Carter, Angela

Average customer rating:

Gothic writing at it's best!
The flip side of the traditional fairy tale
Twisted fairy tales
Little Red Riding Hood and the Lone Wolf......
A bit of the Brothers Grimm as seen by Edgar Alan Poe

The Bloody Chamber
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014017821X

Customer Reviews:

Gothic writing at it's best!.......2007-04-08

Angela Carter is a superb author with a vivid and utterly compelling style. Her short stories are graphic, sexy, and page-turning. She doesn't disappoint! If you loved fairytales as a child but need that little something extra now that your older and wiser then you simply must read this book!

The flip side of the traditional fairy tale.......2006-04-26

Carter's collection sheds a feminist retelling of many famous fairy tales. I especially liked what she did with Blackbeard and the Puss in Boots.

Included in this collection is the story behind the film, "In the Company of the Wolves."

Don't come to this collection expecting Grimm's. Come to it expecting great storytelling and interesting perspectives on the tales we thought we knew so well.

Twisted fairy tales.......2005-12-11

I had to read this book for one of my college courses and absolutly loved it. The way Carter twists the fairy tales and adds a sometimes morbid clencher is excellent. I loved the statments she was making in them and the way stories were told was excellent. As was the fact that women weren't made out to be weak or that their only rightful place was in the kitchen. Out of all the stories in the book I found "The Tigers Bride" (re-telling of Beauty and the Beast) and "The Company of Wolves" (re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood) to be my favorites.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Lone Wolf.............2005-12-03

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.

A bit of the Brothers Grimm as seen by Edgar Alan Poe.......2005-09-01

I am really happy to see other reviewers reveling in Ms. Carter's use of language, as I think her ability to turn a phrase is by far the strongest aspects of these stories. While my original reaction on rereading these stories after their laying fallow on my shelves for many years is that they are very much in the Gothic tradition of Edgar Alan Poe's stories, but I think that may be just a bit too strong. While, to my less than scholarly familiarity with Gothic short stories, I think Carter is able to conjure up the same dark sense of Poe's stories, I think Carter is just a bit less original than Poe. Carter, I am certain makes no apologies about the fact that she is giving us reworkings of old stories. Old wine in new bottles, as it were.

The new bottle includes just a bit more tittilation than we get from the originals, and certainly much more lush and inventive language.

As an old hand at reviewing cookbooks, I am especially fond of her many uses of culinary allusions, as when she speaks of her heroine's being peeled like an artichoke, down to the heart.

The first reason I did not give this book five stars is because these are reworkings of old stories, and, as talented as her writing is, she is not Shakespeare. The second reason is that some of her endings are just a bit contrived. In the first, title story, our heroine escapes from her punishment for opening her Pandora's box by a pure 'deux ex machina', a rescue from out of the blue, with little preparation to make it more plausible.

Still, this is darn good reading, and I am happy to know of Ms. Carter's work.

Average customer rating:

fours stars as a novel, five stars as a literary work of art and intellect
Brilliant novel, stumbling ending
Very odd book, but beautifully written
Wise Children is better
OMG! What a book!

The Magic Toyshop
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140256407

Customer Reviews:

fours stars as a novel, five stars as a literary work of art and intellect.......2007-04-09

I had read The Magic Toyshop" for the first time ten years ago, in college, and was absolutely smitten with it. Now I re-read it and... I am not so uncritical of my awe. I can still admit that Carter's use of language, her ability to build the atmosphere and to get the reader into the book are superb. She maneuvres between styles, alluding to many archetypical images referring to art (Pre-Rafaelites are ever-present in this novel; all the characters seem to be directly taken out from Dante Gabriel Rosetti's paintings) and uses the symbols so that it is immediately obvious that she is an eloquent, well read author. But I have some doubts about the structure and the plot of this novel - if it is to be considered a novel, because if it is a feminist manifesto, an expression of a point of view (on many issues), or a collection of images tied together by a loose story, then it is perfect.

