Egg & Spoon
Defying Gravity, or toppling over?
Gregory Maguire’s book pulls on myth and Russian folklore to tell a compelling and fantastic tale.
US author Gregory
Maguire has made a name for himself with his retellings of classic children’s stories and fairytales. His most famous work is Wicked, a version of The Wizard Of Oz told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch Of The West, which was made into a wildly popular Broadway musical. Egg & Spoon sees Maguire this time turn his attention to Russian folklore, but the results are mixed, in part because the novel can never seem to quite decide which audience it’s aimed at.
It’s the eve of the Russian revolution. Repeated poor harvests – caused by a cycle of weather that could be considered inhospitable even by Russian standards – have left an already desperately poor population facing the spectre of starvation. In a tiny backwater hamlet, a girl named Elena nurses her ailing mother and ekes out an existence on scavenged nuts and berries. Her father is dead, and at the start of the novel her elder brothers are both press- ganged into service far away: one in the army, one in a landowner’s household.
Then a train en route for St Petersburg, carrying a unique gift for the Tsar and a potential bride for his godson in the shape of a girl named Cat, is stranded on the edge of the village by a damaged bridge. Elena’s horizons broaden rapidly, not least because when the train finally departs, an unlikely mix- up leaves her on the train in Cat’s place. Soon both girls are having encounters with mythical beings – Elena stumbles upon the Firebird, Cat falls in with the witch Baba Yaga – and the fate of the land lies in their inexperienced hands.
The set- up has a fairytale quality to it: Elena’s situation has echoes of Cinderella skivvying for her stepsisters, just a fairy godmother and a glass slipper – or, in this case, a train and a magic egg – away from swapping a draughty cottage for a lavish palace.
But her plight ( and that of her community) is so sharply and painstakingly drawn that it’s rather
A dichotomy between grit and glee runs through the entire novel
elephant tap- dancing on the roof of a car. Jokes in untranslated French rub shoulders with gags which carve deep grooves into the ground with their repetition; Baba Yaga’s love of all things anachronistic and American is initially fun – she has Cheerios in her cupboard and Cats on her turntable – but wears thin.
The overall effect can sometimes resemble whiplash: crippling poverty! Wisecracking cat! Terrible oppression! Ice dragon! Maguire’s attempt to create family fun often comes unstuck. Individual elements work, sometimes very well – the characters are well- rounded, the descriptions colourful, the dialogue lively, and the issues thoughtful – but, set alongside each other, they tend to clash more often than they compliment. Even if they’re not always successful, though, these juxtapositions make the book spikier and more interesting than it first appears. Nic Clarke