(1) The relationship of Bernard Mickey Wrangle and Princess Leigh-Cheri is, in essence, the “tale as old as time” that Mrs. Pots declares the love of Beauty and The Beast to be, as such, it is the relationship in nearly every Disney movie with a love story, and every story that each of those movies is based on. In this sense, we might call the entire structure of this novel to be like all fairy tale romances or love stories. The two are seemingly interchangeable, but I will postulate here that no one will debate that a fairy tale romance is a kind of love story, although not all love stories are fairy tale romances (2). In Still Life, quite a bit of magical realism exists, so I'll be detailing it as a fairy tale romance for the most part, because I, personally, view love stories as those that happen under the conditions of the natural world and reality, and with little “magical” occurrence. For the sake of not detailing every love story or fairy tale romance in history, I will be focus on three, as brought to you by Disney (not the strikingly more morbid original counterparts (3)) and William Shakespeare; Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Romeo and Juliet. The work as whole will thus be characterized as fitting into the Northrop Frye theory of myths, because it it romantic, comedic, a bit tragic, and often sarcastic in nature. In demonstrating its structural similarity to fairy tale romances, this aim here is to establish it not as a “new” fairy tale, but as a “modern” fairy tale. The story and structure of this novel are not new, the elements are merely updated to fit the reality of the “last quarter of the twentieth century” (Robbins, Still Life, 4) (4).
Initially, I'd like to bring up the fact that, unlike the tales in the storied vault to which this book will never be permitted (5), the wedding cake shared by these two lovers is not their own. They feed off of the wedding cake meant for Leigh-Cheri and her fiance, A'ben, to live through their imprisonment in the princess' wedding gift, a great pyramid. Arguing that this is symbolic, that the cake somehow represents the traditional union neither the princess or Wrangle are destined to have, much less between themselves, goes against the track that Robbins set out on with this novel, to write the story of an object for its own sake (6). However, I insist that to argue this is quite in the vein of Robbins' point (7). The function of a wedding cake, the story of it, reaches its finale when the cake is shared by the newlyweds and given by them to their attending loved ones. This is not the story of this wedding cake, and so I contend that Robbins must have had some hidden agenda when he changed the traditional relationship to this world that a wedding cake has. This change in the story should not go unnoticed because it hearkens their survival and the continuance of their relationship; they have ingested something that suggests forever (8), that is only fed upon in in union, and something that is not for them (9). In eating this cake, they crush any preconceptions of traditional marriage or romantic relationship in favor of something a bit more flecked with incongruities between tradition and reality. This cake, though, comes towards the end of their story, so let's begin at the beginning.
Upon her first interaction with Bernard, we find the princess in a Beauty and The Beast situation; Bernard is not your typical good-looking, hunky prince, and in fact is described to behold quite unattractive features, including the sweet smile of “a retarded jack-o-lantern” (Robbins, Still Life, 46) (10). The romances begin in much the same way, though Robbins' moves much more quickly into the realm of attraction, as Disney is yet to employ alcohol as a means by which two characters discover their attraction to one another (11). As Belle is forced into close quarters with The Beast, so Leigh-Cheri is forced into close confines with Bernard; their first meeting is on a plane, and the man is immediately to her distaste. Upon the princess getting drunk and in a state of uncertainty, as Belle overturns her carriage and faces a pack of hungry wolves, Bernard rescues her from her many silly thoughts of rationality and reasonable thinking much like the Beast saves Belle from wolves and the cold (12). From here, of course, the responsibility of Leigh-Cheri to hold up Bernard as he wavers in a tequila-induced haze falls much as the equally guilty/nurturing duty falls on Belle to revive the wounded Beast. These initial character interactions are, admittedly, humorous, but also carry a great slew of non-sequiturs, which commonly fit into the same genre of work that blatantly sarcastic and ironic interactions do (13).
From here, the story moves into more into an Aladdin-like plot, still in the realm of a bastard Disney/Terry Gilliam movie (14); the princess is quite like Jasmine in that she as been pressured by parental figure(s) to find a suitable husband, but refuses the advances of all those who might express interest, she is considered very beautiful, she presents with an absent mother figure (though here, it is because her mother is awfully dull, mentally absent, and not because she is absent altogether (15)), and she keeps the company of, primarily, only one other character. That other character, in Still Life the housemaid Gulietta, strangely enough, is in both stories one who hardly communicates with a language the audience can understand, and who wanders around naked for a great bit of the story (16). Princess Leigh-Cheri is now faced with a commoner, Bernard, who makes himself out to be an awful lot more than he is, which is to say, he's only human but makes himself out to be the savior of humankind in the most roundabout way possible. This relationship is forced to develop under some strange pretenses, much like Jasmine and Aladdin's; Bernard is living as an outlaw who tries to lightly corrupt a princess whom he finds mesmerizing because of the color of her hair, all while trying to convince her not to arrest him for being a serial bomber, and attempting to convince her that the bombings are totally necessary to his way of life and, truly, to everyone else's. Sure, it's not the heavily layered commoner/prince act that Aladdin must keep up, but the fact still stands that while the many facets of Bernard's history are true while Aladdin's are false, both men are trying to convince the woman they do/will love of the rationale of their lifestyle and how it blends perfectly with hers despite conflicts between the two that both woman and audience recognize immediately. I personally give the benefit of the doubt to those male characters in these stories and theorize that they, too, somehow must have recognized the immediate conflicts of their lifestyles and those of their lady-loves, or why else would they have exasperated themselves trying to explain the myriad ways in which they are perfect for her? In this type of story though, it is most certainly his job to make light and little of every discrepancy which may arise so he has a better chance with the princess (17).