"The Magic Toyshop" central character is Melanie, a fifteen-year-old girl, who is just at the point of discovering her own physical femininity. Melanie spends the summer, while her parents are on the book tour in America, with her younger siblings, Jonathon, a constructor of ship models, and Victoria, a plump, overeating, cute five-year old, under care of the housekeeper, Mrs. Rundle. Melanie passes through her days daydreaming of being an adult woman (amazing wedding dress trying on scene), hoping to get married, and inventing stories, changing her life into fiction, until the terrible news about the death of her parents in the plane crash forces her, Jonathan and Victoria to move out of their beautiful house and their rich life. As orphans, the are taken into care of their mothers eccentric brother, uncle Philip. Melanie vaguely recalls him from her parents' wedding picture as well and from the repulsive gift she received from him once. She learns from Mrs. Rundle that the uncle has a wife now, which is surprising for some reason...

Uncle Philip is a toymaker who has a shop in London. Living in London, despite her shock and confusion, is an exciting prospect for Melanie. Upon their arrival, the children are picked up by their Irish aunt's brothers: Francie and Finn. On their way to the house, the kids learn that their aunt Margaret is dumb - she stopped speaking altogether on her wedding day.

Uncle Philip's house seems to Melanie small, neglected and creepy after her ordered, fashinable, posh home, and her new family a bunch of weird people, although they are oddly fascinated by all of them, especially the elvish Finn (who is an incredibly sexy young man!). Uncle Philip turns out to be an old tyrant, terrorizing the family with his peculiar ways and fond only of his puppets in his home theatre, where he makes the inscenizatons of well-known myths and tales. Or... is he really as Melanie sees him? And what is going on during the night behind the closed doors? What is Margaret's life really like?

We see everything through the eyes of Melanie, an adolescent girl with a vivid (not to say sick) imagination. The symbolic imagery evokes a lot of associations which are the food for thought. All the characters are obviously symbolic and many themes are explored, the objectivization of women (all the women basically, but especially Melanie, who cannot escape her fate in real life, she can only create the fictional reality to hide inside it), exploration of female sexuality together with its dangers (Melanie again), the importance of literacy (Aunt Margaret), the mad demiurge (uncle Philip). Despite being a clearly feminist writer (the women, even the absent ones, like Melanie's mother, represent great types and are portraited with brutal honesty, without flattery), Carter can be read on many levels and her novel a starting point for many hypotheses and discussions, there is no doubt about it. Additionally, it reads like an odd dream, everyday things have a magical quality to them, which makes it a fable and teleports the reader to a different, parralel plane. What is strange, is, first of all, the ending. The novel promises more than it really is, in terms of the plot, and does not meet the expectations in this area. The second strange thing is, that it seems to have so many threads and try to touch so many important topics, that there unavoidably must be, and are (in my opinion) some loose ends. What, for example, was the purpose of the scene with the severed hand in the kitchen drawer?
Nevertheless, this novel stays with the reader forever and is great as a brain stimulant. Although not the best of Carter's, it is definitely her own in terms of style and original voice, it is mesmerizing and makes me yearn for more. It just ends too early and abruptly...

Brilliant novel, stumbling ending.......2007-02-06

Angela Carter was a master of really weird magical realism. Her second book "The Magic Toyshop," is basically a forcible coming of age/first love story, wrapped in a fairy-tale ambience and exquisitely detailed writing, but it's hard not to be frustrated by the abrupt, bizarre finale.

Melanie and her two siblings are suddenly orphaned, and whisked away from the beautiful country house and idyllic life they've always known. Soon they're living in a slummy area of the city, with their brutish toymaker Uncle Philip, wraithlike mute Aunt Margaret, and her two brothers, in a house that is crammed with the magnificent toys that Uncle Philip creates.

Melanie finds herself increasingly drawn to her aunt's brother Finn, a feisty Irish boy who hides an artistic soul and a punk attitude -- and he and Philip are locked in a silent war. As the family tensions come to a climax, Melanie learns of a dark secret that Aunt Margaret is hiding, and which can only end in a horrific tragedy.

"The Magic Toyshop's" title would make you think that it's about... well, the toys, or the toymaker. Instead, it's all about Melanie's maturation into a young woman, and how she leaves her childhood behind. Unfortunately it starts to stagger toward the finale, as if Carter didn't know how to deal with all this stuff.

