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A review by emma_probett
Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales by Angela Carter
3.0
"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.