A Letter to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
By Lanei
7664 Ashliman Drive
San Diego, California 92129
9 October 2014
San Diego, California 92129
9 October 2014
Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
1221 Kassel Road
Steinau, Germany 36396
Dear Mr. Jacob Grimm and Mr. Wilhelm Grimm:
The eighth draft of your manuscript entitled "Little Snow White" was received fourteen days ago here at Ashliman Press and has consequently been reviewed by several top members of our board committee at your request. As chief amalgamation officer (which is not just a fancy term for "secretary"), I have taken the resulting opinions from our entrusted members and compiled them in a more practical order within the following paragraphs of this letter.
We have found your eighth revision to be much improved from the first that was sent in five months ago, and we believe that it is at a minimal readiness to be published. However, we still have an additional number of suggestions that you may choose to ignore.
We still find a copious amount of conflict with your description of the child, Snow White. None of our editors understand or find any comprehensive meaning whatsoever to "[She] was as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony wood," unless you happened to forget to mention that you were describing different aspects of her physical character. While your metaphorical skills are sufficient, being a trite more specific would benefit the reader. Furthermore, illustrating the evil queen as turning "yellow and green with envy" completely collides with the fact that one does not photosynthesize (or even come close to doing so) when jealously is initiated.
Also, there are numerous inconsistencies with the magic mirror, which arbitrarily states one day that "Snow White is a thousand times fairer" in response to the queen's question. This statement is implausible due to two different reasons. Firstly, beauty is not a quantitative value and therefore cannot be assigned such qualifications as "a thousand times fairer". Secondly, the mirror cannot abruptly decide one day to promote Snow White to be a thousand times more beautiful—by this logic and continuing these so-called "number values" by the same growth constant, the amount of fairness that Snow White has relative to the evil queen should be over a thousand the next day. However, in subsequent encounters with the magic mirror, this proves not to be the case.
In regards to Snow White running lost in the forest, coming across a little house, and entering without any defensive precautions, we believe that others may find that this will encourage young children to enter small houses all alone in the middle of the forest with no knowledge of any kind about the owner or owners. As you should know, this is not a particularly valuable lesson that we should be teaching children. In fact, it may even be detrimental to psychological growth and danger perceptions.
There is also a slight discrepancy with the security of the house. It is implied later in the story that the door to the house is able to be locked; however, Snow White is easily able to enter when she first comes across the house. We find that this does not follow current safety and anti-theft precautions, and although this is acceptable to put in a work of fiction, you must offer some explanation of a) why the door wasn't locked or b) why the evil queen did not simply open the door to come after Snow White.
Additionally, when Snow White enters the dwarves' home, there are seven plates and mugs on the table with untouched food and wine. By our understanding, the dwarves work all day mining in the mountain, and we fail to see the logic in setting out one's dinner nine hours beforehand. This is not at all practical, as food will most likely become cold and spoil when sitting out for the better part of the day. Also, you state that "from each mug, she drank a drop of wine". This is highly improbable when taken literally; either you are exercising the literary device of hyperbole by exaggerating the amount of wine that she consumed, or you are flaunting the ability of a seven year old child to drink 0.05 mL of wine consistently from each glass without the use of modern instruments of measurement.
Furthermore, the dialogue of the seven dwarves when they arrive back home too closely mimics the dialogue of the three bears in your previous tale, Goldilocks. While this repetitive discourse may appeal to children and add to the innocent atmosphere of a fairy tale, this point is ruined due to the numerous accounts of attempted homicide to an innocent child in this story.
A typo is present in the forty-seventh paragraph. Subject verb agreement dictates that the word you should have used is "has", not "have".
We also find that it was impractical for the evil queen to color one half of the poisoned apple red and the other half white. Why would she do something that so blatantly indicated that the apple was inorganic? Also, in order to sufficiently poison someone, it would be more pragmatic to contaminate the apple with cyanide or ricin instead of whatever inadequate potion she happened to conjure up.
Our team also has an enormous amount of issue with the prince falling immediately in love with Snow White when she is asleep in the glass coffin. This is not only describing a fully improbable situation but is also promoting mating behavior based on beauty alone. We hope you realize that it is extremely twisted to have a prince fall in love with a seven year old princess and advise you to take out that part altogether or at the very least modify the age of Snow White.
Finally, we have found several issues concerning the death of the evil queen at the end when she attends Snow White's wedding. Your manuscript reads, "They put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead." While this in no way whatsoever adheres to the eighth amendment regarding cruel and unusual punishment, we are also bothered by this ending and concerned about your mental health and conscience. Although you are entitled to keep this part of the story, we predict that your future readers will be deeply disturbed and advise against including this passage.
This concludes our letter and consequent opinions from the senior board committee here at Ashliman Press. If you have any additional requests or questions, please do not hesitate to wait two to three weeks until the holiday season is over before sending us another letter and/or manuscript. We appreciate doing business with you. Have a nice life.