What makes this novel so intoxicating is the lush writing. Carter fills her prose with a ripe sensuality, rich in colours, sensations, feelings and impressions (such as the horrifying attack by a swan puppet, a la Leda). And she accurately captures a young girl's dreams and exploration, such as Melanie posing before a mirror, pretending to be a classic artist's model.

Unfortunately, the plot goes downhill in the last lap -- the shocking revelation is shocking mainly because it was never hinted at. And the ending feels tacked on, as if she just had to find SOME way of ending the plot quickly and took the most flamboyant one. It's also incredibly depressing and unsatisfying.

The characters are also unevenly portrayed -- Melanie and Finn are compelling as the young future lovers, one romantic and disgusted by the place she now finds herself, and the other a tough, kindly urchin. The other characters are rather underdeveloped -- Melanie's brother and sister are basically props, Finn's older brother is a shadow, and Philip is an ogre.

"The Magic Toyshop" is an exquisitely written novel, with a likably real teenage heroine, but marred by a contrived ending. Definitely worth a read, but not Carter at her best.

Very odd book, but beautifully written.......2005-01-08

I was totally lost as to what to expect out of this novel. Angela Carter's descriptions, especially of people, are some of the best I've ever read. I just couldn't shake this sense of menace and impending doom while reading the book. It has very gothic overtones. I was very fearful for the characters. (It didn't help any that the cover is very creepy). I mean, it is rare that recently orphaned British children sent to live with their Uncle (whom they have never met) end up in happy circumstances (at least in Literature and Film *smile*). Still, very different and interesting, and I LOVED her descriptions. The plot was very weird and different. The ending left me with a "hmmm..." feeling. Oh well. I'm still glad I read it, but what a strange coming-of-age story.

Wise Children is better.......2004-10-22

I read this book on the strength of "Wise Children" and I much preferred that book. There is nothing wrong with "The Magic Toyshop" but the story didn't resonate with me as much. Carter is a master at developing characters and this book is full of them. There is something decidedly creepy about this tale, but in an oddly pleasurable way. Definitely worth reading, and I will read more of her books.

OMG! What a book!.......2004-06-16

Being the same age as the main character, Melanie, I simpathise with her situation, however feel that she is strong enough not to need it.
A young hopeful girl coming to terms with her self, and relishing in fantasies of life and love yet to come. She feels traped and held back, only realising what she had when her life comes tumbling down around her.
Orphaned and empoverished Melanie and her two younger siblings are sent to live with their 'Uncle Philipe' in London.
When Melanie arrives at her uncles home (The Magic Toy Shop), she finds him living in the squalor of down trodden London, running his houshold on next to nothing. There she meets 'The red people', Uncle Philipes mute wife, Auntie Margaret and her two brothers, Francie and Finn.
Her fantasies destroyed she must stay strong under the harsh, misogynistic, and violent reign of the puppet obsesed Philipe. Her only comfort being the strong yet strange bond between 'the red people'.
Gradually Melanie, finds herself falling, angainst her own will, for one the quirky and mysterious brothers Finn. Discovering that love is not way it seems in magazines and books.
However, Melanie's not so simple life takes a bizarre turn. Edding in a chaotic climax. You'll be itching for more when you've finished, and like my self wishing Angela had written a sequel.

Average customer rating:

An Unfortunate Requirement
One of my favorites!
faded magic
Carter's last hurrah.
It'd be wise to give this book a miss.

Wise Children
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014017530X

Book Description

Wise Children follows the fortunes of the Chance twins, Dora and Nora, taking in the story of their show business family -- the Hazards -- over the past century. Born illegitimately, spurned by their father Melchior and brought up by their landlady, Mrs Chance, Dora and Nora learn to dance, and begin to forge a career, “two girls pounding the boards”. After the post-war decline of their careers they are reduced to performing in nude revues, while the latest generation of Hazards rise to fame as stars of television. Angela Carter's witty and bawdy new novel celebrates the magic of over a century of show business.

