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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
I adore this book. The fairytales are fantastic. You won't get Disney fairytales in this book, but the real, horrible kind, where people lose their limbs or eat their children.
It's a very enjoyable book with all kinds of fairytales or folktales from all over the world. These are the kind of stories I can imagine parents telling their children centuries ago, to actually scare and learn them something.
It's a very enjoyable book with all kinds of fairytales or folktales from all over the world. These are the kind of stories I can imagine parents telling their children centuries ago, to actually scare and learn them something.
A great mix of familiar and lesser known fairytales from many different cultures. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I'm sure any fairytale enthusiast would.
"The daughter grew up in the very image of her dead mother and one day her father took her aside, and told her of her mother and of the mirror which had reflected her beauty. She unearthed the mirror.
'Father!' she cried 'See! Here is mother's face!'
It was her own face she saw; but her father said nothing. The tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the words would not come."
Carter's collection of Fairy Tales was her final project and edited on her death bed and as much as I honour the sentiment of that and historical moment of this work which, bearing Angela Carter's name, is the English retelling of a selection of fairy tales across the world. All in all, I found this collection less poetic than I had expected; it wasn't particularly fantastical, exciting, ambitious, horrifying, of beautiful in its tone. I can only imagine that Carter was in turn conscious of staying true, as much as possible to the stories she was given and the simple language reflects that. Simple language and short sentences can be powerful, but even reading just a couple of these short stories every night, the characters were interchangeable. Perhaps in an academic context you could appreciate all the ways that as a species we create and recreate myths and cautionary tales that reverberate through history and culture. But in practice it was often boring and I felt ultimately, a missed opportunity of exploring words or characters (as in literally the symbols of other languages) and their themes and extensions in folklore literature.
'Father!' she cried 'See! Here is mother's face!'
It was her own face she saw; but her father said nothing. The tears were streaming down his cheeks, and the words would not come."
Carter's collection of Fairy Tales was her final project and edited on her death bed and as much as I honour the sentiment of that and historical moment of this work which, bearing Angela Carter's name, is the English retelling of a selection of fairy tales across the world. All in all, I found this collection less poetic than I had expected; it wasn't particularly fantastical, exciting, ambitious, horrifying, of beautiful in its tone. I can only imagine that Carter was in turn conscious of staying true, as much as possible to the stories she was given and the simple language reflects that. Simple language and short sentences can be powerful, but even reading just a couple of these short stories every night, the characters were interchangeable. Perhaps in an academic context you could appreciate all the ways that as a species we create and recreate myths and cautionary tales that reverberate through history and culture. But in practice it was often boring and I felt ultimately, a missed opportunity of exploring words or characters (as in literally the symbols of other languages) and their themes and extensions in folklore literature.
Una obra de arte. Angela Carter ha conseguido, otra vez, que me enamore de sus cuentos. En esta ocasión no son de su cosecha, pero los ha reunido de una manera tan magistral que no tengo sino que aplaudirle. Qué lectura tan chachi, y qué ganas de leer "Quemar las naves".
Vladimir Propp says, ‘ In most languages, the word “tale” is a synonym for “lie” or “falsehood”‘ . Angela Carter’s Book of fairy tales is an enormous collection of such lies. Though the book is titled ‘Fairy Tales’, majority of the stories are not about fairies. ‘Fairies’ are imposed imaginations about how women should generally be. The cultural and social norm of insisting a little girl to be always pleasing and smiling to others, to be addressed as an angel,fairy or princess, in itself creates a gender divide which every woman is forced to carry along with her to the grave. The stories in this book are collected from all over the world and include stories in certain languages like Somali for which a written script was developed in the recent past. The stories are grouped into thirteen sub groups based on their nature and character. Some are funny, witty and hilarious while others depict the darker side of human beings . Some of the stories are written in the spoken dialect and simulates the experience of listening to them directly from the narrator.
Angela Carter was an English feminist writer whom Salman Rushdie called, upon her death in 1992 at age 51, the “high sorceress” and “benevolent white witch” of English literature. Though she is listed as one among the most influential English writers of all times, she is little known outside of England because she has been ignored by many of the acclaimed literary prize committees.She believed in the power of story telling and in rekindling the past in order to anticipate future. Though at any point of time , more than half of humanity comprised of women, there is an under representation of women in stories and tales. Angela Carter observed that even when the narrator was a woman, many a times derogatory remarks about another woman was made, which she attributed to the upbringing of such women in an evidently inviolable patriarchal society. By collecting these tales from across the world, Angela Carter did not want to prove that we are all alike beneath our skins. We are not alike; but in our differences lies the abundant capacity of human imagination. Carter also gives an account of the origin of many of the tales which helps us to comprehend the history of such stories.
Definitely, I might not be able to recollect all the stories so as to narrate them later. But I will be able to remember the effect those stories had on me. Some made me laugh, some made me cry and some made me wonder. Angela Carter wrote,“Swahili storytellers believe that women are incorrigibly wicked, diabolically cunning and sexually insatiable; I hope this is true, for the sake of the women.” I yearn for a real and imaginary world where more wicked, cunning and sexually insatiable women exist with equal right, dignity and liberty as every one else.
Angela Carter was an English feminist writer whom Salman Rushdie called, upon her death in 1992 at age 51, the “high sorceress” and “benevolent white witch” of English literature. Though she is listed as one among the most influential English writers of all times, she is little known outside of England because she has been ignored by many of the acclaimed literary prize committees.She believed in the power of story telling and in rekindling the past in order to anticipate future. Though at any point of time , more than half of humanity comprised of women, there is an under representation of women in stories and tales. Angela Carter observed that even when the narrator was a woman, many a times derogatory remarks about another woman was made, which she attributed to the upbringing of such women in an evidently inviolable patriarchal society. By collecting these tales from across the world, Angela Carter did not want to prove that we are all alike beneath our skins. We are not alike; but in our differences lies the abundant capacity of human imagination. Carter also gives an account of the origin of many of the tales which helps us to comprehend the history of such stories.
Definitely, I might not be able to recollect all the stories so as to narrate them later. But I will be able to remember the effect those stories had on me. Some made me laugh, some made me cry and some made me wonder. Angela Carter wrote,“Swahili storytellers believe that women are incorrigibly wicked, diabolically cunning and sexually insatiable; I hope this is true, for the sake of the women.” I yearn for a real and imaginary world where more wicked, cunning and sexually insatiable women exist with equal right, dignity and liberty as every one else.
I thoroughly enjoyed these tales. My absolute favourite is by far "The Recourseful Wife." It made me laugh out loud. I will revisit this many times.