The Bloody Chamber (1979)

Adult short stories; modern fairy tales. I wanted to like this but the amusing stories were destroyed by the author's frequent use of fancy and complicated language, as though trying to prove herself as an intelligent woman. The effect of these unwanted trills and supercilious ornaments is to disrupt what otherwise might be captivating, lyrical prose--having to stop and think every few minutes, "why the hell would she choose to express herself THAT way?" certainly makes it hard to focus on anything else--indeed, the critical reviews at the front of the book talk of little else, since there isn't really anything particularly praiseworthy to say about the collection. On the other hand, if you know a Literature major that is constantly annoying people with similar quirks of phrase, this would be something She would probably enjoy. ( )

I first read The Bloody Chamber many years ago at university, and had forgotten just how good it is until I read it again this week. Carter did so much to pave the way for today's women authors who delight in subverting fairy and folk tales - you can definitely see her influence in authors like Carmen Maria Machado, for example.

I think the title story is my favourite, but I enjoyed the inventiveness of some of the later stories too. It's a really well put together collection; the stories take you on a journey from the inherent bestiality of human nature through to the outright uncanny incredibly smoothly. Highly recommended to anyone interested in fairy and folk tales as a genre. ( )

These were interesting and engaging retellings (reimaginings?) of classic fairy/folk tales. The narration was good and I quite liked the way it was split between 2 narrators so it was easy to follow where one story ended and the next began. I particularly liked the way they were set in the middle ground between Grimm's and Disney; they didn't have happy endings, per se, but they definitely didnt have sad endings either.

A very interesting collection, and well read by the narrators. (Listened to on Audible) ( )

These were interesting and engaging retellings (reimaginings?) of classic fairy/folk tales. The narration was good and I quite liked the way it was split between 2 narrators so it was easy to follow where one story ended and the next began. I particularly liked the way they were set in the middle ground between Grimm's and Disney; they didn't have happy endings, per se, but they definitely didnt have sad endings either.

A very interesting collection, and well read by the narrators. (Listened to on Audible) ( )

What a strange little book… I can’t say that I fully enjoyed it, and yet I would say this volume of retold fairytales with a feminist slant is worth the read. Carter begins the collection with the titular “The Bloody Chamber”, a retelling of one of the most potentially violent fairytales--that of Bluebeard and his chamber of horrors. She tells the story from the perspective of the naive bride, who marries a man she knows almost nothing about and develops an insatiable curiosity to discover all of his secrets. The story obviously has undertones relating to the damage of secrets in relationships, and Carter doesn’t have to do much to expand on this theme except give her character an actual personality besides the trope role of “bride,” and yet the story is still very compelling as we must find out if this new bride will be able to escape the fate of the brides who came before her. The collection goes on to two retellings of the Beauty and the Beast myth, neither of which I was particularly fond of as they didn’t really seem to have much to add. I will admit that I completely skipped Puss-in-Boots. I’ve never been a fan of the miraculous cat stories, nor of the useless man who benefits from his pet’s skills. Her next tale, “The Erl-King”, was more along the lines of stories that I enjoy, but the story was so strange that I’m left not quite knowing what I read. The story is narrated by an anonymous companion to the Erl-King, and we are never quite sure if they are there by choice or by coercion. They treat the Erl-King as a tutor, and yet their language paints him as a captor of the woodland birds and as a less-than-kind personage. The King himself is not exactly human, and for those of us versed in faerielore his strange personality is what one would expect of a fey who crowns himself a King of this part of the forest--self-serving, self-interested, and yet kind when he chooses. We are then treated to a short, but strange Snow White tale next, one which I honestly don’t care all that much to recall, and then to an equally strange and not particularly successful vampire tale: “The Lady of the House of Love.” The collection wraps up with three tales which tread on the werewolf myths and intertwine them with the cautionary tale of Red Riding Hood. Of the three, I think that “Wolf-Alice” was possibly the most compelling, as it explores the concept of a child raised by wolves, the wildness of women (though this Alice is yet but a child), and the inability of the people of past ages to handle mental-illness and people who they deem as “other.” Overall, the collection was compelling, though I found it less magical than I expected. Possibly because it was too cruel at times, and a measure of softness does much to temper the violent tendencies of fairytales, but maybe that was kind of the point: lean in to the violence of the world, accept it for what it is, and work to ensure that these cruelties are not perpetuated--a cautionary tale, afterall. ( )