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Loading... The Bloody Chamber and Other Storiesby Angela Carter
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Best Fantasy Novels (248) » 45 more 501 Must-Read Books (198) Best Gothic Fiction (33) Backlisted (10) 1970s (39) Female Author (277) Books Read in 2015 (257) 20th Century Literature (392) Top Five Books of 2020 (458) Books Read in 2016 (2,712) Books Read in 2020 (1,622) Books Read in 2014 (910) Books Read in 2018 (1,585) To Read - Horror (32) Magic Realism (291) Read This Next (33) Folio Society (571) Female Protagonist (771) Best Horror Mega-List (138) Stuff from Bard (46) SHOULD Read Books! (134) 1970s Horror (16) Books for Birute (3) Literary Witches (31) No current Talk conversations about this book. ![]() ![]() Just read the first story (The Bloody Chamber) itself but wow it's really powerful and scary and sinister with an incredible atmosphere of oppression and withheld violence and a lot of suspense even though it's likely you know what's going to happen from the start. What stood out to me was a bit in the middle which breaks open the suppressed violence None of the others blew me away quite like the first one did (although to be fair it's the longest story in the collection) but I definitely enjoyed them a lot. They're either retellings of or strongly influenced by fairy tales - for most of them it's obvious what it's based on very quickly but it's either told very well bringing out undercurrents and ideas in the original stories you wouldn't have thought about before or with a different take on it. The only odd one is "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" which seems like a really straight version of I liked about half of the stories in the book, the ones that read more like Gothic horror. However, even in the stories I preferred they seemed to get bogged down with a tangle of language especially in the Erl-King. Considering the book's only about 150 pages long it took me quite a while to get through it though I'm glad I read it as some of the later stories in the book definitely had a grim-fairy-tale-dream type of atmosphere (particularly The Lady of the House of Love and the Company of Wolves). I can't say I'd recommend it to anyone but I would say it IS worth reading. I enjoy finding a foundational text for a subtype, a classic that would never have been included on the 'classics' lists from my college days. So while this wasn't my absolute favorite book, I enjoyed reading it. I really like how committed the author is to the style, atmosphere, story; it does very much set a type and never shies away from that. The most interesting part was thinking of all the authors who've been compared to Carter in reviews and marketing blurbs, and seeing how different they are. All that's needed is a woman examining stories, a woman who creates an atmosphere... a woman, writing. I'm not sure I've ever seen an author highlighted in a blurb that really makes sense as a comparison in a meaningful way, so no I'm not surprised. But it's gratifying to know that even within this delimited type, there is a great variety of voices. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesCaminho de Bolso (129) Is contained inContainsHas the adaptationHas as a student's study guideAwardsNotable Lists
From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss-in-Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires, werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. No library descriptions found.
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