A review by moonpix
The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography by Angela Carter

3.0

Very glad to be done with this, though I suspect I will be returning back to specific passages for reference. Which is to say it is an extremely unenjoyable read that nevertheless provides worthwhile context for Carter's fiction. The analysis on its own suffers from an over-reliance on Freud (doesn't everything) but when read in relation to her fiction I found her discussion of characters that lack inner lives to be particularly illuminating. The alienation of her main characters has always been striking to me, especially for a feminist writer. Still, I prefer when Carter's literary criticism takes the form of short stories, à la her writing on Poe and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Saints and Strangers. Though inevitably it does help that the source material there is much less distasteful than Sade’s is here.