Customer Reviews:

An Unfortunate Requirement.......2006-11-30

I was required to read this book for (strangely enough) my post-modern lit course. This book (in my opinion) is not post-modern...

It was easier to read than most "post-modern" books are, which is probably why it was a relief to read it.

It did nothing for me. I do not have a strong background in Shakespeare to fully understand the inuendos of the book. The "tragedy" of the twins' distance from their father stirred nothing, nor did the "comedic" aspects which seemed just absurd.

If this is a required read, then read it. It's pretty easy to read, though there is a lot going on so it is important to understand and follow every character and plot that is woven in.

I wouldn't read this for pleasure, personally. It's a silly book.

One of my favorites!.......2006-07-01

I'm not a huge fiction reader. However, I first read this when it was assigned to me in one of my women's lit classes in college. Needless to say it's one of the few books I found worth keeping once I had my BA in hand.

"Wise Children" features five sets of twins in the famed (but fictitious) Hazard dynasty of theatre, spanning from the heyday of the mid to late 1800s to the decline of the art with the advent of movies. Dora and Nora, the main characters (Dora being the narrator) tell a delightful story of their lives as illegitimate children "on the left hand side of the family", fathered by a famed actor in a one-night stand during WWI. The tale is expressive and detailed, with a good deal of good-natured bawdiness and who's sleeping with whom. Rather than coming off as trashy, the novel instead maintains a light heart about the whole thing from start to surprising and triumphant finish. It;s a lot of laughs, smiles, but also some tears.

Carter was a splendid writer (she died in 1992, not long after finishing this book). The story is woven in excellent style, ecoking a wide range of emotions. The characters, rather than being soap operaish (though the drama runs high, no pun intended) are well-crafted and believeable. "Wise Children" is an intimate peek into the tangled web of the Hazard family, with a knowing wink at each page.

Highly recommended for a light, entertaining, but far from saccharine read.

faded magic.......2006-06-30

Clearly a Miss Chance is the authoress of the chronicle of the novel. The whole narrative does not seem plausible. It is like a stage set, creaed on purpose to suit a role. It is like a theatrical boarding house. And it is a mystery. A tale that is told too many times becomes truth, even if it cannot be remembered by anyone. Such is the ontological status of Wise Children. It is the first vision after birth. A family can be invented as much as a story. A family can also be unwritten. It's not as if money, good British pounds (or American dollars) hasn't got a lot to do with storytelling. And a rich family may be not unlike the greatest story, the one that is too often told.
The novel is concerned with the left hand of success, the [...] side of the nation. A dark memory can be either imagined or fully faced, like the spectator faces the stage of a cheap theatre. Legitimacy may become as dubious as performance. And performance may just be the dark side of history. Or British history may be a permanent stage set: "He (Melchior Hazard, the great Shakespearean actor) wanted a house that looked as if each leather armchair in the library had been there at least half a century."

Angela Carter seems to presuppose a great British tradition in theatre, an impolute House of Culture, embodied in Shakespeare, which would be betrayed twice: first by British pretension, and secondly by the material solidity of Hollywood. How can imagination be saved in a society in which the best often collides and intermingles with the worst, in which the legitimate is nothing but the impersonation of the illegitimate?

Can anything ever be "saved" by Hollywood, while we know that the American tragedy is that nothing ever "succeeds" as it ought to? Where is one to find something truly new, and deep, and meaningful? The novel is also concerned with the incapacity of husbands to provide with legitimate heredities. Emotional life is at its best a hazard. Can a culture retain and cultivate its maturity in adequate terms when the men can't sustain legitimacy at home?

Can "magic realism" really be adapted to suit such a theme as British performance art? The technique of García Márquez and Rushdie is in my opinion better suited to longer, deeper sagas, and to the telling of history. The subject matter in this book is rather more frivolous; there are grounds of interest but this are not developed into a structure appropriate for this technique.

Carter's last hurrah........2006-02-15

When she found out she would die of cancer, Carter decided to write one last novel as an expression and celebration of life. She challenges all taboos in society. She leads us to question why we feel uncomfortable with the elderly, "illegitimate" culture etc.