The culmination of these “happily ever after” tales is found only after miscommunication (a pitfall of all romances, in fiction and reality) by Bernard to Leigh-Cheri, during which she leaves him for the suitor whom her parents support. Here is where the stories begin to blend; on one hand, we find the Aladdin to Leigh-Cheri's Jasmine imprisoned and incapable of reaching out to her, on the other, the suitor whom she finds herself with is not the distasteful and evil Jafar, but rather a physically satisfying A'ben, who proved to be a far better man than she had imagined and who breaks her desire to imagine Bernard when they share her bed once a week. The Jafar in Still Life, A'ben, still ends up thoroughly unhappy with the situation though, and chooses, fittingly, to lock the lovers in a pyramid. Oddly, this is awfully close to Aladdin in that the final fight between Aladdin and Jafar involved breaking Jasmine out of another stereotypical Saharan story element, the genie lamp. However, here it is the princess who saves her Aladdin, Wrangle, from their prison. In an effort to maintain that one plot is similar to another specific plot as a whole, the similarities between this scene in Still Life and sequels to the Disney movie, Aladdin, will not be discussed. Like the Beauty, eventually the princess ends up, again, with Bernard, and it is now that the king and queen realize, like Maurice father of Belle, that perhaps the Beast is best for their daughter because, while they disliked him quite thoroughly upon first meeting, he is who she truly loves. Still, they don't really like him, and he is never honestly accepted by the world for what he is or has done because he doesn't change in the slightest, as the Beast does (18).
This love story is, to a point on page 264, like Romeo and Juliet; two people from two very different worlds fall in love and end up trying to kill themselves in hopes that they will end up together because they cannot live without one another. This parallel extends, as I said, until page 264, when they both believe they are going to die to be together, and then, for lack of a more dramatic wording, they don't. Beforehand, we find the lovers meeting in hidden union, speaking to one another through trusted links, and trying to convince (Leigh-Cheri's only, here) surrounding family and friends that their love is not unlawful or wrong, and that they should be allowed to be together, though each half of the couple has backing reasons why they should never be a couple.
That being said, it should now be hard to debate the standing of Still Life with Woodpecker as a fairy tale romance, because while it does exhibit elements outside the realm of “traditional” fairy tales, it also shares quite a few character elements with some of the most well-established fairy tale romances and love stories I am aware of. This book is arguably a fairy tale for adults, it establishes events which are highly unlikely in the course of reality, thought they stand as equal a chance of happening as being hit with a bolt of lightening, it is liberal in its description of lustful and tragic scenes, and it is, of course, a love story, as many fairy tales are (19).
1 The tie-in to this opener is just plain lame, I'll admit it willingly.
2 All zaps are zoozles, but not all zoozles are zaps
3 I'm going to call "morbid" an understatement. I mean MORBID
4 And if that last quarter had really been like that, the culture gap between me (21) and my boyfriend (29) would be unbearable. I would probably egg him.
5 I love you, vault. Please bring the world another gift of yore that we might experience joy again?
6 But I'm probably going to find a way to make it happen.
7 Ah, look. There I go...
8 I believe in a thing called love, just listen the rhythm of my heart...
9 Starving heathens that they are
10 Who, the entire time, I made me wonder, "Good lord, princess, WHY DID YOU DRINK THE MOCKINGBIRDS?"
11 Can you imagine Pocahontas with rum involved? Somehow I don't think the settlers would have cared much about gold after that.
12 Except that what the Beast did was heartfelt and kind, and what Wrangle did was molestation, but that's not part of my "love fest" argument, is it?
13 My favorite banter being "Well, I was a waitress at the last supper," to which Wrangle replies, "I'm so old I remember when McDonald's had only sold 100 hamburgers." Leigh-Cheri is forced to concede that Wrangle is older.
14 I'm not wrong, so it didn't get edited out
15 Her mother? Is a moron
16 Gulietta made the book far more tolerable, from her total lack of inhibitions, to the frog she has a very strange attachment to, to her amazingly resilient coke habit
17 Which is a nice way of saying "get in her pants," harem or blue jean
18 That whole paragraph- so convoluted, yet so very true.
19 Although I personally feel that this one bit the dust despite all the sticky situations (20)
20 Have read that over, am mortified with myself and may have to excuse myself to expel my lunch
21 Still gross
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