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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
A.C’s writing is beautiful but I’m just not feeling the story unfortunately. I’ll try other books from her though. Loved the bloody chamber collection.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Medical trauma, Dysphoria
Content note: r*pe, botched-abortion, kidnapping, forced sex-change, cults, domestic abuse, civil war, home invasion and destruction, murder, child soldiers, civil war, the apocalypse.
This book started off well. Gorgeous, dream-like writing. Having enjoyed her book The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, based on fairy tales I was interested to see what she made of the myths she referenced in this one.
And for the first third of the book this was just as good. It was beautifully, entertainingly weird: Tiresias meets revenge porn during the apocalypse. Slightly stereotypical concepts of gender, even in satire, but the book is 40 years old and based on centuries old myths.
Unfortunately while it continued to be one of the most imaginative books I've ever read, the writing didn't maintain the same quality into the Mansonesque sex cult portion of the book. It picked up again towards the end of that second act of the story, then dipped again to pick up towards the end of third. I think the dream-like quality was supposed to continue throughout but couldn't be sustained.
I think the book ultimately suffered for having too much to say on too many themes to live up to the promise of the opening. It felt as though it petered out rather than actually ending.
This book started off well. Gorgeous, dream-like writing. Having enjoyed her book The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, based on fairy tales I was interested to see what she made of the myths she referenced in this one.
And for the first third of the book this was just as good. It was beautifully, entertainingly weird: Tiresias meets revenge porn during the apocalypse. Slightly stereotypical concepts of gender, even in satire, but the book is 40 years old and based on centuries old myths.
Unfortunately while it continued to be one of the most imaginative books I've ever read, the writing didn't maintain the same quality into the Mansonesque sex cult portion of the book. It picked up again towards the end of that second act of the story, then dipped again to pick up towards the end of third. I think the dream-like quality was supposed to continue throughout but couldn't be sustained.
I think the book ultimately suffered for having too much to say on too many themes to live up to the promise of the opening. It felt as though it petered out rather than actually ending.
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I am speechless. & not in the best of ways.
- read for boxall's 1001 books to read before you die-.
“Proposition one: time is a man, space is a woman.”
Ok I don't know where to start but to state that this book IS A LOT. It is a lot to take in process and just idk. Basically, in dystopian USA, a sh*tty man runs away and falls into the hands of a goddess Eve where she transforms him into a beautiful woman. He has to live as that women & essentially face all the things that women have to face when dealing with sh*tty men. Sounds like an interesting plot right? It is not that simple and there are a million subplots and weird things happening that I'm not even going to start to explain.
This is very much a literary and feminist writing. I feel like you could really deep dive into the symbolism, meanings, themes, and ultimate universal truths of this book. But I didn't want to do that. Carter definitely broke the mold with this one & I really just didn't like the paths she chose through this story.
All in all, I just didn't enjoy it. However, it didn't turn me off from Carter completely. I have two of her other books (that frankly I'm nervous to read) but I feel like her sweet spot (for me) will be her short story collections. I think having these boundaries pushed in a shorter capacity will allow me to enjoy the weirdness for what they are instead of getting lost in all the things I can't/don't want to follow.
- read for boxall's 1001 books to read before you die-.
“Proposition one: time is a man, space is a woman.”
Ok I don't know where to start but to state that this book IS A LOT. It is a lot to take in process and just idk. Basically, in dystopian USA, a sh*tty man runs away and falls into the hands of a goddess Eve where she transforms him into a beautiful woman. He has to live as that women & essentially face all the things that women have to face when dealing with sh*tty men. Sounds like an interesting plot right? It is not that simple and there are a million subplots and weird things happening that I'm not even going to start to explain.
This is very much a literary and feminist writing. I feel like you could really deep dive into the symbolism, meanings, themes, and ultimate universal truths of this book. But I didn't want to do that. Carter definitely broke the mold with this one & I really just didn't like the paths she chose through this story.
All in all, I just didn't enjoy it. However, it didn't turn me off from Carter completely. I have two of her other books (that frankly I'm nervous to read) but I feel like her sweet spot (for me) will be her short story collections. I think having these boundaries pushed in a shorter capacity will allow me to enjoy the weirdness for what they are instead of getting lost in all the things I can't/don't want to follow.
Read at your own peril but please read and then talk to me about it
This book was so insane, and weird, and hallucinatory. The story was wildly unpredictable and the way Carter writes is addicting. Huge content warning on this one, as there's a lot of sexual violence and graphic imagery. If you can stomach that, give it a go because the writing is beautiful. Almost has A Burroughs ish nightmare vibe to it.
"I know nothing. I am tabula erasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman’s shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am as mythic and monstrous as Mother herself; but I cannot bring myself to think that. Eve remains wilfully in the state of innocent that precedes the fall."