The novel is written in a complex manner, with time as fluid a theme as language.
Everything is more of an experience than a read. Memories are brought on by smeel or songs.
The shakepearean theme is constant, which also accounts of the large number of twins and confusion.
READ IT.- or do so in college.

It'd be wise to give this book a miss........2005-12-07

I had to read Wise Children for my A-level English lit class. I'm not fond of this book to say the least and it pains me to think I have to reread it sometime soon. It's unnecessarily filled with incestuous relationships written in the most dire and ponderous narrative possible from the view of a 75 year old woman reminiscing her long gone heydays.

Carter's language has the potential in creating something of a worthy read but the structure and content of the novel diminish and incinerate every possibilty. As if the narrative isn't dire as it is, the chronology of events are manipulated and Dora digresses a great deal. We're soon left wondering What The Hell Is Going On? and need to re-read the same paragraph to grasp hold of the labrynth like links between each events.

This book lacks in a plot with any substance and ends exactly how it started. What a waste of time.

Average customer rating:

A good tale but difficult to navigate
the quintessential angela
You either like it or hate it
Zany, imaginative romp across London and Russia that made me run away with the circus!
Earthily airborne

Nights at the Circus
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

A good tale but difficult to navigate.......2006-06-15

I found the narrative style in this work to be a bit like wading through thick mud -- wishing the character would just "get to the point!" It took me months to get three quarters of the way through the book and then I finally gave up. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I began reading it. Nights at the Circus isn't a bad book -- I know it's one of those "like it or hate it" novels -- I'm certain under the right circumstances it is probably quite fascinating. Who knows, maybe someday I'll pick it up and try again.

the quintessential angela.......2006-03-26

Read this and The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman to get an idea of the depth of Ms. Carter's talent. A lovely, wise and witty masterpiece that will keep you thinking about it long after the book is done.

You either like it or hate it.......2006-03-19

This text is very eccentric. I had to read it for an English class, and there was a mix of different reviews. Some loved it, some hated. I myself could not get through all of it (though I did make it to page 223). I suppose that the best way to tackle this novel is to realize that narrative is a big part of it, as well as is magic realism. The line between fact and fiction almost does not exist here. Logic cannot be applied when reading this novel. What is fact, what is fiction? Try to not distinguish the two while reading it and you may find yourself getting through it much more smoothly than I did.

Zany, imaginative romp across London and Russia that made me run away with the circus!.......2005-11-22

I saw "Nights at the Circus" on sale at our college bookstore and was intrigued enough to check it out. As someone who grew up on Todd Browning's 1932 circus horror classic "Freaks," the idea of a novel centered around the foreign-yet-familiar animal trainers, sideshow attractions, and gritty wonders of London at the turn of the 20th century drew me in.

Sophie, or "Fevvers," is billed as "Is she fact or is she fiction?" Tall, commanding, and winged, this half-bird Amazonian captures the interest of Jack, an American newspaper reporter who initially tries to pick apart her story of being half-bird as a sham, but soon is mesmerized by Fevver's eloquent autobiography, macabre adventures working in brothels, and outgoing personality, enough that he joins her circus as a clown and follows them to Russia.

The novel is told from various characters' perspectives, which made it confusing for me the first few pages each time the narrator changed, until I knew who was talking. The novel feels almost schizophrenic at times, rapidly switching points of view and narration at the drop of a hat. The story itself is prone to flights of fancy, including homicidal clowns, bizarre sexual escapades involving a group of Sapphic convicts in the Russian wilderness, a high-ranking politician obsessed with the occult, a freak show brothel, a lesbian relationship between an animal trainer and an abused orphan, and the sex lives of the circus crew. The plot becomes more and more improbable and more fantastic towards the end of the novel, where reality was left behind for once and all.

Overall, an imaginative, enjoyable romp filled with unexpectedly elegant turns of phrase, plenty of (erotic) action, glittering descriptions of upper class life in Russia and the gritty reality of the working poor in London and St. Petersburg, and the timeless thrill of the circus: its exotic animals, collection of ragtag performers, and the illusion of the extraordinary.

