Fevvers, the protagonist of Nights at the Circus, is a tangle of paradoxes which puzzles and thrills her audience and Jack Walser, the American journalist sent to write a series of articles about her. She looks half-bird and half-woman; her angelic appearance is betrayed by her brusque Cockney attitude; despite her elegance and intelligence, the only jobs she has ever possessed are at a whorehouse and the circus. Fevvers is an enigma, being hailed as the fantastic New Woman of the turn of the twentieth century. But nobody knows what to make of this creature (for lack of a better word) who defies their expectations. And she takes advantage of the confusion; the advertisement for her aerialist performance is "Is she fact or is she fiction?"

This book offers a lot as a feminist text. Gender commentary does not just happen in the interactions between women and men (Fevvers is completely in control of Walser's interview with her) but how a woman interacts with the entire world. If she even may. Fevvers gets a public role because she is a performer - and only that because she has *wings* and has crafted herself into a hyperfeminine "Cockney Venus." What about every other woman who isn't Fevvers?

It's a unique book, that gave me a lot more substance than I expected. The circus atmosphere, the freaks and oddities and fun, becomes secondary to more interesting issues, surprisingly skillful and thoughtful. ( )

I don't know how Angela Carter does it. Her prose manages to be intellectual, hilarious, ribald, heartbreaking, and beautiful all at once. I cannot understand how more people don't know about her! This story encompasses so much--feminism, relationships, isolation, alienation, equality, and even some political musing. One of the most brilliant writers I've ever come across. ( )

This is the only Carter I really like, it's superb. Fevvers is a Dickensian character, full of vitality. This is one to reread over and over again ( )

Set in the 19th century, Nights at the Circus is a brilliant, baroque and often bawdy tale of a famous winged woman aerialist told in prose so 'exuberant', you'll wish you could take it off the page in great gobs and rub it all over yourself. ( )

An absolutely wonderful novel of the fantastic. One of the best

http://www.csulb.edu/~bhfinney/Angela... ( )