Angela Carter (1940–1992)

The Bloody Chamber - The first and titular story of the collection was quite disturbing, but beautiful all the same. All of Angela Carter's writing is beautiful and I really felt like I just understood this one. It's a retelling of Bluebeard which I didn't actually know the plot of and wouldn't have recognized without looking it up. So, I don't know how it compares to the original story but this was definitely the best of the collection and I think it was the longest as well.

The Courtship of Mr Lyon - This was the first of two Beauty and the Beast stories. I liked this one slightly better although I thought that the ending was a little rushed maybe. In this Beauty and the Beast story, Beauty's father steals a rose and so the Beast tells him to bring Beauty to have dinner with him at his house and she does and stays there out of obligation while the Beast helps her father regain his wealth. Eventually she leaves and promises to come back but gets distracted by her new wealth and almost returns too late. I tend to like Beauty and the Beast and once again Carter's writing was beautiful.

The Tiger's Bride - In this Beauty and the Beast story, Beauty's father looses her to the Beast at cards and the Beast just wants to see Beauty naked... eventually she does reveal herself to him and stays with him and is a beast as well? I found this one kind of confusing and didn't like any of the characters. It was definitely more unique than the first but I just didn't like it as much. There was also some abrasive licking that made my skin itch,

Puss-in-Boots - Similarly to Bluebeard, I don't think I'd ever read a Puss-in-Boots story before... This one was fine. Puss helps his Master get with a pretty lady in a tower even though she's married. I do appreciate hearing from a cat's perspective I guess.

The Erl-King - This was probably my second favorite story after The Bloody Chamber. I had never heard of the story this is based off before, but I really enjoyed it, especially the ending. In a weird way it kind of reminded me of Hansel and Gretel but just with Gretel and the Witch who in this case would be the Erl-King. (He's not a witch... more of a forest spirit/fairy/monster).

The Snow Child - This one was only two pages long but it still somehow managed to be the worst in the collection. There was necrophilia/pedophilia involved and I simply could have gone without. I mean obviously the two main characters the Count and his wife were meant to be awful so I can maybe understand what it was going for but the disgusting bits ruined this story for me and there wasn't enough of anything else to really redeem it for me.

The Lady in the House of Love - A vampire lady lives alone with her nurse until a young man comes and I guess she turns human and dies. This one was okay I guess, but it was when reading this one that I noticed just how often virginity is mentioned. Why does every story have to mention that somebody is a virgin over and over again... It's such a tiresome trope. Sometimes I think it's definitely okay and can make sense, but in almost every story.... Idk. This one had some interesting bits about how the young man is also fighting in a war that he comes from and then returns to after the events of the story but I don't really know what to make of that..

The Werewolf - This was a Little Red Riding Hood retelling. I do like Little Red Riding Hood stories but in this one and the next there was a lot of chopping off the limbs of wolves and that just makes me kind of sad. Red Riding Hood is a badass here and chops off the wolf's paw only to find that it was her grandma who was a werewolf. I kind of liked the Salem Witch Trial vibes of this one. It was okay I guess but it mostly just made me sad.

The Company of Wolves - This was another sort of Red Riding Hood story, but also not. I appreciate the details about how if you burn a werewolf's clothing they will remain a werewolf forever. That is one of my favorite pieces of werewolf lore and I think it is sorely underutilized. It reminds me of the Lais of Marie de France's werewolves which I like a lot. However, even though I read this just last night maybe 10 hours ago I already forgot most of it. I think a woman marries a man who disappears (because he is a werewolf) so she gets remarried and has kids but then the first husband finally returns and gets mad. Something like that...

Wolf-Alice - This one was possibly the weirdest in the collection and the most difficult to follow. I thought it was a weak end to the collection. A girl is raised as a wolf even though she's human and she works for a duke and grows up and... I honestly don't really know what happened. Maybe I could reread it but I was also pretty drained at this point. Regardless, I think this was one of the weaker stories of the collection and could have been cut (along with The Snow Child).… (meer)

A remarkable work of the imagination and magical realism, "Nights at the Circus" is one of my favourite novels, and one I can always turn to to remind me that writing is an artform of limitless possibility.

The characters and setting are rich and vibrant and, while I don't particularly enjoy fantasy or sci-fi works, Carter's world here is like that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: anything is possible, but what happens always seems hauntingly, and depressingly, real. The difference between this and a Marquez work is that our protagonist is a reporter from the equally real world of fin-de-siecle England who finds himself unable to ascertain the boundaries between reality and fantasy. I acknowledge that not everyone will "get it", although I think that is BECAUSE there is nothing to get. This isn't a book with one meaning to be found on the last page, nor a book in which the fantastic elements are hiding some kind of comment on the 'real world'. This is instead a work of boundless beauty and effervescent figures living in an historical era, as all historical eras are: filled - or so it seems from our viewpoint - with possibility and impossibility. What it means, if anything, is for us to open our eyes to the world, even if - at the end of the day - seeing won't necessarily mean believing. Anything is possible but nothing is as it seems. Accept the confusion, relish it, and live amongst it. Or that's what I think, anyway.… (meer)