast isn’t really the main attraction. The interesting part of the story is what comes before them. The chapters that focus on the past give us a much more interesting story than a girl smoothing out the rough edges of a bad boy. Those chapters give us the story of a marginalized and persecuted group. These people are peaceable and just want to be able to live their lives. Seeing their fear, watching them give up their homes, feeling their pain, was all way more interesting than a selfish rich boy who has to learn to think about others. Of course, that dismissive-sounding review doesn’t mean that Belle and the Beast’s half of the story isn’t good too. It is, it’s just much more conventional and therefore a little boring in comparison. When the two get put together to create a past, present, and eventually future story, though, the result is great, and I quite enjoyed it. If you haven’t read any of the Disney Twisted Tales, consider picking up As Old As Time and discovering them today.
My Rating: 7/10
As Old as Time: A Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell is available now! Have you read this take on Beauty and the Beast before? Let us know your thoughts @BoxSeatBabes on all major social media platforms!
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