Customer Reviews

The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories

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On hearing that the writing style of Tanith Lee, one of my favorite authors, had derived in part from that of Angela Carter, I hastened to find a good collection and explore the similarities. I read this book, and while I am not going to compare and contrast the two styles, I am going to rave about Angela Carter. In the collection "The Bloody Chamber" she reworks five familiar fairy tales as well as spinning myriad tales from the werewolf theme and a tragic love-story out of the vampire myth. Each of the stories has its own unique perspective that works both as a stylistic trick and as a function of the story, such as having Puss-in-Boots proudly recount his own exploits, or having Beauty lost to the Beast at a game of cards. The stories are written sensually, reveling in their lush usage of language; the opening of "The Erl-King" smells of rotted leaves in October, "The Lady of the House of Love" casts haunted shadows at the reader's feet. One or two read like deconstructions of familiar tales, such as the surreal "The Snow Child" or "The Werewolf," while others are the old stories, stripped to their framework and then refleshed with Angela Carter's rich prose. All are absorbing, seductive, to read; if words are food, then this is highly caloric chocolate of the finest quality. (The bittersweet tint only adds to the flavor.) Enough of my raving; read the book yourself. For my part, I will be scouring my library for more of Angela Carter's work. You can never get enough chocolate.

"The Bloody Chamber" is a work of literature which transcends genre and unearths the thinly veiled erotic elements of the fairy tale form. Each of the ten stories in this collection are as rich and sensuous as red velvet, it is quite possible to open the book at any page and find yourself immersed in the beauty of the prose. Highlights include the eponymous novella "The Bloody Chamber" (Carter's subversive re-telling of the "Bluebeard" story) and "The Lady of the House of Love", which illuminates the notion of a decaying European aristocracy behind the myth of the vampire.

Carter presents us with two contrasting (yet not conflicting) versions of the "Beauty and the Beast" story with "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" and "The Tiger's Bride". In the former, the fierce nature of the beast is curbed by the gentleness of the female protagonist, whilst in the latter, the heroine discovers the liberating power of the repressed animal aspect of her sexuality. Each story has a feminist flavour, exploring both male and female sexual desire, and the darker domains of eroticism. A book which will increasingly be hailed as a masterpiece in years to come.

Do you have the courage to enter Angela Carter's quirky realm of magical realism? She is brilliant. BRILLIANT! I love these short stories -- or rather, fairy tales that everyone is familiar with. The stories have very familiar themes, like tragic love stories, werewolf stories and Cinderella-like stories. Of course, Angela added her own ingredients in the stories. There are a lot of elements of sex and a large dosage of magical realism. They are so mind-boggling disturbing that I found myself thinking about them long after I finished reading them. My favorites are "The Lady of the House of Love," "The Snow Child," and "The Werewolf." I marvel at Carter's imagination. She is truly gifted. Her writing style sort of reminds me of Amanda Filipacchi -- a brilliant French novelist. In fact, I wonder if Carter influenced Filipacchi's work. I highly recommend The Bloody Chamber. This isn't for the faint at heart; this is dark literature at its finest!

In Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, the author re-creates the fairy tales of old, melding them into feminist tales of love, loss, lust, and sexuality. While her stories find their genesis in the childlike versions of Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and others, Ms. Carter transforms these fantastical stories into adult renditions where vampires prey on virgins, where children lie down with wolves, and a Count "thrust his virile member into the dead girl". In each of these stories, Ms. Carter creates an unexpected, erotic feel which is intertwined with mystery and an adult edginess that goes far beyond the original versions of these fairy tales. She also is very adept at giving the reader just the right amount of clues, never being too obvious, and respecting her reader's intelligence in unraveling the webs she weaves with these stories. Ms. Carter additionally has an ability to take what could be mundane aspects of her stories and infuse them with richness which keeps the reader involved in the story, compelling them to read on. Finally, Angela Carter is a master of symbolism: the young officer in The Lady of the House of Love as the true measure of life and freedom, the kiss in The Company of Wolves as the conquest of men, the clothing in The Snow Child as a representation of power. In every story within the pages of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories Angela Carter's brilliance come through, and her readers are rewarded with lush, rich, compelling, adult stories of adventures born from our childhood fairy tales.

I'm writing this because I don't want the fool in line behind me to have the last word.

