Robin McKinley: Girl Reader, Woman Writer (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Robin McKinley: Girl Reader, Woman Writer Judy Rosenbaum (bio) Robin McKinley: Girl Reader, Woman Writer. By Evelyn M. Perry. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011. Because of Robin McKinley’s depiction of strong heroines, her status as a Newbery Medal winner, and her role in the development of the contemporary novelized fairy tale, she merits a book-length study, and Evelyn Perry and Scarecrow Press have provided a valuable one. This detailed examination discusses McKinley’s settings and narrative structure, as well as her use of strong female protagonists in fantasy stories. The fact that at this point Perry’s book seems to be the only full-length work devoted to McKinley gives it extra value. The study is full of McKinley’s personality and those of her creations. Because Perry’s straightforward method of examining the stories is to provide a comprehensive analytical summary of each work, the characters of Harry (Angharad) Crewe, Aerin, Catriona, Rosie, and both incarnations of Beauty are revealed in all their unique, active splendor. Perry also provides information about McKinley’s influences, including her peripatetic childhood as part of a naval family, which resulted in her establishing long-term friendships with story characters more often than with people; the tales she devoured as a child; and authors active today, including her husband and occasional literary collaborator, Peter Dickinson. Perry is thorough in her treatment of both McKinley’s short-story collections and her full-length novels. Perry’s lucid presentation [End Page 353] enables readers to get a full picture of McKinley’s writings for themselves, and it also points them to a deeper exploration of the actual works. Perry admirably elaborates on McKinley’s beliefs and stances rather than superimposing a framework based on her own theses. Most fundamentally, McKinley has gone on record, notably in her Newbery acceptance speech, regarding her intent to portray active heroines. Perry provides many concrete illustrations of how McKinley accomplishes this goal. She deals with other issues as well, such as McKinley’s take on postcolonialism (chiefly in The Blue Sword; McKinley states on her Web site that the inspiration for this novel is Kipling’s story “The Man Who Would Be King”—which starred male protagonists, of course). Plainly, Perry is sympathetic to McKinley’s belief in a central role for girls and women, as her wording shows again and again. But she allows McKinley and her characters to speak for themselves. Generally speaking, women authors who love adventure stories take one of two paths. Some, such as Rosemary Sutcliff, use settings, often in earlier historical eras, that are completely male dominated, and they self-identify with a male protagonist time after time. It seems that they feel they can only transcend the perceived limitations of womanhood in such milieus by taking on the persona of a boy or a man. So intense is their adoption of the male viewpoint that they might not feature any main female characters in their books at all. Rather, their stories typically involve a military or political milieu that’s as exclusionary as the proverbial “No Girls Allowed” secret clubhouse. Sutcliff is a peerless writer, and her multitudes of devoted female fans, including me, have no problem identifying with her heroes. But it’s nice to not always have to assume the mindset of the opposite sex when one reads a thrilling tale. Authors such as Robin McKinley understand the need for “girl readers” to identify with a female adventurer. These writers create exciting stories starring a girl or a young woman. As Perry shows, McKinley, who “considered books among her greatest and most constant friends” (xiii), grew up loving adventure stories, principally those by Kipling and Tolkien (as McKinley herself says in the FAQ section of her Web site, <www.robinmckinley.com>). Those two men wrote with a lot of vitality, but depicted few women. McKinley set out to create tales in that exciting vein, but she put girls or young women at the center of the action. Interestingly, both McKinley and Rosemary Sutcliff have cited Kipling as a key influence and inspiration. Even McKinley’s more traditional heroines have a nontraditional aspect. Her first book, Beauty (1978...