Earthily airborne.......2001-11-02

Only Angela Carter could have devised the coarse golden character of Fevvers, the Cockney miracle around whom this tale spins. Girl takes wing, boy flies after, girl loses and gets wing and boy -- that's mad enough, but it gives not the least taste of the crumbled, intricate, and ultimately wonderful world of this particular circus. Carter's ability to interlace sharp doses of political and intimate realities into the mix not only teaches you lessons unaware, but opens you to a larger definition of what can be. Once upon a time, or somewhere right now, chimpanzees condescend to humans, monstrosities speak with wise prophesy, a pig manages a business better than her owner. So open up another bottle of champagne, and surrender. It will be rough, it will hurt, it will be uproarious. It will ultimately be wonderful. So is this book.

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

Average customer rating:

heady and intoxicating
Dilemma
Fantastic trip through possible realms of psyche
Wow! Burroughs with a plot
WOW.

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

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Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories
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ASIN: 0140235191

Customer Reviews:

heady and intoxicating.......2006-10-02

My friend Susan introduced me to "Heros and Villians" by Angela Carter back when I was 17 or 18. I didn't quite know what to do it. I was still young enough that reading anything transgressive was both alluring and deeply embarrassing. The experience reminded me then of how I felt reading "Flowers in the Attic" when I was 12 -except the material was disquieting and powerful enough that I didn't rush out to read every Angela Carter book I could get my hands on. In fact, I didn't read anything by Carter till more than a decade later.

I read "The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman" while I was traveling alone in Eastern Europe. I ended up leaving my copy with a fellow traveler I met in Budapest. I think he and his girlfriend were Australian. In any case, they were such icons of the classic eco-friendly, organic eating, and occassional pot smoking back-packers I couldn't help myself. I wanted them to experience the imagery that was rich enough, lush enough, and dizzyingly enough to force some awe into their complacency.

Interestingly enough, when I read the Amazon reviews for "The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman," I was surprised by the comments about the book's explicit sexuality. I'm sure it's there, but I don't recall any of it other than the premise that Doctor Hoffman's machine was powered by the orgasms of coupling lovers. The artistry of Carter's language neutered the scenes of physical penetration so all that I was left with was a phantasmagorical quest fueled by love.

Dilemma.......2004-07-30

This is by far the most bizarre book I have ever attempted to read. I absolutely loved the first chapter. This book does have literary merit. However, the amount of sexual content was too overwhelming for me, and I could not bring myself to finish the book. Had it not been for that, I would have been able to finish and give the book 5 stars. If you ever just want a taste of the book and avoid the sex, read the first chapter, but stop there.

Fantastic trip through possible realms of psyche.......2003-02-25

This novel was my introduction to Angela Carter, and what an introduction it was! The novel was originally published (I believe) in the early 80's, and smacks of magical realism as well as profound dollops of surrealism and eroto-psychedelia. Carter's prose is dense and precise, intensive rather than expansive, but the images keep coming, and if anything, one can feel swamped in the flood of dreams, but in a satisfying way. Really, to say Carter evokes Burroughs or any other author may convey a reader's subjective impression, but Carter is on her own trip, a protracted journey through history and psyche, and an examination of the sensual magic of words and imagination made manifest in miraculous ambiguity and ambivalent sexuality. Her highly original prose style often feels like a good translation from another language - most of the action takes place in Latin America, and at times I was hard pressed to remember that I was not reading a Latin American author. This book is recommended, though not an easy read due to the density of Carter's prose and the depth of her philosophical examination of the roots of dream and imagination. But she takes you on a journey that within a few pages becomes irresistible, and takes you to places that surprise, delight, and disturb, and that you will not soon forget.

Wow! Burroughs with a plot.......2002-08-14

As an Englsih major with a facination with cyberpunk, I think that this novel is fabulous!! In many ways the situations that Deserdio gets into remind me of the pratfalls and accidents of William Burrough's finest. Both share a vague sense of cause and effect--the reader in never sure how the character got into his situation or what he will have to do in order to get out of it. In many ways, I think Dr. Hoffman is a mix of ETA Hoffman and William Burroughs. Hoffman contributes the gothic surreality and Burroughs contributes the theme of escaping. Good luck! This is great. I love it so much I have two copies of it...one is sort of beat up.

