and Other Stories
by Angela Carter
I can\’t recall what made me pick up this book, those four years ago. It must have been on some reading list I had. The Bloody Chamber is a book of ten short stories which are dark, macabre spin-offs of fairy tales. There are twists on puss n\’ boots, beauty and the beast, red riding hood; there are vampires and werewolves stalking among the familiar figures. In one version, Red Riding Hood\’s grandmother is a werewolf, in another Beauty is the one who turns into a beast. I like Carter\’s writing style, I liked the very different turns these tales took and the strong female characters, but the sensuality and bloodiness was a bit too much for me. Some of the stories really made my skin crawl. They vary in length, from just a few pages to a solid half the entire book, each one just as potent as the last. Personally, it\’s not a book I can say I enjoyed, but if you like gothic fiction, or fairy tales turned horror stories, I\’m sure you\’d appreciate it more than I did.
Rating: 3/5 128 pages, 1990
More opinions at:
A Striped Armchair
le writer\’s block
anyone else?