I know nothing about the factual aspects of Carter's life and could care less- I'm in it for the stories, the tales, the language. These are excellent reworkings of classic stories, boldy reworked to highlight and examine the feminine elements at play in the tale. I'm not gonna get all lit jargony on your ass. The stories themselves are taut, well-paced, superbly detailed and all atound marvelous to read (though the first one- the reworking of the Bluebeard story- is my least favorite).

These stories inspired me to attempt my own reworkings of various tales. I'm not soliciting here- I'm just demonstrating that this book is an inspiring little collection of polished gems. Reasonably priced too.

Also, as a final tempt- If you know a young woman who is imaginative and literary minded, and you want to reinforce those qulaities (quite task in this day and age) you should get her this. It will be a step up from Anne Rice novels and the lyric sheets to those Cure CDs.

Pick up 'The Sadean Woman,' too. It's an interesting feminist appraisal of the infamous Marquis and an illuminating read.

According to the introduction by Helen Simpson in my copy of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber," the author herself is adverse to the description of this anthology as "retold, adult fairytales." Instead she claims that: "my intention was not to do "versions"...but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories and to use it as the beginnings of new stories."

That is as may be, but the truth is that the simplest way to describe "The Bloody Chamber" is to say that it is a collection of reworked fairytales geared toward adult readership. Ten in all, each one is based on an old fairytale, and Carter explores her own personal ideas and understanding of these familiar stories in her "new stories;" being particularly concerned with the metaphorical meanings that are inherent in each one.

Perhaps the best way to describe them is to say that they have echoes of the old symbolism and imagery of the old tales, but act as "remakings" rather than "retellings." As such, what is gathered here is a series of stories that delve into themes of sexuality, femininity, mutability, transformation and the capability of humankind for change and growth. It is not for the faint-of-heart reader, for often these stories can be violent, crude or grotesque. At their core, all fairytales are about two things: life and death, and in "The Bloody Chamber" they are transposed and presented as sex and violence.

Yet there is an hypnotic quality to them in their atmosphere and resonance that kept me hooked (and certainly leaves room for multiple re-reads).

Carter's language is opulent, rich, sensual and complex. That sentence is a preview of what you'll find in this book, as Carter seems to adhere to the general rule that no noun must go without an adjective - or several. Yet it never seems to tip into purple prose, not even when she's comparing water-stains on the dark red wallpaper to the indentations left by lovers on black satin sheets. (Of course, if any of that just made your eyes hurt, then it's certainly best to give "The Bloody Chamber" a miss).

Yet it didn't bother me at all: perhaps it was Carter's mastery of language, or the fact that sensory pleasures are such an important part of the narratives, or perhaps such dense prose just works better in short-story form. Like eating dark chocolate or drinking red wine: you can't have too much of it, but it works extremely well in small doses.

Exploring these stories on your own makes up most of the enjoyment of the book, so I won't give too much away in regards to the content of the stories. However, they range in length from the almost-novella size of the titular story "The Bloody Chamber", based on the story of Bluebeard and his murdered wives, to the page-long "The Snow Child", a sort-of inverse version of Snow White in which the maiden is born out of her father's desire as opposed to her mother's.

There are the comparable "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" and "The Tiger's Bride," both of which are based on Beauty and the Beast, and both providing alternative versions of the final metamorphosis scene for your consideration. These are followed by the only truly comedic effort in the collection, "Puss-in-Boots", narrated by the cat himself in raucous, witty prose as he helps his master win a lady's heart. If a cat could talk, it would sound like this, and he has some rather wonderful gems of wisdom to share: "All good women have a missionary streak, sir; convince her that her orifice is your salvation and she's yours."

"The Erl-King" and "The Lady of the House of Love" are stories centered around a mystical, powerful character; male in the former and female in the latter. Both are based not so much on fairytales as they are on the Germanic/Romanian legends of dark elves and vampires. As Helen Simpson puts it, in each story: "lovers are lethal, traditional romantic patterns kill, and sex leads to death."

Finally there is a "trilogy" of sorts that ends the collection: "The Werewolf," "The Company of Wolves," and "Wolf-Alice," which deals with (obviously) the legend of the werewolf and the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood. They give us three very different and intriguing points-of-view as to the nature of this particular creature, based around the archetypal figures of the wolf, the old woman, and the child. Incidentally, The Company of Wolves was adapted into a rather fascinating film that is also recommended to those who enjoy this collection.