WOW........2001-07-07

Angela Carter's neo-Swiftian tale of Desiderio and his search for Doctor Hoffman is oftentimes so brilliant that it is mind numbing.

Through a surrealistic swirling pattern of images, illusions, allusions and memories, Desiderio, the narrator of the journey, travels through a wild range of cultures and attitudes on his philsophical journey to find Dr. Hoffman, the brilliant scientist whose mental images are slowly destroying any reality of the world. On his journey. Desiderio meets carnival folks, gentle river-dwelling natives, an animalistic whorehouse, a tribe of cannibals (or two), and in the best Swiftian fashion, a tribe of religious centaurs before finally reaching the Doctor's compound.

Through a skillful use of the erotic as philosophy, Carter takes us on a journey that makes us reconsider what our own views of the erotic, the realistic, the profane and the profound are, and how we justify them with every day life.

Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales
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Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales

Manufacturer: Virago Press (UK)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1844081737

Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book, The
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Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book, The
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Folklore | Mythology | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Mythology | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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FOLKTALES OF THE BRITISH ISLES (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

TALES FROM THE AMERICAN FRONTIER (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

Yiddish Folktales (Library of Yiddish Classics)

Swedish Folktales and Legends (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library (Paperback))

Russian Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

ASIN: 0679740376
Release Date: 1995-04-18

Book Description

Fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labour created our world."

-- From the Introduction

There was a time when fairy tales weren't meant just for children -- they were part of an oral folklore tradition passed down through generations. This volume of sixty enchanting and enduring tales, collected by master storyteller Angela Carter, revives the industry, eccentricity, spirit, and worldly wisdom of women in preindustrial times. Drawn from narrative traditions all around the world -- from ancient Swahili legends to Appalachian tall tales to European spirit stories and more -- these tales together comprise a unique feminine mythology.

Angela Carter (1940-1992) was widely known for her novels, short stories, and journalism. Her many books include The Magic Toy Shop, The Sadeian Woman, Nights at the Circus, Fireworks, and Saints and Strangers.

Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales

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Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin (Jp)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Children's Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 0395607272

Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen: Fairy Tales from Around the World

Average customer rating:

Excellent collection for Kids and Adults, great strong women

Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen: Fairy Tales from Around the World

Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews:

Excellent collection for Kids and Adults, great strong women.......2000-01-13

This is an excellent book which I highly reccomend. Carter has collected folk tales from a wide variety of sources and cultures which have strong female characters in them. She uses the more orally based tales, rather than literary creations, which gives the stories some real zest. Instead of a collection of didatic stories about good feminist heroines, this is a collection of stories about strong women, both good and bad. Their craftiness may save their home or allow them to cheat their way to glory. I adore this collection, and reccomend highly to parents who want to give their children something to read that doesn't have namby pamby princesses who wait around to be rescued, or adults who loved fairy tales as a child.

Average customer rating:

Mesmerizing
A book that has not aged well
Brilliant

Heroes and Villians
Angela Carter
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0140234640

Customer Reviews:

Mesmerizing.......1999-06-11

beautiful, haunting, thought provoking..

A book that has not aged well.......1999-05-07

I've read several Angela Carter novels--all of them great, but "Heroes and Villains" disappointed. After the glorious reading offered by "The Magic Toyshop" and "Several Perceptions," I had high expectations for "Heroes and Villains" which it sadly did not meet. A decent novel altogether but it lacks Carter's magical prose and she fails to create a convincing post-apocalyptic world. Furthermore, Marianne and Jewel are not very interesting characters. It is an ambitious story clearly influenced by the guru movement of the 1960's, and although its message is still pertinent, the novel itself feels more like an artifact of the flower power generation. Instead, I would recommend "The Magic Toyshop," "Several Perceptions," "Nights at the Circus" and "The Bloody Chamber" for anyone deeply interested in Angela Carter.

Brilliant.......1998-10-01

An astonishing little book describing the throes of a woman caught up in a hopeless post-apocalyptic world. Beautifully written, in a dark, haunting, extistential style.

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Authors

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