Briar Rose

Robert Coover

Whoever it is that decides what the New York Times Notable Books of the Year are going to be for any given year has without a doubt one of the most thankless jobs in all of creation. It has always seemed to me that the "notable" books are those which didn't get the press run or critical notice to make it big, and without press run and critical notice you're always going to fight an uphill battle. And every year, NYT's Notable Books of the Year brings to light some of the finest gems in all of modern literature, but the spot swings off them too soon and they fade quickly back into obscurity.

It probably says something about Robert Coover, or about the critical climate in America today, that most every one of Coover's books has been a Notable Book of the Year, and yet still no one knows who the guy is. Even though he managed to break the NYT bestsellers list at least once in the past decade, the name still brings a scratching of the head and a "hmmm... sounds familiar, but I don't think I've read anything of his" reaction from most bibliophiles. How unfortunate this is, for Coover is a buried treasure waiting to be discovered, a truly gifted wordsmith, and Briar Rose may be the best place to start. It's short (eighty-odd pages), gloriously printed on some of the thickest paper I've ever seen in a commercially-published novel. Would that all novels were published with such an eye to quality as this slim trade paperback.

Coover retells the story of Sleeping Beauty, but in an odd avant-garde way; his POV switches from Beauty's mind to the prince trying to get through the brambles outside the castle to the evil fairy who imprisoned her in her century-long sleep. Coover takes into account some of the more obvious questions one would be forced to wonder about hearing this story ("one hundred years of collected menses alone would be enough to drive any prince from the chamber..."), adds a streak of sexuality, and melds the whole mess into what is, ultimately, a story both frustrating and rewarding at the same time. What really happens? And when it does happen, is it all in Sleeping Beauty's mind? Do we know? More importantly, does it matter? Coover answers these questions with two emphatic "no" answers, and he is correct in doing so. ****