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A review by maises
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
3.75
“You have such a fine throat, m'sieu, like a column of marble. When you came through the door retaining about you all the golden light of the summer's day of which I know nothing, nothing, the card called 'Les Amoureux' had just emerged from the tumbling chaos of imagery before me; it seemed to me you had stepped off the card into my darkness and, for a moment, I thought, perhaps, you might irradiate it.”
Oh Angela Carter! Pedantic, moony, run-on sentences galore!!! I am glad I finished this just on time within the span of autumn. I take “fairy tale with a twist” stories with a tiny itty bitty grain of salt, but Carter is kind of the blueprint here. I think I just enjoy how well she crafts atmosphere (which is arguably easy to do when you write walls of description as she does). Except there were times where I had to pause in my suspension of belief and sigh at how abstract the prose got for certain stories—not because it was bad, but because I just totally lost what was happening narratively when it got that whimsical. A few of them were just sort of there and I had no real opinion, other than appreciating her construction of words. I guess. Still, it was always entertaining because most stories were hard to predict.
My top three:
“The Lady of the House of Love” (if I was rating this short story alone, 5 stars)
“The Bloody Chamber”
“The Courtship of Mr Lyon”
Special mentions to “The Company of Wolves” (same as the movie) and “Wolf-Alice”. Carter really didn’t care much for anything but wolves by the end, it seems. I liked Puss-in-Boots on principal, but to be honest with you I can’t even begin to describe the plot of it. Or remember.
Oh Angela Carter! Pedantic, moony, run-on sentences galore!!! I am glad I finished this just on time within the span of autumn. I take “fairy tale with a twist” stories with a tiny itty bitty grain of salt, but Carter is kind of the blueprint here. I think I just enjoy how well she crafts atmosphere (which is arguably easy to do when you write walls of description as she does). Except there were times where I had to pause in my suspension of belief and sigh at how abstract the prose got for certain stories—not because it was bad, but because I just totally lost what was happening narratively when it got that whimsical. A few of them were just sort of there and I had no real opinion, other than appreciating her construction of words. I guess. Still, it was always entertaining because most stories were hard to predict.
My top three:
“The Lady of the House of Love” (if I was rating this short story alone, 5 stars)
“The Bloody Chamber”
“The Courtship of Mr Lyon”
Special mentions to “The Company of Wolves” (same as the movie) and “Wolf-Alice”. Carter really didn’t care much for anything but wolves by the end, it seems. I liked Puss-in-Boots on principal, but to be honest with you I can’t even begin to describe the plot of it. Or remember.