At the bottom of the cover is written the key to this anthology, “oddly modern fairy tales”. Jack Zipes, magical fairy godfather to all academic folklorists, has translated these tales into English and written an accompanying foreword for those not familiar with Bela Balazs (probably most of us). Balazs, born Herbert Bauer, was a playwright, poet, and early filmmaker in the first half of the 20th century who worked in Eastern Europe. He had always had an affinity for fairy tales, which can be seen in his best-known works, Bluebeard’s Castle and The Blue Light, but it was at the behest of an illustrator, Mariette Lydis, that we can see how far his interests stretched and what a talented writer he was. Lydis was looking for a writer to compose stories to compliment her already completed drawings and Balazs held the winning ticket.

He banged out these sixteen tales in three weeks to get them to the publisher on time, which makes them all the more remarkable. The stories are imaginative, silly, profound, and fit perfectly with the illustrations they have been built on. They show a deep understanding of Eastern philosophy, but do seem to be viewed from a Western vantage point. Many of the stories refuse to fit into the Western model, as lined out by Propp with his fairy tale functions, such as the story of a man who is killed by his ancestors who want him to fulfill their aspirations. Or the two deaf-mute beggars who find enough money to go to an opium den and end up switching bodies, which no one knows but them. There isn’t a moral or a lesson worn boldly by the tale on its sleeve; Balazs slipped the message of his tale into the subtext, with wit and modern sensibilities that are unusual in a fairy tale.

My favorite was “The Parasol”, in which a peddler buys a parasol to improve his home life, and goes through the whole stock of the parasol-seller, trying to find one with a painting on the underside that would make him—and his wife—happiest. It is closely followed by “The Clumsy God”, in which a god is sent to explain why a man shouldn’t burn his neighbor’s house down (because they will be reincarnated as conjoined twins).

Zipes’ introduction is integral to fully understanding Balazs and just what he was doing and saying with his stories, but it is written by an academic for an academic audience, so it can be a little bit slow-going at times if what you really want to do is read fairy tales. But, as the translator and editor, of “Oddly Modern Tales” and many other anthologies of fairy tales, Zipes knows what he’s talking about, and he knows where to find good stories.

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