My first reaction I had to this book was so visceral I surprised myself. Carter’s ‘The Passion of New Eve’ is a book that both horrified and intrigued me in equal measures. In fact, the more violently my emotions reacted to it, the more I needed to read – if only to see where Carter would take me next.
‘The Passion of New Eve’ follows the journey of a young English professor, Evelyn, through a dystopian America where civil war has broken out between different political, racial and gendered groups. After losing his job Evelyn is reduced to living out a meagre existence amongst the rotting streets of New York. Here he meets the beautiful and broken Leilah who spends her days high on hash candy and constructing her nocturnal outfits of furs and fishnets in the mirror. Their brief affair leaves her pregnant, effectively severs the last of his lust. Abandoning her to a solo abortion he runs for the desert and is soon captured by a militant feminist group living in the hidden city of Beulah. It is in this city he will be reborn as ‘Eve’ under the scalpel of their many-breasted leader, known only as Mother. It is here that his new life begins.
"I am helplessly lost in the middle of the desert, without map or guide or compass. The landscape around me like an old fan that has lost all its painted silk and left only the care, yellowed sticks of antique ivory in a world in which, since I am alive, have no business. The earth has been scalped, flayed; it is peopled only with echoes. The world shines and glistens, reeks and swelters till its skin peels, flakes, cracks, blisters.
I have found a landscape that matches the landscape of my heart."
This is a poetic and disturbing novel that takes explorations of gender, mythology and iconography to psychedelic levels. There is real brutality in Carter’s depictions of the innate suffering in life. The plot’s immediate prospects of nuclear war take on new levels of poignancy set in the context of its 1977 publication date. Most of the text’s violence however comes directly from clashes between race and gender. However, Carter walks a very careful line in her depictions of gender. Whilst almost all the women of the text suffer ill treatment at the hands of certain males, these men are clearly described as those who in some way fear female sexuality or power due to their own sexual and psychological shortcomings. In addition the most grotesque and monstrous character is Mother herself, a self-styled goddess who wishes to use Eve(lyn)’s new body to create a new race.
The narrative is heavily with symbolism and the politics of power. Carter’s writing is mythic and rich, whilst the story reads as a dark and explosive modern epic. This is a novel that will leave you questioning your own assumptions of female power, mythology and construction. Completely absorbing and well worth the initial effort.
My first reaction I had to this book was so visceral I surprised myself. Carter’s ‘The Passion of New Eve’ is a book that both horrified and intrigued me in equal measures. In fact, the more violently my emotions reacted to it, the more I needed to read – if only to see where Carter would take me next.
‘The Passion of New Eve’ follows the journey of a young English professor, Evelyn, through a dystopian America where civil war has broken out between different political, racial and gendered groups. After losing his job Evelyn is reduced to living out a meagre existence amongst the rotting streets of New York. Here he meets the beautiful and broken Leilah who spends her days high on hash candy and constructing her nocturnal outfits of furs and fishnets in the mirror. Their brief affair leaves her pregnant, effectively severs the last of his lust. Abandoning her to a solo abortion he runs for the desert and is soon captured by a militant feminist group living in the hidden city of Beulah. It is in this city he will be reborn as ‘Eve’ under the scalpel of their many-breasted leader, known only as Mother. It is here that his new life begins.
"I am helplessly lost in the middle of the desert, without map or guide or compass. The landscape around me like an old fan that has lost all its painted silk and left only the care, yellowed sticks of antique ivory in a world in which, since I am alive, have no business. The earth has been scalped, flayed; it is peopled only with echoes. The world shines and glistens, reeks and swelters till its skin peels, flakes, cracks, blisters.
I have found a landscape that matches the landscape of my heart."
This is a poetic and disturbing novel that takes explorations of gender, mythology and iconography to psychedelic levels. There is real brutality in Carter’s depictions of the innate suffering in life. The plot’s immediate prospects of nuclear war take on new levels of poignancy set in the context of its 1977 publication date. Most of the text’s violence however comes directly from clashes between race and gender. However, Carter walks a very careful line in her depictions of gender. Whilst almost all the women of the text suffer ill treatment at the hands of certain males, these men are clearly described as those who in some way fear female sexuality or power due to their own sexual and psychological shortcomings. In addition the most grotesque and monstrous character is Mother herself, a self-styled goddess who wishes to use Eve(lyn)’s new body to create a new race.
The narrative is heavily with symbolism and the politics of power. Carter’s writing is mythic and rich, whilst the story reads as a dark and explosive modern epic. This is a novel that will leave you questioning your own assumptions of female power, mythology and construction. Completely absorbing and well worth the initial effort.