The Frog Prince: A Fairy Tale for Consenting Adults

by Stephen Mitchell Narrated by Stephen Mitchell

Overview

In this brilliant retelling of the classic fairy-tale about the transcendent power of love, author Stephen Mitchell writes, "There are two kinds of women: those who marry princes and those who marry frogs.” While the frogs never become princes, over the course of an ordinary marriage, a prince may turn into a frog. However, Mitchell tells of a different kind of love story. This adult fairytale is the story of a meditative frog's love for a rebellious princess, how she came to love him in spite of herself, and how her refusal to compromise helped him become what he was truly meant to be. A magical tale that is both poignant and profound, The Frog Prince-performed by the author-opens the heart and will both amuse and enlighten its listeners.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The prolific author of popular adaptations of world classics (Tao Te Ching), translator (Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet) and commentator on religious texts (The Gospel According to Jesus), Mitchell here puts his talents to a slighter test with a modern retelling of the fairy tale "The Frog Prince." The story is familiar: a princess drops her golden ball down a well, a besotted frog rescues it and, in return, the princess promises to love the frog and let him eat from her plate, drink from her cup and sleep in her bed. Though the princess comes to regret her promise, the frog persists, and after a series of trials, he turns into a handsome prince. Mitchell's adaptation drapes this skeleton tale (which he calls the "Condensed Version") in philosophical asides and spiritual insights. Setting the story in an alternate 16th century plagued with Unusual Phenomena ("Magic was afoot everywhere. Things were getting out of hand"), in a castle on the river Loire, the author conjures up some inspired fantastic scenarios, particularly when he writes about magic as if it were historical reality. But his frequent digressions sometimes seem intended to stretch the narrative ("What makes a woman fall in love with a frog? Many women, since time immemorial, staring up at the bedroom ceiling in the dead middle of the night, have asked themselves the same question"), and references to the Tao Te Ching and the tenets of Eastern religions are incongruous. Insubstantial though it may be, however, the tale is gracefully told, and sympathetic readers will find it an appealing tribute to the original. 5-city author tour. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175108997
Publisher:	Phoenix Books, Inc.
Publication date:	12/01/1999
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Princes and Frogs

There are two kinds of women: those who marry princes and those who marry frogs. The frogs never become princes, but it is an acknowledged fact that a prince may very well, in the course of an ordinary marriage, gradually, at first almost imperceptibly, turn into a frog. Happy the woman who after twenty-five years still wakes up beside the prince she fell in love with.

Entropy is the name that our scientists give to this phenomenon, the irreversible downward slide of events: life becomes death, order becomes disorder, princes become frogs. That is the way of the world, scientists say, and most of us solemnly nod our heads in agreement. But the rules of physics, though they resemble the rules of an ordinary marriage, do not at all correspond to the rules of the human soul. There are no exceptions to the rules of physics, whereas the rules of the soul consist of nothing but exceptions. That is why I want to tell you a different kind of love story, about a frog who became a prince.

Once Upon a Time
It all began . . .
But let me step back and begin before the actual beginning. There is a good deal of background material that I ought to fill you in on, and a certain number of necessary explanations. The traditional rendition of the story, which we can call the Condensed Version, tells everything in six and a half minutes, plunging straight into the thick of things with the Princess and her golden ball. Besides, it is a version for children, who don't require explanations of the extraordinary. Children understand that Once upon a time refers not only--not even primarily--to the past, but to the impalpable regions of the present, the deeperplaces inside us, where princes and dragons, wizards and talking birds, impassable roads, impossible tasks, and happy endings have always existed, alive and bursting with psychic power.

Let me start by reminding you that not all princesses in these ancient tales are beautiful. They don't have to be: they are princesses. But our princess was, in fact, a most attractive young woman. How attractive? Well, the Condensed Version, which is usually quite straightforward about details, gets caught up in its enthusiasm when it describes her. "She was so beautiful," it says, "that the sun, who had seen so many things, was filled with wonder every time he shined onto her face." This is charming, to be sure, but why the hyperbole? It is true that the Princess was lovely; you might even have called her--on certain days, in certain moods, in certain rare subtleties of light--beautiful. But there are many beautiful young women scattered across the globe, walking in high heels or in sneakers down every main street of every city on earth, and if the sun were to stop and stare at each of them, our days and our nights would be longer than I can easily tell. No, exaggerations like this don't occur to a storyteller out of the blue; there is always a reason, and the reason here, I think, is that the more difficult side of our princess's character must have made the teller of the Condensed Version uncomfortable. For the outer mirrors the inner, and there is no character flaw that, to a discerning eye, does not manifest itself on the faces of even the surpassingly beautiful, making them far less a cause for wonder than is the face of a plain young woman with a loving heart.

In short, the Princess was proud; she was ungrateful; she was headstrong. But we will come to all that in due course.

Our story takes place in the High Renaissance, in one of the small, prosperous French kingdoms whose châteaux along the Loire and the Saône are among the glories of European architecture. "French kingdoms, plural?" you may be asking. It is a natural question, and I must stop again to explain.

The Crack on the Surface of Reality
A century and three quarters before our story begins, during the first, tentative stages of the Renaissance, when one Western mind-world was dying and another was in the throes of being born, the wisest men and women in Europe could observe a hairline crack, as it were, on the surface of reality. This kind of crack is more likely to form in the life of an individual than in the life of an entire culture. When a woman or a man undergoes a deep spiritual transformation, there are certain critical points along the way when what is partial needs to be shattered in order to become what is whole. At such points, the hidden powers and illnesses of the soul may be unleashed, giving rise to bizarre phenomena in which darkness and light are interchangeable and in which it is sometimes difficult to distinguish miracle from madness.

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