One thing that does emerge very clearly from these stories is the subversive role of women in breaking their traditional fairytale forms. No longer passive objects of desire, they here become self-knowledgable saviours or furious harbingers of justice. And yet even then these subversions are surprising in the way they unfold. In such cases, saving someone can be an act of violence, and terrible vengeance can be construed as a merciful act.

In short: this is an anthology of intriguing, thought-provoking stories that invokes the landscapes and imagery of fairytales, a healthy dose of Gothic sensibilities and Carter's own brand of morbid beauty. I'd certainly recommend it, for though it is certainly not for everyone, it should be reasonably obvious from the outset as to whether these grim, dark fairytales would appeal to you or not.

To begin, with the exception of the eponymous story at the beginning , these stories are the stylstic masterpieces of a miniaturist virtuoso. These renarrated fairy tales are nuanced stories that give the reader pause to reconsider his or her sexuality and the inherent violence and danger attendant upon it.-And then, perhaps, to reflect that the fairy stories in their original form were less explicit forms of the same thing for children....As the writer Djuna Barnes puts it in Nightwood, "God, children know something they can't tell; they like Red Riding Hood and the wolf in bed!"

The first story, is, to my taste, the only failure here. It's a bit too heavy-handed and obvious, and the imagery and phraseology borrow too much from Poe, particularly from his "The Fall of The House of Usher." They leave you straining for an impact which is just not there. That said, the rest of the stories are erotic/metaphysical gems in which the reader can peer into his or her own sexuality in its many (mostly crimsoned) facets.

There is a subtle but deep undertone here that, in some way, our sexuality makes us all otherworldy ghouls and outcasts from the civilized world. As the narrator puts it in "The Lady of the House of Love," "The end of exile is the end of being."-In other words, our sexuality metamorphoses (one of Carter's favourite words and themes)us into vampires, werewolves and sadistic murderers, if only in our imagination, and frequently in life.

An exqusite book to pique anyone's interest into his or her sexuality and its implications, both in the realms of action and imagination

I first read this book in college and it has become one of my all-time favorites. In this collection of short stories, Angela Carter takes the fairytales, nursery rhymes, and the images and themes they contain and perverts/illuminates them. What is most striking about this collection is Carter's writing style. Her language is simultaneously poetic and profane. The stories are heavy with her purple language, which is what makes them so satisfying to read. In additon to the exquisite language, Carter's re-telling of classic tales such as "Snow White," "Red Riding Hood," "Puss in Boots," etc., never fails to pay off. Carter creates a world in which Red Riding hood is the savvy hunter, not the innocent hunted. These stories make us focus on the overly simplistic (and often slanted) messages we were taught as children when these tales were first presented to us. In particular, Carter makes us question what fairytales have taught us about gender roles, marriage, and sex. For a trip into the fantasic that will make you laugh and make you really THINK, read this book!

This great collection of short stories by the late Angela Carter focusses on the theme of familiar fairy tales and legends that includes Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves with a provocative element and mind-inflicting twists. The gist of these dark tales, written in fantastic prose venture on the chemistry between human and beast(s) and of their self-discovery of inner thought as well as their physical sexual conformations. This book can be read over and over as the language woven within it's plot reaches a point where there are many possiblities for the characters-the innocent virginal maiden and the beast can go from, and for the reader being left in a wild sense of wanting to know more.
So be prepared to be propelled through one heck of a rollercoaster as from the first few pages, even every sentence containing a unique word will immediately have an impact in this sexually implicit and bloody fest of a book.
I accidentally came across Angela Carter's works through "The Company of Wolves", as i have never heard of her, and will definitely be amongst my collection including S.K., James Herbert, Dean Koontz. Highly recommended for horror fans.

Only after reading some of Carter's novels did I take a stab at this particular collection of stories. Of course, I expected her disturbingly-casual blend of fairy tale and contemporary setting, Christian and Pagan lore...and all the blood and gore that go with it. But I was completely taken by how I--my stomach, really--reacted to some of the passages in this book: my stomach literally "knotted up" and did somersaults at some instances (beginning with Carter's description of the Bluebeard's "bloody chamber," all the way through her werewolf sequence).

In this collection, you'll find virgins fetishized and explicitly eroticized by beasts, and distraight daughters in full arms against their money-hungry fathers...all of this situated on a bloody canvas of pornographic imagery and poetic language. (If you want worse, by the way, pick up Bataille or Sade.)

"The Bloody Chamber" continually provokes emotional, intellectual reactions of me, so I'm convinced it's to be considered a masterpiece. --By far, her most inventive work.