"The idea that girls are princesses and want to be treated as such is very toxic"

BarcelonaAlthough it takes place in the 17th century, Modern fairies, the first novel by the British author Clare Pollard (Bolton, 1978) that we can read in English thanks to Club Editor and the work of Yannick Garcia, is written from a radically contemporary perspective. Presented with more sense of humor and irreverence than the Hamnet of Maggie O'Farrell (L'Altra / Libros del Asteroide, 2021) and in a more credible tone than the torn-apart rereading of the Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë by Emerald Fennell, 2026, Pollard sends readers to the lavish Parisian salons in which writers such as Charles Perrault (1628-1703) and Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy (1652-1705) contributed to popularizing and redefining the fairy tales that, in many cases, had grown above all thanks to word of mouth among the rural population.

"My interest in illustrated stories has been with me for a little over a decade," recalls Clare Pollard, who has published a dozen books since she debuted with the poetry collection The heavy-petting zoo (1998) when I was still studying English philology at King's College, Cambridge. "Shortly after becoming a mother, I started reading stories to my children. There were contemporary ones, but also classics, and as a literary critic, I began to wonder what they symbolized and what morals they instilled in children," she explains. Scholars of the genre such as Angela Carter, Jack Zipes and Marina Warner ended up nurturing the essay Fierce bad rabbits (Fig, Tree, 2019). "Children are represented as bunnies and other animals that are usually prey to predators –comments Pollard–. It is interesting to see what image stories convey to children on this specific point, basically because humans are not prey animals, but predators".

The action of Modern Fairies takes place, above all, during the evenings when Madame d'Aulnoy welcomes select guests to her salon to listen to the tales she tells, among which are The Story of Goldilocks, The Blue Bird and The White Cat. In the latter, a prince ends up discovering that the feline for whom he feels such affection is, in reality, a princess. "One of the things that annoys me most about our world is the princess culture –admits Clare Pollard–. I don't know if it is as horrible in Catalonia as it is in the United Kingdom, but it is very popular there, right now. The idea that little girls are princesses and want to be treated as such is very toxic. I am in favor of abolishing the monarchy and I do not believe that there are people who are born better than others. I have no interest in my daughter wanting to be a princess. I find it disgusting".

Louis XIV, a king who smelled bad

One of the writers who frequented Madame d'Aulnoy's salon was Charles Perrault, author of narratives such as Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. "The model of princess proposed by Cinderella is undoubtedly more passive than the one our children see in Frozen, a Disney film inspired by a story by Hans Christian Andersen from the 19th century that is quite different –continues Pollard–, but there are many fairy tales that in the time of Perrault and d'Aulnoy were already quite controversial, because they subvert roles or even dare to give a negative image of the kings that appear in them".

In Modern Fairies, Clare Pollard has fun turning the dialogues between the women and men who frequented the Parisian salons into competitions of wit as sophisticated as they are poisonous. "I am not an expert on the 17th century and these conversations are imagined, but after having read a lot about the era they seem quite plausible to me", comments the author. In an attempt to provide a complete image of the French high society of the time, Pollard does not spare details about the lack of hygiene. Both the aristocrats and Louis XIV camouflaged their stench with strong perfumes. "Lice were so frequent that high society wore wigs that, at night, they would take off so that the servants could boil them, the only way to get rid of this parasite", explains the English writer, who admits that she has included these distressing minutiae as a "small revenge". "Power is interested in projecting a propagandistic idea of perfection and glamour –she continues–. The truth was a little less pleasant. King Louis XIV had a hole between his mouth and his nose that caused food to escape during banquets and trickle down his chin".

Adultery is much more frequent than contact with water and soap in Modern Fairies, whicheven explains a lesbian relationship kept in secret. "Marriage and love were completely separate in the France of that time –says Clare Pollard–. From the outside we see the French as a very romantic people, but in Modern Fairies they get straight to the point. The king himself had an official mistress, apart from the sporadic lovers".

Some of the fairy tales that Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault and other storytellers tell aloud within the novel have the wisdom to imagine what happens the day after walking down the aisle. "We have become accustomed to the sugary Hollywood versions, in which the story ends when the couple shares the kiss that certifies their love, but there are tales that go further," explains the author. "When in Sleeping Beauty by Perrault the protagonist wakes up after the kiss, she marries the prince in secret. Then the girl returns home and the prince visits her until he gets her pregnant on two occasions. The girl's mother, who turns out to be an ogre, intends to eat the children, but the girl manages to escape with the little ones".