The Beast within: A tale of Beauty's prince by Serena Valentino
Disney Paper Rocket, 2016. ISBN 9781474840828
(Age: 9+) This novel presents a very different point of view to the
Disney movie Beauty and the Beast, Belle is a minor player
and the central characters are the Prince and Gaston who begin as
childhood best friends.
Valentino begins with the Beast reminiscing about the curse that
places him in his enchanted castle, disfigured and alone. In his
teenage years, he became vain and bigheaded, even with his best
friend and hunting companion Gaston. The Prince's fiancee, beautiful
Circe, is really the daughter of a pig farmer, therefore she is
rejected. Circe is actually the youngest sister of three witches and
she reaps her revenge by cursing him, and he must find true love by
his twenty-first birthday or remain a beast forever.
The Prince searches for a bride selecting Princess Tulip Morningstar
as the perfect candidate. Here the story deviates greatly from the
original, he treats her cruelly, belittling her, happy that she does
not read and thinks only of himself. Some of this is difficult to
engage in, the more astute reader may be confronted by the Prince's
actions, when he sends her off in disgrace with a promised dowry.
The cruel witches, Lucinda, Martha and Ruby, send Circe off to help
poor Princess Tulip who had jumped off a cliff into the sea, deeply
hurt by the Prince's rejection. Ursula the sea witch had taken
Tulip's beauty and voice, leaving the poor princess to live a life
of ugliness and muteness. The story switches back to Belle finally
and her hurried escape from the castle. The evil witches summon
wolves to chase her and 'scratch, bite her until she bleeds and kill
her.' As the story ends, Valentino returns to the original plot,
Gaston hunting the Beast and Belle's tender kiss breaking the curse.
This twisted fairy tale reads as fan fiction, overly dramatic and
descriptive, dark and macabre, with the Prince's sexist comments and
attitude distasteful.
Rhyllis Bignell