1221 Kassel Road
Steinau, Germany 36396
Dear Mr. Jacob Grimm and Mr. Wilhelm Grimm:
The eighth draft of your manuscript entitled "Little Snow White" was received fourteen days ago here at Ashliman Press and has consequently been reviewed by several top members of our board committee at your request. As chief amalgamation officer (which is not just a fancy term for "secretary"), I have taken the resulting opinions from our entrusted members and compiled them in a more practical order within the following paragraphs of this letter.
We have found your eighth revision to be much improved from the first that was sent in five months ago, and we believe that it is at a minimal readiness to be published. However, we still have an additional number of suggestions that you may choose to ignore.
We still find a copious amount of conflict with your description of the child, Snow White. None of our editors understand or find any comprehensive meaning whatsoever to "[She] was as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony wood," unless you happened to forget to mention that you were describing different aspects of her physical character. While your metaphorical skills are sufficient, being a trite more specific would benefit the reader. Furthermore, illustrating the evil queen as turning "yellow and green with envy" completely collides with the fact that one does not photosynthesize (or even come close to doing so) when jealously is initiated.
Also, there are numerous inconsistencies with the magic mirror, which arbitrarily states one day that "Snow White is a thousand times fairer" in response to the queen's question. This statement is implausible due to two different reasons. Firstly, beauty is not a quantitative value and therefore cannot be assigned such qualifications as "a thousand times fairer". Secondly, the mirror cannot abruptly decide one day to promote Snow White to be a thousand times more beautiful—by this logic and continuing these so-called "number values" by the same growth constant, the amount of fairness that Snow White has relative to the evil queen should be over a thousand the next day. However, in subsequent encounters with the magic mirror, this proves not to be the case.
In regards to Snow White running lost in the forest, coming across a little house, and entering without any defensive precautions, we believe that others may find that this will encourage young children to enter small houses all alone in the middle of the forest with no knowledge of any kind about the owner or owners. As you should know, this is not a particularly valuable lesson that we should be teaching children. In fact, it may even be detrimental to psychological growth and danger perceptions.
There is also a slight discrepancy with the security of the house. It is implied later in the story that the door to the house is able to be locked; however, Snow White is easily able to enter when she first comes across the house. We find that this does not follow current safety and anti-theft precautions, and although this is acceptable to put in a work of fiction, you must offer some explanation of a) why the door wasn't locked or b) why the evil queen did not simply open the door to come after Snow White.
Additionally, when Snow White enters the dwarves' home, there are seven plates and mugs on the table with untouched food and wine. By our understanding, the dwarves work all day mining in the mountain, and we fail to see the logic in setting out one's dinner nine hours beforehand. This is not at all practical, as food will most likely become cold and spoil when sitting out for the better part of the day. Also, you state that "from each mug, she drank a drop of wine". This is highly improbable when taken literally; either you are exercising the literary device of hyperbole by exaggerating the amount of wine that she consumed, or you are flaunting the ability of a seven year old child to drink 0.05 mL of wine consistently from each glass without the use of modern instruments of measurement.
Furthermore, the dialogue of the seven dwarves when they arrive back home too closely mimics the dialogue of the three bears in your previous tale, Goldilocks. While this repetitive discourse may appeal to children and add to the innocent atmosphere of a fairy tale, this point is ruined due to the numerous accounts of attempted homicide to an innocent child in this story.
A typo is present in the forty-seventh paragraph. Subject verb agreement dictates that the word you should have used is "has", not "have".
We also find that it was impractical for the evil queen to color one half of the poisoned apple red and the other half white. Why would she do something that so blatantly indicated that the apple was inorganic? Also, in order to sufficiently poison someone, it would be more pragmatic to contaminate the apple with cyanide or ricin instead of whatever inadequate potion she happened to conjure up.
Our team also has an enormous amount of issue with the prince falling immediately in love with Snow White when she is asleep in the glass coffin. This is not only describing a fully improbable situation but is also promoting mating behavior based on beauty alone. We hope you realize that it is extremely twisted to have a prince fall in love with a seven year old princess and advise you to take out that part altogether or at the very least modify the age of Snow White.
Finally, we have found several issues concerning the death of the evil queen at the end when she attends Snow White's wedding. Your manuscript reads, "They put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead." While this in no way whatsoever adheres to the eighth amendment regarding cruel and unusual punishment, we are also bothered by this ending and concerned about your mental health and conscience. Although you are entitled to keep this part of the story, we predict that your future readers will be deeply disturbed and advise against including this passage.
This concludes our letter and consequent opinions from the senior board committee here at Ashliman Press. If you have any additional requests or questions, please do not hesitate to wait two to three weeks until the holiday season is over before sending us another letter and/or manuscript. We appreciate doing business with you. Have a nice life.
David Rien
Chief Amalgamation Officer
Chief Amalgamation Officer