Name: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Rating: 3.893939393939394 (198 reviews)
ISBN: 9781784871437

Angela Carter

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN SIMPSON From familiar fairy tales and legends âe" Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves âe" Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

The Bloody Chamber

oh classic for a reason this was sharp and delicious

Ceej Manaloto

It's like Peter Pan but instead of having faith, trust, and pixie dust in order to fly, Angela lets her heroines live with(terrible) fate(s), (a whole lot of) thrust(s), blood, blood, more blood, oh, and did I mention blood? Yeap, blood.

Andddd, no Tinkerbel coz I think she killed her off too

...brutally.

Perfect October read though.

Ann Gabrielle

loved the imagery but these were not the feminist retellings i thought these were going to be. understand that this wasn’t carter’s main goal anyways. however, and despite the luscious imagery, i didn’t rejoice for the female protagonists as much as i anticipated. also dragged a bit in building atmosphere during certain points. 4 stars anyway for the conceptualization and overall attempt.

Angela Carter has taken old fairy stories, subtly altering and changing them to create strange glittering tales that will haunt the reader.

Lila R E

objectively this seems like good literature but a lot of it probably just went over my head.

This is my first experience with Angela Carter's writing, but after listening to this, I want to find much more of her work to read because the prose and themes are exactly my vibe

Emma Lechner

Wynter

Loved it! Angela has a way with words in this little collection. She genuinely has fun with lexicon in ways I only dream of handling English language. Puss-in-Boots could be a fine short play, in the vein of Shakespearean comedy, slightly on the bawdy side. The Bloody Chamber is the perfection of gothic fiction. If you desire something more short, punchy, and surreal, The Snow Child or The Werewolf might be your perfect companions. Immensely dark, erotic, and self-aware. I can't recommend it enough.

I thought the stories were good, overall, but some of the topics and themes made me uncomfortable. Also, sometimes the writing is hard to follow and overly complicated

Paola Martínez

Toyah Blackburn

I was expecting great things from this book, having had it recommended to me numerous times. I found that I just couldn't get into it at all. Her style, I felt, was overly flowery and uninspiring. I had to give up halfway through the first story.

not sure what my expectations were exactly but i cannot help but feel this turned out different from what i thought it would be. not bad but different.

it is clear that carter is a talented and capable author; she has a good hold of the dark fairy tale and the gothic. there is, after all, a certain level of competence and ability required in order to imitate and fully commit to the prose style fitting to each story should they have been original fairy tales dated from 17th, 18th, 19th century. however, sometimes that the style would make the stories difficult to focus on and truly immerse oneself into ('puss-in-boots' being the particular example).

regardless, i can see why some of the stories have haunted generations and will haunt me. favourites were 'the bloody chamber', 'the courtship of mr lyon', 'the erl-king', 'the lady in the house of love' and 'the company of werewolves'.

Becky Carpenter

Angela Carter is the master of feminist magical fairy tales. A must-read for anyone.

Abigail Auvray

Discover Angela Carter’s classic feminist retelling of favourite fairy tales interwoven by a master of seductive, luminous storytelling. From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. ‘Magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality’ Ian McEwan ‘A quirky, original, and baroque stylist’ Margaret Atwood Featuring an introduction from award-winning short story writer Helen Simpson

Elena Menendez

Unpredictable recollection of tales, read with an open mind, but in the end, I loved it!

Chiara Malaspina di Orezzoli

Bisogna premettere che le raccolte di racconti, per quanto mi sforzi di leggerne almeno un paio all'anno, non riescono mai a soddisfarmi. L'idea del cambio di tono -e punto di vista- applicata a fiabe "comuni" è interessante, così come lo è la scrittura che sa essere al tempo stesso lussureggiante e lineare. È stato un saliscendi impervio: alcuni racconti li ho amati moltissimo (The Lady of the House of Love, The Earl King, The Snow Child), altri invece li ho trovati mediamente vuoti, più simili alla ripetizione del concetto che tiene insieme la raccolta come esercizio di stile. Tre stelline e mezzo.

"For the 75th anniversary of her birth, a Deluxe Edition of the master of the literary supernatural's most celebrated book Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber--which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan's 1984 movie The Company of Wolves--she breathed new life into familiar fairy tales and legends in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition. This edition features a new introduction by Kelly Link, the Nebula and World Fantasy Award-wining author, one of a new generation of writers who've been inspired by Carter's brand of fantastical, subversive, boundlessly imaginative fiction. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators"--

Grace O'Callaghan

As I’m studying this for school I don’t have the most original thoughts about this yet. I may add more once I have a better understanding of it, all I know is that I enjoyed this.

Just like any short story collection there were some I didn’t care for and some I loved. The Bloody Chamber and The Erl King are probably the most standout ones of the collection. My least favourites were Puss in Boots and The Courtship of Mr Lyon as they just weren’t memorable.

I loved Carter’s critiques on patriarchy and sexuality. They’re not handed to you on a silver platter but are woven into the story leaving you with questions and ideas that make you engage with the text. I also just love gothic tales in general. So much angst.

All in all, I found this collection to be masterfully crafted and something I’ll be happy to return back to once I’m not studying it. Unlike other collections I’ve read it feels like these stories were purposefully written and inform one another, it’s hard to get the full picture with just one of the stories.

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

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