1.
I was telling Natalia that these nights I'm trying to go to bed by 11:30 PM.
"Can you really fall asleep that early?"
The truth is that I must first read, and I read until my eyelids close - which usually happens before the book itself closes.

Lately, I've been reading Italo Calvino's huge collection, or selection, of Italian Folktales. I've bought this book two years ago in Oxford, England where, quite ironically, I went to talk to a conference on Russian Women Writers on my "Noffey Haneffesh" (Once She Was A Child).

I love folktales and buy them as much as I can afford to seize those treasures.
I'm thinking now that actually, since my childhood was cut short by WW2, the return to folktales is for me also a way to revive it.

2.
When you read a collection, you can better discern patterns.
The female, be her a princess or a "beautiful maiden" is passive, almost an object. She is taken or given to the daring guy, put in a cellar or in a tower. Her only way to dissent is to announce a competition in a seemingly impossible task, but do not worry, in the end she is won over and they live happily forever.

Her best qualities are complete silence, modesty (she won't be seen at a window), obedience, patience, and excellent embroidery craft.

Hence every little girl is told, "How beautiful! Like a princess! Where is your prince?"

While each boy is taught his role, her role.

3.
It's the Hanukkah vacation.
My 11 years old granddaughter came to visit. We were exchanging folktales like in a game of cards, and in all of them we found the same threads.
Are those patterns characteristic of Italian heritage alone?

 

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